Be not entirely discouraged! I have been on the hunt for more years than I’ve been alive...metaphorically meaning since I developed an interest in family genealogy many years ago. There are two brick walls which seemingly may never be surmounted: the parentage of my great-great grandfather who was born in Carlingwark (the old name for Castle Douglas) and who died in Auchencairn, Kirkcudbrightshire well into his nineties, and confirmation of the place where my husband’s great grandfather was born, perhaps Donaghmore, Co. Tyrone. On the Scottish side first, the Irish one to follow in a separate message. Amazingly, through the efforts of so many listers on this list and others, I have been able to move fast forward to find the progeny, if you will, of the old fellow in Auchencairn, one of whom made his way to Glasgow and from whom I am descended. There are others, too, who moved north from Southwest Scotland to Glasgow, one of whom died in Stobhill hospital, just a stone’s throw from where I lived. Up until my generation, my father’s kin kept in touch, even in their own little diaspora. Now, even my cousins don’t know how their mothers are related to my family. Through census records, Scotlandspeople, etc., mysteries were cleared up that my father’s cousin did not go to Australia or New Zealand, but actually died in Glasgow. A few years back some on this list from Australia and New Zealand tried to find him for me; however, we think that we have found his widow and daughter somewhere in the Antipodes. Somehow my family got it all wrong that he went abroad, but his wife/widow and daughter did go, perhaps on the £10 POM (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Pound_Poms) scheme as I doubt very much if they could have afforded to pay their own passage. Out of this and that research, before hopping it, the cousin’s wife is shown living at McLay’s Guest House, an 81-room “bed and breakfast” combination building smack dab in the middle of Glasgow...and such a coincidence as our friend/chauffeur when we were back in Scotland some years back stayed at this McLay’s Guest House...he lasted one night! Putting two and two together we can understand the financial need of the cousin’s wife and daughter to take advantage of the £10 assisted passage to Australia. I did not know that my great grandfather had done a little shuftie to England and then Wales when his wife died in Auchencairn, but through Scotlandspeople, census records and “boards” where people post their family history interests, I found out lots about him and his “soap opera” English second wife. Now that’s a great story, if only I knew how to write it! I now have found that I have quite a few half-cousins a few times removed in Wales and England, where the bold boy ended up being captain of mines, and where the house he once lived in is designated as a listed house. I use the singular pronoun I, but it was not I alone who uncovered so much research material. An English fellow on the Wig list who wishes to remain anonymous did a lot of research for, and then over the last six years Malcolm Lockerbie, also on the Wigtown list, and Irene Macleod on this list, have offered unbelievable assistance. I hope Irene doesn’t mind if I mention that she even went to Edinburgh from her home in the north of England to do research for me among thousands of dusty pages of Kirk Session records. Alas, the information was not there that we had hoped to find. Others, including Jenny Myers, Australia, shared information that her Keith and my Hillcoat family lived in the same tenement in Weaver St., Townhead, Glasgow. This was an unbelievable stroke of luck as a mutual lister provided a photo of the tenement where the two families lived, now demolished most likely. Some “hunters and gatherers” confine their family genealogy research to maybe a couple of generations. Not I! I have a four-inch binder full of BMDs, censuses and other documentation, mainly from the early 1700s on. I received, through the courtesy of a woman in Australia, a 59-page list of names and basic bmd information on the Hillcoat family going back to the mid-1600s. Talk about serendipity as Jean Smith, formerly active on this list, remembered the name Hillcoat and forwarded the Hillcoat connection to me. (On Jean, she was such a source of amusing anecdotes to this list as she pursued her family connections.) Just a little heads up that perseverance can pay off, but we have to reconcile ourselves that the records may not be there... sloppy record keeping, disinterest, disappearance of records, fires, etc. Maisie Egger