A few other research tips are: Use Ancestry to look up the person you are researching. Without a membership it will not let you see the actual source but it will say at least WHERE the source was found like "1870 State, County, etc". You can take that information and at least know the area to search on HQ. Saves a lot of time. Ancestry is expensive but oh so worth it to me. Another option, even though it is not always listed on the Ancestry site you CAN get a 3 month membership. Save up all your research questions and use it for 3 months, then do more research NOT on Ancestry until you come up with enough dead ends to justify using it for another three months. Also, when you get the information from Ancestry try the rootsweb listings and genweb for those areas to see maybe if there are transcriptions available for what you need. Use Worldcat (Worldwide Catalog of libraries all over the world) to check to see the holdings other libraries have for your research area. You can get them (if they are loanable) through interlibrary loan. If they are NOT on the library's list of circulation allowed books ask the library for copies of the index pages. Can't hurt anyway. :) Last but CERTAINLY not least is to do the old GOGGLE seach on your ancestor's name. Putting quotation marks around the words will make sure the words are found together and not just one of each on the site,. ie "Thomas Cain Turner" instead of Thomas Cain Turner. Use spelling variations as MANY times the spelling of the name was a matter of hearing and "that's what it sounded like they said" *grin* Just some ideas. With my Turner info is scarce as it is I have had to become very resourceful. Not that it is helping on that line at this point. LOL Good luck