At 17:00 24/02/2003 -0800, you wrote: >As I am only looking for Mitchells in England, I am curious as to whether this list is just for American Mitchells as I haven't seen any letters from anyone searching over there Yvonne. > Hi Yvonne, There are a very few 'English' Mitchell researchers on the list, myself included. My branch is firmly rooted in Northamptonshire, and I have been able to go back to one James Mitchell, who appears in the parish of Cranford St. John in around 1765 having married Sarah Smith in the neighbouring village of Sudborough. He was parish clerk for nearly 40 years until his death in 1803, so he could read and write, but was described as a servant in the 1772 militia list. As far as I can tell James was not born in any of the nearby parishes, so I have two possible theories: - He could be a son of the rector of Orlingbury who was in residence at about the correct time and only 8 miles away, but baptised in another area. or He was an itinerant herdsman, possibly from Scotland, who stopped off before/after delivering cattle to market in somewhere like Kettering or even London - long distance droving did occur around this time. My maternal Grandmother used to insist there was a connection to the McInnes clan, but of course that may only have been heresay. Out of interest, I do run a Mitchell_UK list on the Yahoo Groups service, but it is always incredibly quiet. All the best Dave Rossiter