-------Original Message------- From: Lowlandscot@aol.com Date: 04/08/05 19:11:11 To: fionak2009@yahoo.com.au Subject: Re: [D-G LIST] My Interests In a message dated 08/04/2005 08:36:06 GMT Daylight Time, fionak2009@yahoo com.au writes: This is courtesy of www.pro.gov.uk giving his war record #W097/831/81) Have been unable to get my hands on this record though, any idea how I would go about it? The records have been microfilmed but there's no link from the computer index to the actual film so it is a question of someone taking the film to a machine and making photocopies. But having said that I got one for about the same time and it gives a physical description as well as a complete resume of their army career ...no parents but the parish of birth and (in the one I got) enough information to work out their date of birth ...within a day or so. So it's a question of paying some researcher in London to do it. Can you recommend a good one? It might be worth looking for James Cowan's (Skelston) death cert post 1855 just to see if his father is also James. The only thing is that in the 1850s illegitimacy was a big 'thing' In the index books of death certificates illegitimacy was marked by a large B in the margin......... I think that sometimes relatives rather than admit a parent was illegitimate just denied knowledge of their parents....... not always but just something to bear in mind. Have taken your advise, as just happened to have bought some credits on scotlandspeople. Now that I have his death cert the plot has thickened like pea soup. His father is not James Cowan, of course not, it is William Cowan, a ploughman. However James' wife is a Margaret Currie. Did you see that my great great grandmother has a name - Susan Nicholson Jane Currie Cowan. I am wondering now if David Cowan and Mary Nicholson, may have had some sort of connection to Margaret Currie, as this all happened in Dunscore, yet David and Mary were living in Lochmaben. Thanks again for your insight. Cheers Fiona ==== DUMFRIES-GALLOWAY Mailing List ====