In a message dated 14/08/2007 17:38:12 GMT Daylight Time, [email protected] writes: Is there any way to find out who the parents were or have I now hit the brick wall. Thank you for any help you may be able to give me. Jan: If your research is to be reliable and meaningful, then you should ALWAYS use the original registers, rather than ANY transcript of them or ANY sort of, usually partial, index to them. Those for Durham Diocese, which includes Stanhope, are kept in Durham County Record Office and you can either (a) make an appointment to go and read them on microfilm or (b) arrange for someone else to do that for you or (c) use their research service. Having said that, the H M Wood transcripts are a full and reliable transcript. They are kept in Newcastle Central Library (which still functions although currently in temporary premises) but microfilm copies are available from Northfiche (use Google for their price list etc). In the case of any register from the 16th century you do have a good excuse for using a good transcript such as Wood's. That is that you may be put off by the palaeographic task of actually reading the writing, which is probably in an obsolete hand. When the letter shapes are unfamiliar, many people just give up, although I find the most difficult hand usually can be read if one persists with it! However, your question was about what extra information you can expect. Without looking at the actual registers I cannot say, but in general the only information you can reasonably expect is the name of the father and just possible the address within the parish. The mother's name is a possibility but in the 16th century, and once she had given birth, she was usually relegated to a back seat! Ten minutes later: I've just checked on the starting date of Stanhope (St Thomas) parish registers. It was 1609! That means that the baptisms of the people you seek will NOT be recorded in the registers at all. Unless they were of sufficient standing to be mentioned in other documents (Wills, Halmote Court Records, other Court Records, etc), then you are unlikely to be able to go further back with them. Perhaps you should be checking the registers of neighbouring parishes, in the hope that they had really originated elsewhere. I would be interested in knowing the evidence you have about the birth dates of all those people. Were they just a likely guess? The only way to conduct proper research is never to assume anything at all that you have not been able to find evidence for. Geoff Nicholson