In a message dated 03/02/2008 15:33:36 GMT Standard Time, [email protected] writes: I seem to have reached the end of the road in this line. Using IGI and Durham records on line There are far, far, more records available then are in the two limited sources you mention. First, you do not mention having looked at the original registers for the Bird entries you mention from Winlaton MIll or elsewhere. Indexes such as the IGI are only partial at best (and the IGI at worst can be actually misleading), and the full entries can give lots more valuable clues. Most of what is available on "Durham Records on-line" are parish registers and only a tiny porportion of those are included. Look at the Ryton and Whickham parish registers by all means (and at such records as MI lists and Marriage Bonds that may shed more light on register entries), and also at the Ryton Woodside (later Swalwell) Independent Church registers. Anyone living at Winlaton Mill at the time was probably an employee of the famous Crowley Iron Works, but just in case they were not, check out Land Tax Records, and, if they were indeed farmers or otherwise self-employed (or just to eliminate the possibility anyway) look at Probate Records (Wills, Admons, Probate Inventories, etc). It would be a shame not to look at the wealth of "Parish Chest Material" available for Ryton Parish, including Churchwardens' Accounts and Tithe Records. Among that there are records of Communion tokens being distributed at the pre-Crowley Winlaton Mill in the late 16th century (!), so by the 18th there could have been all sorts of other things!. Also, if the Birds had indeed recently arrived at Winlaton Mill you would have to consider where they might have come from. Winlaton Mill is so close to the Tyne, which was in effect the "Northumberland Border" of the day, that you do have to check out Northumberland sources as well as those of Co Durham. The big town of Newcastle ("the ruin of many" as Sir Ambrose Crowley called it) was only a keelboat's ride away. Who knows what else a trawl through the catalogues of Durham Record Office (on-line) or Northumberland Record Office (see A2A) might produce. In all of that you could also look at the on-line catalogue of Tyne and Wear Archives Department. You should also check out the general background history, as who knows what that would bring up. Try Bourne's "History of the Parish of Ryton" and his "History of the Parish of Whickham", as well as his "Annals of Whickham", all from the 1890s, and Winlaton LHS's "A History of Blaydon District" (1974: yours truly having had a hand in some of it). Most of those will now be library material rather than what you might buy for yourself (though the NDFHS has copies of Bourne's "..... Ryton" for sale). Far be it from me to muddy the waters, but I do know that when my grandmother was a young girl in Solihull, Warwickshire, in the late 19th century, the "big house" at the edge of what was then a village was occupied by Alfred Bird and family, he being the well-known Birmingham-based custard manufacturer. I mention that only to point out that there were Birds in the Midlands in general, and probably not, of course, only in Solihull. Sir Ambrose Crowley himself came from the other side of Birmingham (Stourbridge) to set up his works at Sunderland and then to move to Winlaton, Winlaton Mill and Swalwell c1690, and some, at least of his original workforce were brought in from that district, so I am not at all convinced that there were no Birds associated with his works until the 1740s. Go on - prove me wrong! Geoff Nicholson