Deliberately not cutting previous contributions to the thread here as anyone dropping into it for the first time (like me) will want to see what else was said. Dennis, I am assuming that the three brothers were all born after the marriage of James Wright in Dec 1831 and so you were looking for a marriage just before the earliest birth or baptism. You have been given good advice by both Maureen and Ray. Put the marriage on your tree beside the births of the three boys and leave it there not linked til you have more proof. It seems a good working assumption that he is the father but you do need some proof. The name James in itself is not enough as half of Ireland was called James at this time. Looking at the placenames you have given, there is no townland called Arboe but there is a parish of that name and the townland of Brigh is in the adjacent parish of ballyclog. Close but not that close. In my experience most people married within the parish but that is not a hard and fast rule, especially if they had money. You do not say what you found for the Wrights in the TABs which might answer that question. You can tnow wait for something to turn up as was suggested OR you can start to do a full research project on that area by noting all of the Wrights in the area and where they feature in the TABs, the GV, any church records or graveyards and any Civil MBDs especially deaths which are likely to be people alive at that time. Slowly you will build up a picture of the Wright families and you will get a feel for that area and you will almost know if you are correct. You are also likely to stumble across that one record you need. And do not neglect the overseas records. If you find a brother or sister who emigrated and died in Australia, for example, you are in clover as Oz death records give the names of both parents. This has cracked open a project for me on more than one occasion. In fact it has just given me a treble great grandmother for a lady in the US who I am currently helping. I say "I" but in fact it was my gen partner, Barbara, who made the discovery. We had a James Starrett in Canada who we were fairly sure was a son of a Samuel Starrett we were researching in Tirkernaghan in Donaghedy Parish. He named a daughter Margaret McIntosh Starrett. Barbara wondered if that might be Samuel's wife and sure enough, when she checked the GV, there WERE McIntoshes in Tirkernaghan. She did a bit more research (some of it googling) and found this on the cotyroneireland.com website: Victoria, Australia Marriages & Deaths 1853-1911 People Born in Co. Tyrone CLARKE Sarah D; Father: Sterrett Samuel Mother: Mary MCINTOSH Age: 66 Birth: TYRONE Death: 1879 9974 Cracked it!!!! Barbara went all the way around the world from Ireland to Canada to Australia in order to find the name of a woman back in Ireland. Boyd Gray http://familytrees.genopro.com/boydgray26/Boyd/default.htm http://www.westulstergenealogy.com/ http://www.facebook.com/westulstergenealogy -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Maureen Chalmers Sent: 17 July 2013 23:46 To: ray15 Cc: [email protected]; Dennis Wright Subject: Re: [CoTyIre] James Wright Good advice Ray. Patience is definitely a virtue in family history research. I have been researching my family for 26 years with many years of little or no progress, but every so often you get a great lead and uncover new information. I can see on research sites that people are not checking detail and adding people to family trees with little or no supporting factual sources. Keep good notes and potential family member details and check back regularly to see if these still fit. But don't add to your tree until you have couple of sources confirming family relationship. Best wishes Maureen Sent from my iPad On 17 Jul 2013, at 22:30, "ray15" <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello Dennis. > I guess that we all have different standards of proof which we find acceptable. > > For me, with just the name connection and the nearby geographical closeness, I would certainly NOT make any statement of certainty about such a family connection. > > However, I would use it as the starting-point of a working hypothesis that they MIGHT be such relations. > Then from that starting point I would follow every clue that I could to TRY to find further information to help prove or disprove that hypothesis. > > In my own Ulster family lines, I have not proceeded very far backwards in time, because I will NOT make such assumptions, but instead I just wait -- frequently for many years -- until I can find other information which might assist. > > For example, with my County Tyrone and County Donegal MOORHEAD families, for decades I had a lot of people here in Oz with that surname as only hypothetical relations; but it was only last year when a previously unknown researcher in Canada published transcriptions of MOORHEAD family letters which were in his family's possession, that all of the pieces fell in place, and finally PROVED my hypothesis. > > But I still have a further hypothesis to be proved -- and perhaps I never will do so -- that my James MOORHEAD who married Margaret MOORHEAD of Raphoe in Donegal, married a kinswoman. > > Taking this back to your family, my suggestion would be that by following up ALL THREE BROTHERS, you might amass enough OTHER information to help prove or disprove your working hypothesis that that those who married at Arboe were their parents. For example perhaps marriage and death certificates for each brother might provide other evidence; along with obituaries in local newspapers if they emigrated outside Ireland (where mostly it seems that only 'notables' had their BDM information recorded in local newspapers); and of course to see how EACH of their families might have fitted within the Irish naming patterns. > > Hopefully others will chip in with further ideas for you in trying to obtain those other proofs or disproofs. > > Good luck. > Ray in Oz > > > > On 18/07/2013, at 12:41 AM, "Dennis Wright" <[email protected]> wrote: > > I have been trying to Identify my Great-Grandfather James Wright's parents. > Recently, I looked up his (and his two brothers) birth announcements, that > show there father was also named James Wright and they were born in Brigh. > I then "clicked" onto the GS Film Number and searched for any Wright in the > file. There was one James Wright associated with this file. It was a > Marriage dated 31 Dec 1831 in nearby Arboe. Is it safe to say this is My > Great-Great Grandparents? > > Dennis > ------------- > > > ------------- > Our community web-site: http://cotyroneireland.com/ > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------- Our community web-site: http://cotyroneireland.com/ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message