SUGGESTIONS AND TIPS FOR GETTING ANSWERS TO YOUR QUERIES
USGenWeb will not tolerate any copyright violations. Lookup requests should be limited to one
name, or perhaps two if it is a married couple. Information given will be minimal, for example
if it is a cemetery lookup, the information will be the name of the cemetery and the dates on
the headstone. Please do not ask for "everybody with X surname" or an entire family
group, or for hardcopies to be mailed; the volunteers have been asked not to comply with such
requests.
Our lookups will extend to searching the book to determine if the book would be helpful to
you in your research. Should the book prove useful, we can in most cases provide the authors
address.
Remember these people are volunteers doing YOU a favor. Be polite and appreciative and
do not ask "for the moon" or lookups on 15 people.
If you are asking for help from a link on the look up page, please mention what material
you are asking for a lookup from. The volunteer may have 15 items listed that she will do
lookups in and they all come in on the same request form. If you are specific she will know
where to look.
When you ask someone for help give them enough information to be able to help you. These
people are very willing to help, but they are not mind readers. You have all of this in mind
when you write your query, but unless you can tell the researcher where to look you will not
get the information that you need. Great grandpa may have been born in the county where you
are making a query, BUT would he appear first on the 1860, 1870 or 1880 census? Was he old
enough to pay taxes, or even old enough to pay a poll tax? If you are looking for a cemetery
record, do you have any idea where the family lived, when did he die? Please keep in mind that
life was not always so fast paced and money so easy to come by. You could have 75 ancestors
buried in this county but if the family could not afford tombstones, their resting place will
forever remain a mystery. If Grandpa and Grandma married in this county tell them approximately
when.
We have a very useful book "Coryell County Families". The book is sold out but the
people whose lives are chronicled in this book are put in there because some of their descendants
were aware that this book was being prepared and wanted to record their lineage for generations
to come. It is wonderful to find that the family you are searching for is written up in a nice
book like this. BUT, even if your family left no descendants in this area the book is invaluable
because of learning about the area in which they lived. Coryell County is unique in the fact that
up until 1942 1/3 of this county was settled with small towns and farms that were taken over by
Fort Hood. These towns disappeared forever. Many cemeteries were moved to other sites, but some
still remain inside the Fort. Our home page tells you a lot of this information. When your family
is chronicled in this book our volunteers may quote part of it to you, but do not expect them to
copy entire stories or go to town and copy it to mail to you. Be reasonable and remember to
appreciate what help you receive.
Copyright 2003 by Bobbie Ross