This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/YWC.2ACI/5298.1.1.1.1.1.2.1.1.2.1.4.1.1 Message Board Post: Hello Jack, Did you find Catherine McGinnis and Michael Reynolds place of birth and parents names from their US civil and church records to find the marriage in Leitrim or did you look first in Leitrim for the marriage and family because it's where your family in the US believes it's where they originated? You'll generally find in the US that state and county civil records weren't all that detailed in the Nineteenth Century. If they lived in a township/town or village, there are generally also civil records for those locations which I find are much more detailed. The US census records chronicled naturalisation in each listing so I assume you checked those. I've found that NARA doesn't necessarily have all the naturalisation records. They're generally in the county court house of the county where the emigrant lived when he/she applied for citizenship although some of the them applied in nearby counties if the county seat for their county was a further distance and the county seat for a nearby county was closer. The records are primarily in the county courthouse but some counties moved the records to county archives so it can be a very locally individual thing. If you just looked at the final citizenship papers for Michael's one son, they may not have the detail included in the first papers -- the original citizenship application. I've seen naturalisation records from the end of the Nineteenth Century and early Twentieth Century that even include height, hair and eye colour, specific location of birth in Ireland and the ship the emigrants traveled on to the US. I research Irish emigrants in the US also so I have some familiarity with the amount of work involved and the variety of information, or lack thereof, you might encounter. That's why there are so many resources that need to be checked which I listed in my previous post. I've spent hours and days sitting on the floor in US courthouse basements going through unfiled naturalisation records just piled everywhere on the floor in no date or alpha order. Or copying every entry for a surname for 100 years in a town or village clerk's office. So I understand the amount of work that cen be involved in the process. The benefits of completing the US research is that you know you're researching the right people based on the parental and place connections in the records. They're actually your family members and you're gathering valuable information about them. They're not just some possible connection based on incomplete surname lists or hearsay about a location here. And I'm sure with the number of Irish born who emigrated you'll be successful in finding ther information in one of the US records sources. Have you checked the Index of Irish Civil Registrations microfilm for a record of the child born in 1865 to see if the birth was registered? Civil registration started in 1864, compliance wasn't complete in the early years and the family may not have wanted to pay the fee to register the birth if they were leaving but it would be worth a look to see if it's there. There's also the possibility the children were born in different places here depending on where Michael could find employment. Regards. Eilís O'Hara Ireland