Welcome to Cheryl who has joined earlier this week, but is a bit disappointed that there's been no mail !, and to the Freumhan Family who have just joined this weekend. Oh, and oops, I've done it again - a belated welcome to Deb Chaney who joined and posted last week. If you haven't already contributed, we hope to hear from you soon. ****** ****** ****** A recent thread of e-mails on the Lanark List referred to the McKirdy Death Indexes. Bute, being the birth place of many of McKirdy's ancestors, is well covered - 1855 to 1875. I am not going to repeat the whole story, as you can get the full details on the Indexes by searching the ButeshireGenWeb archive for "Sunday morning musings # 5", or for recent postings on the Lanark-L list by searching on "McKirdy Index" The archive is at http://listsearches.rootsweb.com/ However, an example of a reconstruction of Index Year 1855 entry #54 for Kilmory Parish follows (NOT one of my COOK families more's the pity) :- 76,COOK,Neil,72,Farmer,,Mary MacKenzie,1783 238,MacKENZIE,Mary,,,,Neil Cook, 72,COOK,Charles,,Farmer,,Margaret McBride, 2xx,McBRIDE,Margaret,,,,Charles Cook, 73,COOK,Finlay,,,1832(Died Aged 23),Son of Neil Cook,1809 75,COOK,Margaret,,,1855(Aged 42),Daughter of Neil Cook,1813 71,COOK,Catherine,,,1855(Aged 41),Daughter of Neil Cook,1814 72,COOK,Charles,,,1855(Aged 39),Son of Neil Cook,1816 74,COOK,Jean,,,1855(Aged 36),Daughter of Neil Cook,1819 These fields are from my database: Index Page {just in case I need to have another look}, Surname, Forename, Age,Occupation,Given Year(Child's age at that Year), Spouse or relation and a calculated Birth Year. I stripped off the Register # (54), and the LDS film number as they are common to all entries. Note: Given Year is either Index Year if the child is alive, or Death Year, thus Birth Year is my calculation either for the children: from Age and Given Year, or for the deceased: from Age and Index Year. So ... Charles COOK (Farmer) and Margaret McBride are the parents of Neil COOK (Farmer) who died age 72 in 1855. His spouse was Mary McKenzie, and their five children are listed - all bar Finlay surviving their father. I have still to check the cross reference for Margaret McBride, but based on the information provided for Charles, I don't expect any further information. Notes: Just to restate that the birth years given above have been calculated from the entries - they are NOT given in the Index, all the other information is as given. If a person is deceased but is not the person who died, 'deceased' usually but not always appears in the Index Age column. Quite often the parents will not be shown as deceased, even though they obviously are from the death age of the child, as in the example above. The only thing this particular reconstruction does not clearly identify is the informant - probably surviving son Charles, but the death entry would need to be viewed to confirm this - could equally be a son-in-law, or one of the daughters, or the Doctor or a nurse if present. There are a number of entries for Charles COOK, Surgeon - the last is his own death, the rest are where he has reported a patient's death, as there are no other COOK entries for the given Register #. For entries in later years which only give one child, the assumption can be made that they are the informant. ****** ****** ****** Feel free to join in and present your own items. Peter Cook [email protected] List maintainer and Co-host with Barbara < [email protected] > of the ButeshireGenWeb mailing list.