Many (probably newbies) Williams listers are searching for Williamses who were alive for the 1790 through 1850 censuses. Here is a tool for you to consider using in order to facilitate finding those ancestors who MAY have appeared in those census years. There is a consolidated US census index which is available at probably all LDS family history centers--it is called Accelerated Indexing System and is on hundreds of microfiche. To learn about this valuable tool, called AIS, which most professionals use when beginning work for a new client, go to the LDS website: www.familysearch.org Go to the tab labeled SEARCH. On the left side of the screen is the word Subject. Click on that. If the letter A (beginning of alphabet) is not already on screen, click on the A at the top. The very first item under A is Alamanac [as in Farmer's Almanac] Then the first item to the right is Accelerated Indexing System Item #30970 Read about this and print it out, or copy and paste to a word processor and put it in your research notebook. (Oh, yes, how many people come to a library with NO paper and NO pen! You know better, don't you?) Study the information in this very brief description. Then call your nearby LDS center and ask for their days of opening--and hours also. Then ask whether they have AIS on hundreds of microfiche. (If you don't know where an LDS center is near your home, stay on the LDS website and go to the lower right. There should be a link to a list of over 3,500 worldwide centers--maybe more, by now.) If you know where your Williamses were in 1850, then start with that Search, which I believe may be No. 5 (I always read the instructions which are on the file cabinet where the fiche are filed). Look at all the Williamses (wow!) and find the appropriate county or State in which they were living at that time. Then move backwards in time to the earlier Searches. Please know that there is a high error rate in AIS--duplications, omissions, misspellings (maybe made by the census-taker - some left out the second L in Williams), etc. but if you find a clue to your ancestor's whereabouts, then you will forgive the high error rate. Some genealogists find the migration routes of their ancestors by using AIS. Try it, and learn to use it for ALL your new searches. A descendant of three early Virginia Williams lines (no, not your line) E.W.Wallace