I am looking for someone who needs some Texas research done and lives near a NARA center to trade some research with me. I live in Austin, Texas, have access to the government records here and to the census, BMD and land records for teh entire state that are at the state library genealogical department. Austin is in the Hill Country, and in Travis County. What I don't have access to are a NARA research center. I think that the only one in Texas is in northern Texas near Dallas. I need to find the possible military records for my great grandfather. I have his date of birth, where he lived once an adult, date of and who married, children who lived, and date and place of death. I don't have anything at all on his family or where he was born, except consistently listed as Pennsylvania. There is some kind of flag inscription on his grave that suggests that he might have had a military record. This record could yield tons of critically important info on his background, family and apparently checkered career. Charles L. Moore was born in JUly or August 1859, have exact date from death certificate with corroboration from 1900 census record, and also the different year which is on his grave. He allegedly was born in Pennsyvania, to Thomas Moore as nearly as I can make out teh name scrawled on the death certificate, and Thomas was born in Pennsylvania and his mother probably in Maryland, though sometimes that is listed as Pennsylvania. He was a roller turner, which is a type of steelworker, on the 1900 and 1910 census and on his death certificate, which says he was a "Self employed roller turner". A roller turner operates a very large piece of machinery that processes rolls of steel and makes very large steel parts. He married Carrie B. Dehart, teh daughter of a prosperous member of a prosperous Pennsylvania Dutch family who owned extensive land and investments in Reading, Berks County, PA, and worked in a beer factory where they were currently living in Highspire, Dauphin County, PA, near Harrisburg. There was a prospering steel industry nearby. In 1880 census, "Carrie B. Moore", barely 18 years old, is found "visiting" in the household of her parents and Charles Moore could not be found, though I had no index to use and did not search Harrisburg. I searched the three townships where I know my people lived, and the adjacent townships. Charles Moore would have been 20 years old. Conceivably, he was in the army at this time. I do not, however, know that they married in Dauphin County, or that they lived there. Charles and Carrie had Bessie Mae Moore, in May 1884, family records have "Dauphin County" but no corroboration, and Nellie Moore, b January 1886, her death notice said in Reading, her death certificate said Pennsylvania, and her husband's death notice said HE was born in Reading, too, and he was born in New Jersey. Now, there is some shadow on this family history. Charles Moore may possibly have had manic depression. Looks like two thirds of his descendants inherited it and the other lines carried nothing as serious. The Dehart relatives big time didn't like the Moores, and the ones who survive refuse to tell either my father or me "the whole story of how they CAME to Drexil Hill!". The one garbled story I got mostly just sounded sleazy. In PHiladelphia, the head of house was listed in the city directory as teh younger of the two girls who both still lived at home. My father was ever told nothing about Charles Moore and only heard the man called Charles Moore, by his mother and grandmother who often stayed with my father's parents for years at a time, and by his mother's cousin who was the only one to tell him any family history, and who told her own daughter only things she wanted her to know. Charles and family seem to have done an odd amount of moving around for a steelworker in a prosperous area. It is possible taht Carrie sometimes stayed with her parents for reasons that had nothing to do with Charles away in the army, or he could have been away in the army, or he could have been living in Reading in 1886. The Moore family lived in Wilmington, Delaware, for some undetermined amount of time before 1908, and are found there in the 1900 census. They reportedly had relatives in or near Wilmington, or elsewhere in New CAstle County, Delaware, who certainly were Moore relatives or Charles' mother's people, since every one of CArrie's Pennsylvania Dutch relatives lived in Berks and Dauphin Counties. According to my father, Charles probably had a sister named Libby. At some point, some of these relatives lived near enough to Charles' family, while Nellie was a teenager, to be sending "her out in clothes that her mother had". In 1908, Charles Moore and family turn up in the Philadelphia city directory, at 5222 Webster Ave in Philadelphia - or rather, Nelly turns up there listed as a dressmaker. Nelly later married a man from New Jersey who was unusually prosperous for an accountant with a plumbing firm; they had a big house in the richest section of Drexil Hill from 1928 until their deaths. Also appears Nellie was a skinflint; she gave the minister who handled her husband's funeral $2.00! They had no children, and my father's brother, who was close to them, and his son, are long since dead, and I can't find anyone of the husband's rare name in the towns in New Jersey he was from and where a nephew was listed on Nellie's death on the funeral home records, who claims to be related to him. Ha, ha, ha. It doesn't help that most of them are dead, too. But I found a widow with the family history her husband put together, very nice woman, wrote me a nice letter, her husband's work contained no mention of any of these people. The entire family is listed at 5222 Webster St on the 1910 census, and the census states that they owned the house free and clear with no mortgage. Bessie Mae, my grandmother, who was working as a secretary or clerk both in 1910 and when she married, married in 1911, and she listed 5222 Webster on her application. Now, I wonder if that is on account of Carrie, since her family had money and no reason to think Charles had any, also when she was old it appeared to my father that she had some money. Not an outrageious amount by that time; I think what was left of it may have helped put my father through seminary! Philadelphia did, it seems from an extensive discussion on the PHILLY-ROOTS list, have an extensive heavy industry that would have employed a roller turner, and according to the 1910 census Charles Moore ahd been employed continuously as a roller turner for teh past year. I don't know if Wilmington can make a similar claim. The 1900 census does not show anyone obviously related to Charles Moore living immediately near him; no Moore's, and no Libby. They occupied a single street number by themselves. Type of residence; nonfarm (big help). But I still wonder why on his death certificate n 1920, he died of surgical shock maybe with bowel obstruction or something, Charles Moore is listed as a "roller turner", "self employed". I had expected to find the man barely worked a day in his life. His widow, who is listed as the informant on the death certificate, must have been out of her mind; his death certificate and the 1900 census give one date of birth for him - and his grave has a different date of birth on it. Different year; I'm not sure any specific date is there. (I have it someplace) She bought a whole bunch of grave plots at the time when Charles Moore died, and her ghost still owns them (according to cemetery records). I also have the date Charles L. Moore died in 1920. I have no clue if he or his wife collected any military pension. Also no idea what branch of the service. His grave is so thrown together, he shares a single marker with his wife, Nellie and her husband, someone couldn't even get his birthdate right, that it is odd indeed that a flag would have been engraved, specifically on his grave, unless as teh person who viewed it for me suggests, it does mean he had a military record. He is apparently the first to use that marker, though I do not know that it was put there when he died. Could have been put there by Nellie, who was the last of the four of them to die. I live nowhere near a NARA center, I am short of cash, and I understand that military records are hard to locate, which in my experence makes using LDS's films impractical and a dreadful waste of time, he may have been in the army, the navy, or the marines, though I think the army used the most recruits. I want to find any relatives through this family before my father dies, which event is expected three months from now. I do get the idea that searching these records is not a brief lookup. A genealogist would charge me about $100 for the project. I want to see if possibly anyone who needs some research done in Texas and lives near a NARA center would trade work with me. Yours, Dora Smith __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get Yahoo! Mail � Free email you can access from anywhere! http://mail.yahoo.com/