Hi Diana, Glad the information moves you forward. Many, many people who are young at research make similar comments about wishing they had paid attention in History Class. Then again, it's our families that make it real for us. For example, if you asked me to study about Botswana (no offense to those citizens) I'd probably still yawn as loud as I did in 8th grade. There are probably more records squirrelled away in govt archives for you. Sometimes even the archives or INS will respond with "no records found," which turns out to be a mis-truth. What I mean it that the clerk didn't try hard enough - I have had to persist more than once with the INS on the same name before my GP's file was found. Don't give up on a source simply because you may get one "rejection letter." You indicate you have not located immigration records - have you submitted a Freedom of Info request to the INS? Oft times this yields better records than county courthouses (for people of our heritage anyways.) Census - For all we know they were not counted or momentarily lived elsewhere. You comment:.... I found some there with the variation spelling, but the dates didnt match when they reported entering the country" This is no surprise to anyone who has studied genealogy for a while. You can count on finding erroneous dates all over the place. There is a column on most post-1904 manifests which indicates whether they had been in the US prior. It might be a clue. I have immigrants who came back and forth a few times (we never knew this) and each time, their name was spelled differently on the manifest. Keep an open mind and keep up the good work! Bill Tarkulich