At 07:14 PM 8/10/2006, Martin Adams wrote: >Having seen Barbara's CADMAN request, it reminded me that I have a >Martha CADMAN born around 1801 in Dawley. I have her wedding and >subsequent details but nothing about her actual date of birth or parents. Hi Again, as my dear old list friend Keith Roberts says not trying to teach grandmothers to suck eggs, but if you go to Hugh Wallis' website and type in Cadman for Dawley, up comes a Martha Cadman christened 1797, which is soooooooo close. Could be, eh? Otherwise yours may have been baptized at another parish very close by. Also, I don't want to keep harping on this to the list lest I be seen as an advertiser or pusher or some such, but LDS at their local FH libraries scattered throughout the world in various towns do allow you to order in at their local libraries the original copies of parish registers and also Bishops Transcripts on microfilm for a very small fee; in Australia it is a mere $5, which is probably only about $3 in the US and Canada. That is an amazing low cost for a whole or part parish register. Which means that you can really get your teeth absolutely into family history research and do it all by yourself (with exciting results) at long last and not rely upon others. My advice, do it yourself if you can, it is more exhilarating that way. I am still gob-smacked after all these years why more people don't take up this offering. After all, you are then looking at original registers!!! Where else are you going to get them unless you live on the spot or are geographically close to the particular record office? Here are the original baptisms, marriages, burials etc. written in hand by the local vicar or the curate (mind you, vicars often stood back and let the several curates do the work unless someone of a fair importance to the parish was being married or buried, let alone baptisms). Re. my experience, I have had so many parish registers and Bishop Transcripts viewed on microfilm since 1994 at the local LDS FH library in my suburb and which have brought me so much success so that why would I not promote this way of researching? (And no, they don't check your religion or lack of it! It is a library, enough said.) I guess, as an estimate at this present time in 2006, I have had close to 200 microfilms viewed since 1994, and only a very small handful, perhaps less than 10, though I think it was really only around about 6, have failed to give me what I was looking for. That, surely, is a magnificent result over all those years. Perhaps that is the main reason why my computer database of connected family relatives has risen from 250 in 1994 to over 4000 in 2006? I feel I have to share this with you. Back in 1994 an LDS family history researcher said to me that she had over ten thousand on her computer database, all connected folk in her family tree. To be honest, at the time I smiled and said nothing, thinking this was foolishness. Then as the years unfolded and I myself found living members of my family tree, I too began to add in persons/families 40 or 50 at a time, then I found a marriage in 1863 that linked two of my family branches together, all perfectly certified by marriage certificate etc., and because of this marriage there was added almost 200 folks dead and living to my computer database in one fell swoop from a distant cousin. Of course it all had to be proved out, which it was. But just goes to show you how things can easily escalate in family history research. BUT again, one must always remember that one must know what one is looking for re. parish records and it is necessary to look in the right place. So just ordering a microfilm in case it MIGHT contain something of worth to you is not necessarily the correct thing to do. You have to pin things down to the very parish, the very village if necessary. In many cases the IGI, the BVR disks and the Free BMD will do this for you, but not always. So, ask for help. That's wot we are here for. To help. Do it. Cherrio Graham Melbourne Oz