On Sat, 27 Apr 2002 15:15:48 -0400, Carol Thorpe wrote: :my brick wall is william brooks, my gggrandfather of michigan. not :william ersatz brooks or william socrates brooks, just plain old :william brooks. You have my sympathies. :-) When there are just three or four men named Aldo or Leopold or Socrates, it's relatively simple to spot duplications and sort them out. But when I recently counted my Williams, there were 432 of them, and how I will ever disentangle the majority of them seems an unanswerable question. I've seriously erred in the past by suggesting John as the most common given name in New England Brooks families. :he had at least 2 children with maria parish (i have not found proof :of marriage yet) [snip] But at least you have a working surname to begin with. Have you tried an online search for Maria PARISH (I'd also look at PARRISH)? Sometimes the "other family" (i.e., a Parish researcher) will have the data you need, and neither of these names is forbiddingly commonplace. :one of the daughters mary jane is living with henry kidder and his :wife in warren co, illinois in the 1870 census, lore has maria going :to st louis to look for work. I'll echo my previous paragraph for the KIDDER surname. This is Scottish, and the Kidders spread from MA and NH -- I've run into a lot of them in northern New England. Since it's much less common than BROOKS, you might find a Kidder researcher with whom you could connect. I would consider that a much better chance than finding a needle in a haystack in metropolitan St. Louis. :its possible william was killed in the civil war In which case he will have a military and possibly a widow's pension record available through NARA (National Archives and Records Administration): http://www.nara.gov/research/ordering/ordrinfo.html If I might make one further suggestion: I think it's a good practice, when you have two queries, to post them as individual messages. While you may not get any response at the time you post, we shouldn't forget that all messages remain in the list archive, and there's no way of predicting who may be digging through there in the months or years to come. Since most researchers quickly scan subject lines in an archive, the "shorter and sweeter" yours is (i.e., one target and not two), I think the more likely it is that someone will click on the message to read it. Which is, of course, the whole point of an archive … to leave a trail that others can use to find you in the future. :-) Chris

> , > an online search for Maria PARISH (I'd also look at PARRISH)? > Sometimes the "other family" (i.e., a Parish researcher) will have . > I'll echo my previous paragraph for the KIDDER surname. This is > might find a Kidder researcher with whom you could > . > we have three viable maria parishes in sw michigan, one in texas twp in kalamazoo co, one in van buren co, and one in allegan co, cannot find their marriages. michigan marriages are on line, but an ongoing process. i have been in contact with a number of kidders including someone descended from henry kidder's aunt. there is no record of my gr-grandmother and he had never heard of her. he could not find a family connection. did i mention the scandal. something bad enough that my grandmother died without giving out the details, except for those bits of "lore" that my mother or father got out of her . carol t upper michigan