Welcome to Elizabeth Peacey and Loretta who have joined this week. If you haven't already contributed, we hope to hear from you soon. ****** ****** ****** Recently I noticed a contributor to another list complaining about the lack of consistency in the entries in the IGI from the parish registers. They cited examples of the information in adjacent parishes in the same time period, one giving both parents full names, the other omitting the maiden surname of the wife. As it was an English list I refrained from pointing out that in many Scottish Registers there are periods where the entry simply reads " John son of Donald _ _ _ _ and his wife, baptised {date}". Not even a forename for the wife ! Makes research on Arran pre 1800 very slow This lack of birth information on Arran is compensated in part by the inclusion of parents in the 1855 and later statutory death records. But once again caution has to be applied, as the person who could confirm the information is no longer around. In my own research I have found nephews and nieces to be reliable informants in about 45% to 50% of cases only. Then one has to assess how much weight to put on the information provided by totally independent informants - the doctors' information I guess might carry more weight than the policeman, particularly when he was reporting an Arran death, but himself came from Bute. Musing on, this hobby of ours begs the question, how many of you are the family expert when it comes to the normal picture jigsaw puzzle? Food for thought. Continuing the train of thought, have you posted your Bute genealogical puzzle yet ? ****** ****** ****** Feel free to join in and present your own items. Peter Cook [email protected] List owner and Co-host with Barbara < [email protected] > of the ButeshireGenWeb mailing list. List owner of the SCT-RENFREW and SCT-ARGYLL mailing lists.