Hello Joanne The films I was referring to are films of the actual certificates not just the indexes. There are films of the indexes which cover all births etc for the whole of Scotland for a year. These just give the names of the child, the parish or registration district and the registered number (this is the number of the registration within the parish e.g. the first child registered in a parish for the year would be number 1). The certificate films are organised by county - e.g. all the births for Dunbartonshire would be on one or perhaps two films (Lanarkshire with Glasgow may take more films for one year). On each film, the births for the first parish in the alphabet appear first in order of registration, followed by the second parish. In Ross-shire for example, a certificate film starts with Alness, followed by Applecross, Contin etc. There is a further twist with Inverness-shire and Ross-shire - these two counties have the mainland parishes first in alphabetical order followed by the island parishes (Skye and the Hebridies etc) in alphabetical order. Argyll has a few islands so that county may do the same - I haven't had to have an Argyll film on loan yet so can't be sure. Births and deaths for a county quite often spread over more that one film, but marriages frequently fit on one film for the whole county (except perhaps for Lanarkshire with its larger population). So if you have a date and a county for your ggrandad (1855-1875 + 1881 + 1891), order the film or films for the whole county. With Inverness, you may not need to order the second film unless you think he may have been born in the islands or in a mainland parish towards the end of the alphabet. If you are not sure of the year, a number of 1855-1875 births are now included in the IGI so try there to get some possibilities. Or the index films may give you a some possibilities. I am not sure what it costs to hire a film at your local LDS but here in New Zealand it costs NZ$4.50 per film and it may be possible to get a print off the film when you have found the right certificate for a further small charge - much cheaper than ordering a certificate from Edinburgh + there is the possibility of finding other relatives on the same film at no extra cost. Have you found the family i the 1881 census (if they were still in Scotland) as that may narrow down the parish and date for your ggrandad's birth. Good luck Lesley Instone Invercargill NZ > -----Original Message----- > From: Joanne McKinnon [SMTP:jmckaroc@attcanada.net] > Sent: Tuesday, 12 October 1999 02:44 > To: DUNBARTONSHIRE-GENWEB-L@rootsweb.com > Subject: The film of the births for the county > > Hi Lesley, I read your reply to Doug and would like to know, these > birth microfilm are different from the birth index? I looked at those > and found very little. So these birth films are by county? not parish? > sorry for all the questions, but if your suggestions may be a way for > me to find my ggrandad. I do have the name of his parents but I am not > sure where he was born. But it is very possibly in Inverness. But I > had no idea of which parish. So there there is still hope for me yet. > Thank you for the information. > Joanne ;-)