Dear Lister, Kendrick_@webtv.net wrote in part: My cousin Molly and I are researching our gg greatmother: Nancy Williams, b ? FL; d Sept 1872 in Alachua Co., FL. Nancy was the daughter of ?Lewellen?? Williams b? d Aug 1836 (in FL Indian War) and unknown mother. Nancy married James Pendarvis (probally in Florida between late 1850 to 1853, as seen in Alachua County FL Deed Purchase Records). James Pendarvis b ? GA or SC, d 1868 in Alachua Co., FL.. Response: Let's stop right there. I don't know anything about your family, but be extremely grateful when one of your common-surname ancestors married a spouse with a relatively unusual surname--such as Pendarvis. (I bet it's common in Wales, but I haven't got time to look--got to get to the post office before the postage rate goes up). Suggest you do this: Use the search engine www.google.com Type in quotation marks James Pendarvis I did this, and although some of the links don't seem to have anything to do with genealogy, at least one does. Perhaps this is your cousin of whom you speak--and if so, then you and I have struck out. But, if it is entirely a different person--you may have found a fellow Pendarvis researcher. Just for the fun of it, go to the LDS website at www.familysearch.org The link to the catalog is on the lower right. Type in Pendarvis when the tag Surname comes up. See if LDS has any family histories on Pendarvis. (Tons of them on the Williamses, I suppose. I have never looked.) Also, try the International Genealogical Index and see if Pendarvis is Welsh in origin. Any name, first or surname, which starts with a LL, such as Lloyd or Llewelwen (variant spellings) is in all probability a Welsh name. Hope you find your ancestors. Why did I think Alabama was an easy place to search? I have never searched there, but since, compared with the 13 colonies, it has a short history, there probably are more accessible records (aren't there?). Do you know that LDS has lots of CD-ROMs with the 1880 US census which has been transcribed (badly in some cases)? Call up your nearby LDS center and see if they have the CD-ROMs. Ask when they are open. Anybody living in 1872 most probably survived to 1880 and may appear on the 1880 census. If so, you are in luck! The 1880 census, as do some subsequent ones, ask each enumerated person: Where was your father born? Where was your mother born? We hope they knew the right answer. This 1880 census, taken a year before my great-grandfather died, got me to another state--which had plenty of records on that particular Williams family and linked them to a son in Kentucky! And to my GGF in Texas!!! E.W.Wallace who has three Williams lines!!!