Hi Jackie, Thanks for the extra info.................you've got a job on there!!! (as if you didn't know). All I can add, is that I got my Grandfather's WW1 records in 2 ways. 1) I believed he was a Royal Marine and enlisted a researcher to find him..cost abt. £15 last year. The only info I had was his name, place of birth = Manchester and possible year of birth! (I got the researcher from the National Archives site) 2) I trawled the web via Google, and found a Forum for WW1. As a result, I was informed that the Fleet Air Museum had firther records, and these were sent free of charge!! I feel honoured to be so lucky!! I had searched for over a year though! I wish you well. Pat W ----- Original Message ----- From: Jackie To: eng-manchester@rootsweb.com Sent: Wednesday, July 09, 2008 10:56 PM Subject: Re: [ENG-MAN] Fw: Brennan/McElhinney family history <snip> I probably haven't explained things very well, the details Kathryn sent are from my father death registration, I registered his death. I have my parents wedding cert and Dad's Irish School Records. I've managed to trace the descendants from his Irish birth family, unfortunately they knew nothing of my father, he was a well kept family secret. At the time of my fathers birth, his very young unmarried mother should have been in boarding school (Catholic Convent) in England (Berwick on Tweed) but she obviously wasn't, the school didn't have but a mother and baby unit attached to it. As far as I can make out her parents must have been supportive to her.The parents were Irish travelling variety artist based in Ireland. I have not been able to track down where his mother gave birth to him. There is a possibility that it could have been America. She did make several trips to America before finally settling there in 1929. My father appears to have been left in Ireland with his grandfather and very soon afterwards left with the McElhinney family. The family left Ireland in 1938/9, my father would have be 13 or 14 yrs old at the time. Going by this I should imagine he was 'called up' to join the Army at the age 18 or 19 yrs (approx 1943/4) it's where he was living at that time that I'm trying to find out so that I can get his Army records which might give me more clues.. <snip>