Thanks again Dorothy: I will try St Elizabeth first as we know that a sister of Arthur Albert HALE, Zona Hale, was born in St Elizabeth in 1898. The LDS site says for St Elizabeth that each year has its own index, so am I right that there is no master index? And,as I am not 100% certain of the year (according to the age he gave himself on various Merchant Marine Crew Agreements he was born between 1892 and 1895), I will need to get the films for St Elizabeth for each of those years to check their indexes? And that index will then tell me which district to look in? Cumbersome, but do-able, I guess! Thanks for your patience with me as I work my head around the process - if you ever need an explanation of Merchant Navy Crew Agreements, the migrations of Chief Big Bear's Band from Canada to and from Montana, or transcribing 16th century script, let me know! Regards Peter Hyde A British-born Canadian living in Australia