janC, you are so very right in your comments, the "average" Brit was of no consequence, and researching here is not at all like it is in the US, At the risk of driving you all nuts, as this is a LONG email (print it ofr reference)for the benefit of any of you who are about to embark on a search over here, basically here is how "we" go about things: Civil registrations began in 1834 (yes 1834!) so Births marriages and deaths from 1834 are searchable at either LDS libraries or local and county Libraries, sounds good, except that this is only the INDEX! Called the "St Catherines House Index", the actual copies of the BMD Certificates are held at St Catherines House (no suprise there) which you would presume to be in London, however when requesting a copy of a certificate (you can request one from anywhere in the world) the address is in Southport (near Liverpool) the index is indexed by 1/4 year and then alphabetical, the reference number is the volume (county) and the page the entry appears on, If, as in my case I looked up a marriage this week that took place in Walsall, where I live, if I then went to the registry offce in Walsall the reference number would be totally useless as its only the St catherines index, and the registry staff have to trawl through the 1/4 year to find the certificate! (Loal registrars are just getting computerised and thatas not all of them) if you only have one party of the marraige and you find that name in the year of the marriage and find that there are several folk of that name ie John Smith, then the only way to know which John smith is yours is to order every certificate. having both parties names is almost essential! thats forename and surname to be of any use! Some of the listers might have tried Free bmd, which is work in Progress of putting the St catherines hous index onto the internet it is fully searchable, and is a brilliant tool for us here as well as overseas researchers, an internet search is a lot easier than a fiche search! for births marriage or deaths prior to 1834, its parish registers, not all chuches have given theirs over for transcription either! some are just on Microfiche, others are in printed Books also, the PR's are usually kept in the local History library for the county, or if you are lucky additional copies are held in local town history libraries also (and LDS Librairies) If you are in one county and need to know about a birth in another county you have to travel there to see the PR's! Alternatively you join a rootsweb list for the area and plead for a look up next time someone is going to the library! PR's are not always complete, some were destroyed in the Wars, many are transcribed onto the IGI, and much as we complain at the errors on the IGI the PR info is there if the PR has been transcribed or is actually available. The PR's date back to around late 1500's in a lot of cases, but not many. Censuses are a major part of research here, the first ones being taken around 1801, no useful information, just the address and how many people lived there. in 1841, (our censuses are every 10 years on the "01") things got better, address, names ages and professions of the households, and a yes or no to being born in the county or not, by 1851 the place of birth was now listed. whereas you have the 1930 census available to you, we have just, 02 01 2002, gotten the 1901 census available here, and each local history library has its own area census, the whole of the country was supposed to be searchable on line, but had so any hits in the first day it has not been operational since, subsequently, I can look for my ancestors who lived in my own town at my local library but if I want to see another town I have to go to the library that covers that town! Again rootsweb local lsits help here for look ups on censuses. Wills, etc if the family were in a position to have left a will, there might still be a copy of it held in the county library, there are also some land deeds, and other obscure documents available, but they only cover a few people, not the whole population. some of these documents are searchable online at the PRO (public records office) offical website. emigrating families, thats a joke in itself, whilst in the US you may have the ships maifests, and many are transcribed on the internet, there are no passenger lists for departures from here that were retained, the manifests appear to have travelled with the ship until the 1900's at least! hence my asking if Nebuchadnezzer appeared in the US as I have way of knowing if he Left England! we do have 1 census fully on CD, 1881, so this is the starting point for many of us, we can generally work back to here from family knowledge, but if we can't get back to here we have to start with the BMD's and slowly work backwards. there is a CD for 1851 but it only covers 3 counties, so is only useful if your ancestors were in one of those counties. we also have the BVRI British Vital Records Index, basically a companion to the IGI, also on CD. Local branches of History societies have often transcribed PR's and produce their own Cd's and these are very useful if you know about them. there are many history books, and town history books, but nothing to cover the whole population, basically things are a bit vague, sketchy or downright impossible ot research. As this is allready a LONG email, I won't go into the odds and bods, if anyone has a specific question, I will try my very best to answer it. Royalty, and the "upper crust" are very well documented, but there is so much rubbish attched to them its silly, for instance, My surname is BENTON, there is a town called Benton in Northumberland, there are no Bentons living there, but the "documentation" associated with the "family scroll" says that we are all from there, and the clans of scotland and there is Sir Simon Benton who went to Canada and virually colonised it single handedly, what a load of rubbish, and as for Castles, there are a few castles here, but trust me, not all americans are descended from the folk who built them! So nect time you get frustrated ver a brick wall, think of us Brits whose walls are thicker than the castles LOL thanks all for reading, hope it helps someone. Oh, Taxation here is a good one, before the censuses or 1801, we had "hearth Taxes" (hearth being a fireplace) which explains why so many Brits had a a scorched circle in the one room they lived in, no hearth no hearth tax! Mellie IBSSG How Come My Coat Of Arms Has Buckles At The Back? ListAdmin: AUS-NSW-SURNAMES-L@rootsweb.com BAGNALL-L@rootsweb.com BATE-L@rootsweb.com BENTON-ENG-L@rootsweb.com BLACKHAM-L@rootsweb.com FEREDAY-L@rootsweb.com HOLLOWOOD-L@rootsweb.com HOWDLE-L@rootsweb.com --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. No attachments sent without prior notification Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.360 / Virus Database: 199 - Release Date: 08/05/02