Hi First of all - thank you Carmel - that has been a fantastic help - it throws up a relationship that I was trying to work out - it gives me the date of death of someone I had been trying to find and also mentions a couple of people that I didn't know about which is fantastic. Amazing stuff - thanks a lot. I notice that Arthur is interested in the Rankin entry - I have the death notice from Scotlands People which might help you. Registered in Lauder, Berwickshire Anne Cozens Rankin died 27th Aug 1914 - states she is married to George Rankin which usually means that he is still alive only problem is it is very faded and difficult to read and his profession stated looks like "MJS" - I don't know what that means. It states that they are living somewhere called Allanbank in Lauder. There is nothing else on the notice which would assist you with the Rankin side of things. Their marriage notice was in 1887 and is not really better to read but I will give you what I can see I think it was 13th April 1887 - I cant read the location and it was after Banns according to the Church of Scotland George Rankin - Writer to the Signet (that means he was a member of a society to which solicitors belonged) and he was a bachelor aged 34 years and his residence looks like 26 Judia Street Edinburgh - his father was William Thomson Rankin deceased and his profession is very difficult to read but looks like ***** to the Parliamentary Council - his mother appears to be Sheila Rankin ms Pringle One of the Witnesses is AJ Rankin - but it does not say whether this was male or female. I hope that helps. Certainly the family appear to be quite prominent in the area and so records may exist - Have you tried putting Ann Rankin into a free search of Testaments on the Scotland's People website. If the family were fairly wealthy then she may very well have left a will and the good thing about Scottish records is that women were listed under both their married and maiden names. Candy - I have been told that the Romanes were linked (at least in family legend) to the border gypsies. I have never come across anything to suggest this in my research but it has always been talked about in the family. I can only presume that the link was via a Romanis marriage - Joseph Romaines to Jane Winter in 1841. The Winter family were notorious in the borders, 3 of the same family being hanged for various crimes - and in the contemporary newspaper reports they were stated to be border gypsies. However, it is a good idea to look at these sites and I will try it - thank you. Thanks everyone for your help and if anyone thinks of anything else please let me know Cheers Mandy Buchanan