For information about medals awarded by Queen Victoria - an individual whom my great grandfather had to renounce by name - I would start at www.royal.gov.uk Otherwise Google will supply all sorts of official historical government websites. Have you tried buying the medal back from the church? Michael DANAHY http://www.familytreemaker.com/users/d/a/n/Michael-C-Danahy/index.html RESEARCHING IN MA (Hopkinton), IRE, ENG ALDRICH http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~aldrichnaa/ (one m SMITH, earlier ones m CASAVANT, COMEE, http://www.familyorigins.com/users/e/v/a/Jeanne-C-Evans LOVELL, PRAY, PRENTICE, RAWSON, SEALD, THAYER); http://members.xoom.com/jaldrich/Lines/Michael.htm Aldrich Family biographies, go to http://cgi.rootsweb.com/~genbbs/genbbs.cgi/FamilyAssoc/AldrichBios or go to http://homepages.rootsweb.com/~aldrich/ CASAVANT (who m MORAN); CURRAN (who m DANAHY) DANAHY (b. in Hopkinton and who m LENAN, siblings m. TOLAN, JOHNSON, O'CONNOR) LENAN (who m O"BRIEN); SMITH (who m CASEY); PRENTICE (who m ALDRICH) http://www.prenticenet.com/roots/prentice/robert/#R4 RAWSON (one m ALLEN, later one TORREY) http://www.rawsonfamilyassoc.org/ THAYER (Thomas m WHEELER, son Ferdinando m HAYWARD); http://members.aol.com/Sadie476/Thayer.html