Hi Kevin, It's me again. Regarding your relatives in St. Louis. Do you ahve evidence that your family came through NY, or are you just guessing? From my experience, there is a 95% chance they got to St Louis through the Port of New Orleans. This was by far the easiest and most direct route to get there. Have you ever checked this out? From my in depth study of the New Orleans public hospital records, I have found that 70% of the admissions were Irish, many just arriving in town. The admission records give place of birth (even the name of the county), the age, name, date of admission, occupation, date of death or discharge, how long in New Orleans, where the person was beforehand, how long they were in town, their marital status, what disease they had, and what time they were admitted. Sometimes there is also a remark included. I have seen many entries indicating that the person had been in St. Louis or had relatives in St. Louis or that seemed to indicate they worked the river between NO and St. Louis. When I have posted any of these records, there have been many repsonses telling me they were surprised to find their relatives in this hospital. I have transcribed Janurary 1851 through the beginning of Nov 1851 and they are posted on our site at: http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/la/orleans.htm Our site also has the ALL Louisiana State birth, marriage, and death indexes for Orleans Parish (New Orleans) covering births (1796 - 1902, the last available), marriages (1870 - 1915 about) and deaths (1804 - 1915 about). These are the same as on Ancestry, but they are free. There are over 2M entries that we have been posting over the last four years or so. We also have complete city directories from several years, the latest being 1851. We are now working on 1861. If you think your stayed long enough to be in the city directory, I have a complete set through 1899 at my FHC and can do lookups. I also have the passenger list index from New Orleans, but it is good only 1853 and later. However, I just found out that earlier records have been indexed by the John F. Kennedy Trust. I was in Co. Wexford recently and was able to visit the replica of the famine ship in New Ross where they allow you access to their database of passenger arrives from the late 1840s and beyond. The assistants told me that the database had been sold to a company in NY (will have to find the name) and that maybe Ancestry had it now. Don't know but you could find more info by search on JFK Trust. I will end for now, but if I can help you in any of this, let me know. Colleen