Estelle, I have had the same situation in early dealing with the libraries. If you know the location, city or county of the person you are searching for, and the name and dates, you can check in there computer for family histories that have already been submitted. They have all kinds of records. depending on where you want to search. They also have a website at Ancestry.com that you can go to and do general name searches. You'd be surprised wht you'd come up with. The othee thing is that AOL has a general surname search that you can go to type in the surname you seek. All kinds of webpages and surname listings from anyone looking for your name will post. I recently found branches of my family from New Mexico and we share the same great-great grandmother..but nver knew any either of the branches existed. Good luck, Michael