Dear researchers, There seems to be a lot of fishing for information taking place on the Fauquier list. Most of the roll calls are meaningless, chiefly because no dates are included. One assumes that some event or other (birth, marriage, death, deed, etc) occurred in Fauquier Co. but your queries are not specific. I am imparting some unsolicited advice to help you catch some fish. There may be some good books on Fauquier Co. in your local library, particularly if you live in Virginia or Washington DC or a large city with a good genealogical library. If you are not using the facilities of an LDS family history center near your home, you are missing a wonderful genealogical resource. If you do not have John K. Gott's books on early Fauquier Co. (too bad), then you might try some of these other sources: 1. Patent books (abstracts) as published in the seven volumes of Cavaliers and Pioneers. These are abstracts of pre-Revolutionary land grants (Fauquier Co. not included). However, for Fauquier Co., you are more likely to find your folks in Northern Neck land grants, which were different from those in the rest of Virginia. 2. So for Northern Neck land patents - try Gertrude E. Gray, Virginia Northern Neck Land Grants - 4 volumes, published by Genealogical Publishing Co. They, like Cavaliers and Pioneers, are arranged chronologically. (Try for interlibrary loan--see below) If you want to research the internet way, access the Library of Virginia website and look for land patents (not deeds which are land transactions between individuals). The LVA land patents on the internet are a little harder to use for those of us who grew up using books and films, but at least they are handy! (The books are indexed by surname of patentee, by surname of neighbors, transportees [imported folks], watercourse, and other geographic items. ) 3. For post-Revolutionary folks in Fauquier (and even in Kentucky), try to have your local librarian locate this set of books for you and effect, if at all possible, an interlibrary loan (hard to do if a book is a reference book in a lending library): The 1787 Census of Virginia (3 volumes--not on the internet) by Netti Schreiner-Yantis and Florine S. Love These are personal property tax lists for every county in Virginia, including all of the counties in Kentucky in 1787--some of your Fauquier folks may have gone to Kentucky!!! (Mine did, but I don't recall how early) 4. For 1790 on through 1850: Your nearby LDS family history center (FHC) may have AIS on hundreds of microfiche. AIS=Accelerated Indexing System This is a comprehensive census index for the entire US through the 1850 census. For some western States and territories, AIS goes beyojnd 1850. Ask for a free 4-page handout which explains AIS. Some of you may subscribe to this on Ancestry.com. As this is an index, surnames are arranged alphabetically, and the geographic location of the male (generally a male) is given, and the year of the census. Some tax lists are included in the first Search (first censuses). Search 2 is a later census, and son on through the 1850 census. There is a high error rate (duplications, omissions, misspelling, etc) but if you find your ancestor, who minds a few errors? 5. Ask your librarian if he/she has copies of PERSI either in microfiche or in book form. This is somewhat tricky to use, and you have to read the introduction to understand. There may be a research guide on the LDS website (www.familysearch.org) so click around. This index to genealogical periodicals has been compiled--and revised--every year for the last decade or so--by the Allen County Public Library at Fort Wayne, Indiana. That library prides itself on its vast collection of genealogical periodicals from all around the country. One can search by surname, by geographic location, and so on. A good finding aid. Persons who have used the services of Allen Co PL say the turnaround time for transmitting photocopies of the dessired articles is very short. I believe PERSI is also on Ancestry.com (I live near a large genealogical library (LDS), so I don't subscribe to Ancestry.com I am the old fashioned kind of researcher. Whether you are a newbie or an old seasoned (but always learning new tricks) researcher, your queries are going nowhere, most of the time, unless you include some dates in your queries. And don't make your query too wordy. Submit several queries over a period of days, but include some guesstimates as to DATES, and if the website is a general one, such as for Southside Virginia, give an approximation of a county!!! Enough preaching. This is to tell you that much I receive on the internet rootsweb sites is deleted when the queries do no include dates. The publications I may have may cover only the early years of Fauquier Co. If your ancestor was living there in 1790 onward, then census searches may be your first step. Try AIS which is at many LDS FHCs (family history centers). A list of over 3,500 of these centers around the world is found on the website given above. E.W.Wallace a Kemper-Utterback-Fishback et al descendant whose folks went to Kentucky

2 cents worth: Hooray for your email! You have blessed many new researchers with some very good tips, even though some on the list were not happy with all that you said. Those unhappy also must not read every email that comes through, as they didn't seem to know that you are a female. I tend to agree that many people dont give enough info when they query as there is a vast difference in the 1600s vs the 1800s. One of the first things I learned was that generations are usually 20 years apart. Granted, for those families that bore 15-20 children, that guideline doesn't necessarily pan out. Keep contributing as you can, and dont let anyone ruffle your feathers. Some people will not ever change, but many will learn as time goes by. And newbys will almost always not give much in the way of details until they learn that they will get more if they give more. Perhaps we should have that as a VAFAUQUI slogan: Give more to get more! From: <Hdanw@aol.com> Sent: Saturday, December 06, 2003 12:37 PM Subject: Some Good People-Finders for Early Virginians > Dear researchers, > > There seems to be a lot of fishing for information taking place on the > Fauquier list. Most of the roll calls are meaningless, chiefly because no dates are > included. One assumes that some event or other (birth, marriage, death, > deed, etc) occurred in Fauquier Co. but your queries are not specific. I am > imparting some unsolicited advice to help you catch some fish. >