Hi All, I am having problems establishing the births of some of my THORNTON family in South Shields. I wonder if someone could please advise me as to how I would go about finding the births of children in Westoe, South Shields c 1870. I have already looked on Free BMD and found some possibilities but how can I determine who parents were for these children. Scottish records are so simple to research and you get parents with all births, parents with all marriages and parents with all death certificates. So far in trying to find Thorntons in South Shields I can only get name of child and date of birth but with no parents, which is obviously of no use whatsoever as children could belong to anyone. Are all the records in England like this or is there some way of finding parents for the children. I have James Thornton born Dec quarter 1870 and died Dec quareter 1872 his parents were William Thornton and Jessie Gibson. They had at least one more child born there about the same time and I suspect it may have been either George born c1869/70 or Margaret born c1871/72. These are the ones that are on the Free BMD site for that area and period but I do not know who their parents were, how would I find out? These children are not on the 1871 census with this family and I see that there are 2 George Thorntons died June 1870 and Sept 1870 on BMD site both infants so I am hoping that one of them may be the child I am looking for. Please, pleases, could someone guide me as to how I would find out if William Thorton and Jessie Gibson had either of these Georges or any other child born between !969 and !875 in South Shields, probably Westoe. Apologies for waffling on, but this elusive child has evaded me for over 8 years now. William and Jessie had 16 children as is well known in the family but no-one knows who the missing child is (I have found 15) for years only had 14 until I recently discovered that they had gone to South Shields for about 6 or 7 years and found James b1870 there. This is how I am convinced there must be another born there between 1869 and 1875. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks Richard