Hi Jennifer, you asked for some advice. You need to spend a little time learning about 21st century genealogical methodologies so that you can make sense of contradictory census data and other records that are even more confusing at time. Or that can reveal MUCH MUCH if you understand them than if you don't. As you move back in time in your research less and less of what you know living now is useful. In fact some of your unconscious assumptions will steer you wrong, wrong, wrong. You can get plenty of free info at various websites. The master index of them all is www.cyndislist.com .You can get free courses at www.genealogy.com/university.html and also lots of free help at www.ancestry.com . Read a few articles and books -- that you can get at a local library. Success in genealogy is not determined by your effort or your desperation but by what you LEARN and your skills as a researcher. My family "desperately" searched for the origin of my family too, in Butler, PA. Unfortunately my great uncle failed to do any reading so he didn't know that Butler was largely settled by immigrants from the southern counties. My mother found the immigrant in the county to the south: Westmoreland County. My great uncle coulda saved himself decades of searching by just educating himself a bit into the history of the area. There are plenty of Boyd's in PA. Some early records are abstracted and on line free at www.usgenweb.com Linda Merle ---------- Original Message ---------------------------------- From: "Jennifer Parks" <red-hott@fourway.net> Date: Fri, 20 Jan 2006 20:46:10 -0500 > > >I am disparately searching for my family. Any help would be great. Saint Nary Boyd b.abt.1854 married to Ida Staley "Neddy"(of Indian blood) Children; Sinclair b.1889, Edith (Thatcher), SirClyde 1892, SaintCloise 1897, Esta (Flynn) 1903, Edna (Grossenger), Harold 1904 died abt.10yrs.old. My great grandfather, Sinclair was married to Lucy Marsh 1895, children; OrinKenneth b.1913, Jeanetta b.1916, Thelma (Pasley) b.1918, Bernice (Shafer) b. 1923. I was also told that we came from Ireland to PA, MI, OH. The spelling was O'boyd, but my father said "boyd" was spelled different, and he didn't know when the O' was dropped. I could really use some help and pointers. I'm very new at this. I found them in a couple of census, but the info. was confusing. > > ________________________________________________________________ Sent via the WebMail system at mail.fea.net