In a message dated 27/07/2007 19:55:54 GMT Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: Now my problem is the only JOHN that I can find born in 1657 appears to have died on the 02 oct 1660 so how can he have married MARY.Could anyone help me with this problem.Thank you if you can. It might be productive for you to check on the earliest dates from which parish registers run. Once you are back in the 17th century there are many gaps in what is available - the registers have not all survived. Since the BTs also do not survive from that far back, it could be that you are at a real briack wall. Possibly useful non-parish register sources for earlier periods include: Wills, Hearth Tax Returns, Protestation Returns Records of the County Committee for Compounding with Delinquent Royalists Deeds Halmote Court Records None of these are "easy" or necessarily straightforward. Some are in Durham County Record Office, some in The National Archives, some in Durham University Library and some have been published many years ago by the Surtees Society. You have reached the point where the research, if not the results of that research, gets interesting. Good hunting! Geoff Nicholson