Wills and Deeds: before 1850

County and town records may be your best bet for documenting family relationships and dates prior to the 1850 census.  While the originals are filed in county courthouses or record centers, it is often easier and more efficient to look at the indices and abstracts (and often the microfilm copies) that are available at county or state history or genealogical libraries and local college libraries.   Many of these are becoming available through the Internet or on CD-databases.   Libraries are now collecti

HIRE A HELPER: When you have run out of leads from the items list on the other pages you will have to get into the items shown below.  This may be more that you want to do, especially if the information has to come from another state.   It can cost a lot to visit a distant state to do research using records and libraries with which you are not familiar.  Local genealogical researchers can provide an efficient alternative.  Genealogical magazines (available at local genelaogical societies) and local genealogical researchers can help you get contact i

Documenting Difficult Cases: Some heavy Lifiting may be requried

Not everyone has an easy case, where a family member has already done a lot of the research, some individuals may need to do some of the research themselves.  Do not fear, these days, it is becoming easier to find the documents that you need, and below we provide a list of resources for you to start with.

Please understand that discovering and documenting a genealogical line to a Patriot ancestor can often be accomplished with only a modest amount of effort, providing you know what to look for and where to find it.  If you have an ancestor who lived in the United States prior to 1900 chances are likely that you could to be the descendant of a Revolutionary War patriot