Hi, Esther: One way is to look at the ages of the household. If you have a young man who is, say 25 in the 1850 census, you would look for the household of his father that has a male who is more than 10 but less than 20. Another way is to look in the 1850 census for other persons of that name, then go back to see if one of them has a child in 1840 of the right age. Once you have narrowed down someone you believe to be the father, the next step would be to look at county records (wills, deeds, orphans court, burials, etc.) to see if there are further connections. Then the church records to find baptisms, marriages, etc. I hope this helps. Using these methods I was able to get my Stone family back to 1740 in Bucks County. It took a number of years, and I had to hire a professional genealogist to get the church records for me, since, as you know, I'm in Arizona, but it was well worth it. Priscilla