Morning Renee, Your first two are the way I pronounce it. However, I've had it spelled many ways. Most people spell it 'McToby'. Even those that have known me since grade school. I even had the father of a friend introduce me as Mr. McToupee once. Then there are the variants like McTophey or McTopey and even McTopay. My grandfather, Frank James McTopy, is my brickwall. I've not been able to get beyond him in my search. It is as if he appeared out of thin air. According to my father, Frank James was born in Southern Indiana across the river from Louisville, KY. Frank James and his father had a fight and Frank ran away from home. He was suppose to have been raised by his grandparents in Louisville, KY. Their last name was 'Noel'. I can find no records of them nor my grandfather. There is a question as to when he was born. His grave stone says that he was born in 1888 but his World War 1 registration card that he filled out says that he was born in 1887. The first indication that I have of Frank James McTopy is from the 1908 and 1910 New Orleans City Directories. It shows that he was work for a bar in the Irish Channel of New Orleans at that time. That jives with what my father told me about his dad. With the assistance of a friend, Dwayne Montz, I was able to find him in the 1910 Louisiana census. It was Dwayne that sent me a copy of his WW1 registration card. My father and his two sisters searched many years to learn more about their father. My father and mother even went to Louisville on their honeymoon to see it they could find any record of him or his grandparents. They said that the records were destroyed in a fire. In my search I did locate a John Topy in the 1890 Louisville City Directory. Using Yahoo's white pages I located 6 people with that last name still living in Kentucky. I composed a letter explaining who I was and what I was trying to do. I included a stamped self-addressed envelop and mailed them off. I got one response from the letters.During subsequent conversations we thought that we might be related as the person said that they had lost track of one of the family members. It was determined later that we were not related. His family immigrated from Ireland. Their name was Torpey which was later changed to Topy. The man came to Louisiana in 2003 to visit us and the wife and I went to the Louisville area in 2004 to visit him. Even though we are not related we both claim each other as one. My claimed relative in KY is named Jon Topy. Strange is it not. John McTopy > Message: 1 > Date: Mon, 08 Nov 2010 10:23:41 -0600 > From: Gene Data <[email protected]> > Subject: [LAORLEAN] ok now I'm curious > To: [email protected] > Message-ID: <[email protected]> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > > Ok .... now you've got me curious..... Is it Mack' toe p > or Mack toe' p > or > Mack top' e > or > Mack' ta p > > Any of the above?????? > Renee > > > > > ------------------------------ > > To contact the LAORLEAN list administrator, send an email to > [email protected] > > To post a message to the LAORLEAN mailing list, send an email to > [email protected] > > __________________________________________________________ > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] > with the word "unsubscribe" without the quotes in the subject and the body > of the > email with no additional text. > > > End of LAORLEAN Digest, Vol 5, Issue 274 > ****************************************