Hi Nick Since you're in Australia, I thought I'd let you know that, in addition to Jan's helpful advice, you may also be able to access the GRO indexes to the marriage records at your State library - the State Library in Melbourne has a very good collection of the indexes on micro fiche which are freely available in the dedicated Genealogy section. These indexes are divided up into 4 quarters of each year - March, June, September and December - for the events registered in the 3 months of each quarter. If you use these and you don't know when your grandparents were married, you should probably work backwards from the known date of birth of your father, looking for either or both of William Gerrard and Mary Elizabeth Stringfellow. I'm fairly certain that the marriage indexes around that time list the name of the person and the surname of the person they are marrying. This can be quite laborious but will pay off once you finally locate them. Once you get an index reference, you will need to apply for the marriage certificate, to get the full details. Information about how to do this can be found at http://www.statistics.gov.uk/registration/certificates.asp or you can get someone in Australia to do it for you if you don't want the hassle - this may be a little more expensive. If you do itself via, eg, post or fax, each certificate costs 8.50 GBP - inclusive of postage. Hope this helps. Good luck Riley Jones Melbourne, Australia Researching BANKS, BEET (yorks), ROOKE (Heref), ROBB (Scot), JONES (Ches and Lancs), ROBERTS (Denbigh). -----Original Message----- From: GeeJay [mailto:gee.jay@uq.net.au] Sent: Friday, 21 November 2003 8:04 AM To: ENG-LANCS-YORKS-L@rootsweb.com Subject: [ENG-LANCS-YORKS] RE: Nick,looking for information Hello Nick, You are on the right track, going back one step at a time. It will be easier as youuget further back in time.[sometimes!]. You can search for the marriage of your grandparents, online, via < Lancashire bmd's> or <1837 online>. Also at any LDS Family History Library, [open to any person] that have the GRO indexes.[also known as St. Catherine house indexes]. Once you get that you will have information that will take you back, via the 1881 census,[online via <familysearch.org>] .Other things to access will be the 1901 census online, and the 1891 census, [index only available via <ancestry.com> Pay site,and expensive.] Some LDS centres have the 1891 census on Fiche, with a street index only. Some listers may have access to indexes, and would give you some help there. Hope this has been some help to you. Yours in Genealogy, Jan Researching Parry ,Tonge, LANCS. Roberts,Mead, Bailey,Upjohn,MDLX. Broom,Staple,Newman,GLAM> WALES. Warr,Newman,SOM.