Good morning from another hot, hot day in the Central Coast area of California, which doesn't help my "internal combustion" to cool any over the disappointment I feel about failing to find Patrick Skiffington where we thought he might have started out his life! I finally, broke down and paid for some research through Irish World, to see if we could at least establish that my husband's great-grandfather Patrick Skiffington came from the Donaghmore/Dungannon, Co. Tyrone area, with the further hope we could find his parents and any siblings. All of the birthdates/baptisms on record for the Skiffington (var. sps.) name in the Dungannon area cover the years between 1823-1829, but Patrick had to be born around 1815 as he went off to fight in the American Civil War in 1863 when he was 47. We have confirmation that he married in Baltimore, Maryland 1840 when he'd be about 25 then. What now? Do we just give up after trying to establish where he was born, his parentage and siblings, after all these years of sleuthing? Perhaps we've been barking up the wrong tree and he wasn't born in Donaghmore/Dungannon, but we have no idea where to begin to look for him. A relative couldn't find anyone of his name/age when she went to PRONI in Belfast last year. Maybe he used a nom de plume when he came to America, we think around 1834! Annoyingly, another Patrick Skiffington was found who may be the brother of Bernard Skiffington m. Helen Houston, who ended up in Bothwell, Lanarkshire. I have lots of information on him, and for a while I thought maybe Bernard and my husband's Patrick might have been brothers, but the birthdates are off. Bernard's parents were John Skiffington and Mary Qin(n). Most of Bernard's family stayed in Lanarkshire, with a few crossing the water to start new lives elsewhere...but not back in Ireland. Any suggestions where we can go now as we seem to have exhausted every source? Maisie --------------------------------------------------------------------------------