When looking for information on your family you need to consider who may have created a record about your ancestors and what jurisdiction or whose control that record would then be under. Did the federal government mandate that the record be created, such as the federal census records, passenger ship lists after 1820, or the Social Security death index? Maybe the state government passed a law requiring that certain records be kept, i.e. birth and death certificates or marriage records. County governments also kept records. Deeds, wills, probate records and tax lists are just some of the records that could have been created about your ancestor at the county level.
As one of the largest collections in the United States, Clayton Library has many sources available on microprint and in book form. Clayton's holdings include county and state histories, as well as abstracts of records such as wills, deeds, marriages, court minutes, vital records, church, cemetery records and colonial collections of several states. Many original records on microfilm and microfiche are part of the collection, including city directories for major US cities through 1910. Territorial Papers of the U.S. and the American State Papers with the Grassroots index as well as many other well-known research aids are available. The Papers of the Continental Congress are on microfilm with the Indexes in book form.
To search Clayton Library's holdings of county, state and federal records, check the Houston Public Library Catalog (for printed books) and the Clayton Microprint finding aids.