egg man,
While it's good to leave genealogy "footprints" in a lot of places, this forum doesn't tend to have much information in that area. (If you're new to this, "leaving footprints" is what it is called when you post on a site where you are basically just letting people know you are interested in this information and that they should contact you if they know anything). I strongly suggest posting in the forums dedicated to each of those surnames at
RootsWeb.com Home Page and also in the Clayton county forum at the same location (these forums are "shared with" and sponsored by ancestry.com, the largest fee-based genealogy site in the world). Additionally, he or she should post on the query board at the Iowa Genweb site for Clayton County (
Clayton co. IAGenWeb). Longer shots for leaving footprints would include the surname and county forums at
GenWeb Home Page, and the Iowa forum and the surname forum at
Find A Grave - Millions of Cemetery Records.
When leaving footprints, more information is better -- rather than just giving surnames, adding Christian names and dates of birth and death, familial relationships, etc. are very helpful. You never know -- some bored genealogy angel may take the information and do some research for you!
Other than leaving footprints, there are a lot of free resources on the internet to search to try to get to the bottom of things!
Happy hunting.