Really getting into these things takes some time, but here are some general things to remember when you are “stuck:”
“Heir-at-law” is usually a specific term defined in state statute. Who qualifies as an “heir-at-law” depends upon the family structure of the individual who has died and state statute. In this illustration the father is listed as an heir-at-law. Reference to state statute would be needed to be 100% certain, but parents are typically not heirs if the deceased left descendants. This reference to the father as an heir would indicate (at least initially) that Andrew Ramsey probably had no descendants. Andrew could have had siblings and they probably would have been heirs-at-law as well. Probably.
Those “missing” relatives could be hiding under a first name of which you are not aware. I have two great-aunts (one by birth and one by marriage) had actual first names that they never used past their childhood. They used their middle names as their “legal” name. That middle name is on all their documents, their tombstone, etc. Except in records before they were married–those all list them by their “real” first name. Is someone hiding in records because they have another name of which you are not aware?
Ira Sargent is enumerated in the 1850 and 1860 US Census under the last name of his step-father, Asa Landon. Ira was born in the 1840s and his father, Clark Sargent, died around 1848. By 1850 his mother had married Asa Landon. Ira’s 1870 marriage record is probably the first document where he actually provided his name to the records clerk. Chances are someone else gave his name to the 1850 and 1860 census enumerator. Your relative might have known his “name,” but might never have had a chance to give it to the clerk, enumerator, etc. until after he was “of age.” Is that why you can’t find your person in any record until they get married?
Are you using an 1820 census enumeration where the names appear to be listed in roughly alphabetical order? Census takers and some tax collectors, in an attempt to be helpful, roughly sorted names by the first letter of the last name. The problem for genealogists is that this strips the record of all sense of neighborhood. Keep this in mind when you think all the “B”s in an area lived together. No group of people are that organized.
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