Hello Marg and List. Luckily we had not proceeded too far down the wrong track on one of our lines, before a maiden aunt pulled us up short. (This is not a Hunter Valley family; but the incident might be instructive nevertheless.) My wife is English and we were very carefully researching her father's mother, who is said to have been orphaned at a very young age. Her maiden name was Ellen Sophia HEATH. We went to London and stayed with a maiden aunt who was the eldest daughter in the family, who gave us some oral history, but said that she did not know too much because her mother had been orphaned and didn't know her parents. Anyway, armed with her maiden surname from this aunt (because no marriage certificate could be found) we headed off to what was then St. Catherine's House in London to search through the indexes, having an approximate birth YEAR for her, but little else. Very quickly we found in their quartely indexes of Birth registrations, in the relevant year, a birth for an Ellen Sophia HEATH, and paid for a birth certificate. Several days later we returned to collect the certificate, and joyfully took it back to our Aunty Vi. When we told her the details off the certificate, including that her mother had been born in Henley-on-Thames; she said "NO", "Mother always said that she was born in Chelsea". We felt sure that she was wrong; but because she was so insistent we returned to St. Catherine's House the next day, and looked through the indexes for all FOUR quarters of the relevant year. Well, blow me down, if we did not find in another quarter, the birth of a different Ellen Sophia HEATH, and this time it was indeed registered in Chelsea. We are both very careful genealogists, and this incident showed us just how easy it is to assume that a name is so unusual that it would not be given to someone else in that same year. Of course IF we had found a marriage certificate for our grandmother, then that would have given her father's name, to at least have given us something small to double-check against. For us though, it was frightening to know that IF our aunt had not been there with that small amount of valuable knowledge, we should have merrily gone on researching backwards on the WRONG family tree. Consequently, we now take with many grains of salt, any research which is not grounded on at least two, but preferably three, separate pieces of documentary evidence. Thanks for the question Marg. It will be interesting and instructive to read the experiences of others also. Regards: Ray in Sydney ----- Original Message ----- From: "MargM" <genknut@optusnet.com.au> To: <AUS-NSW-Hunter-Valley-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, June 05, 2006 11:13 AM Subject: [HV] Research black hole/s > How many of you have researched the wrong family/ies ? > > Come on fez up !