Hi Ray. You may already be aware of the following, but the State of Illinois has a pretty robust set of databases available online. It might be worth scouting around a bit to see if there's anything that would help you narrow down what became of your James BISHOP (or at least eliminate some other James Bishops from consideration). http://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/departments/archives/databases.html Regards, Suzanne Walker --------------- On Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:25:48 Ray Hennessy wrote: ... We are looking for a James BISHOP, Sheena's great-grandfather. He married Mary Ann MELDRUM of Ellon in Chicago in 1874 and they had a daughter, Margaret BISHOP in 1876 in Richmond Illinois. Mary Ann and Margaret were back in Ellon by 1881 without James and we have been unable to discover anything about him. the family story is that he was left behind in the US but, as we can't find him for certain on any US Census, we are wondering if he returned to Scotland [if indeed he came from Scotland!!].