Thanks Ed, for the kind words. Yes, if anyone visits the Bastrop County courthouse, you will probably run into Dad (Howard New). If not, just ask the ladies there, and they will tell you if he's there or not. (If he's not there he will be sitting at the Texas Grill, on Hwy 71). I think he's searched each inch of the place, even showing me THE ROOM where many court documents are in boxes, not filed. He's always bringing me home something interesting, if not from there, then microfilmed documents copied at the library. He brought me the map that I scanned and put on the site. He doesn't have email or you could send requests to him. I need to hook up my printer and give him some of the queries that have been posted to work on. There is so much information available at the courthouse. I went one day and read into my tape recorder, some of the road overseers and exact locations of what they were responsible for. In that same journal is names and ranks of the militia that were tasked to guard the roads. I just have to get time to play it back and type it up. There are places I never heard of, like Alligator Island in Cedar Creek. We went up to Belton, county seat of Bell County, today. The ladies there were very knowledgeable and helpful also. The records are kept at the courthouse annex, not the courthouse, in the county clerks office. There were indexes of everything except criminal records, which are kept across from the courthouse and are not indexed. I found my grgrgrandmother's death record of 1917 (Elizabeth Casbeer who married Joseph Riley Petty) plus marriage records of William Kendrick Petty's girls, Dessie and Gladys Petty. They stated that a lot of the early records were lost when the courthouse was remodeled and records moved. Lost meaning walked away. Elizabeth Petty was apparently living with either Kendrick or Sylvester when she died as a widow at age 80. It was too icy for her to be transported to Pettytown Cemetery so she is buried in Cedar Creek Cemetery there in Belton. We tried to find the cemetery, after receiving directions, but it is too buried in the woods to go right to it. If you've lost someone in the early 1900's, you might try there as many went there to sharecrop. Sorry I wasn't at the courthouse to meet you, Ed. Maybe next time. Hope to see what you found posted on the Bastrop site, hint hint, no pressure. Tammy Owen Bastrop CO, TX Coordinator Bastropcc@aol.com http://www.rootsweb.com/~txbastro/bastrop.htm http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~txtammy/bastrop/bastropmain.html