I'm doing some family research, and there's an article in a historical paper about a railcar company manufacturing railcars under patents by an individual we haven't been able to link to the family yet. I haven't been able to find any info online about the individual. Where can I find information like that? The individual's name was C. M. Carnahan. We'd like to find out who he was, and see if we can connect him to the family. I believe one of the companies using his patents was the National Steel Car Company, some time around 1900. They were just mentioned in an article as providing competition in Pittsburgh for the Pressed Steel Car Company. Any direction anyone could provide me would be most welcome!

You may wish to try searching the website of the US Patent and Trademark Office : http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html

Likewise, this website has a truly execellent histories of many car builders with citations.

http://www.ironhorse129.com/rollingstock/builders/

Good luck, and please keep us informed as to how this research turns out.

Best regards,
Tom Cornillie