I DO not see a real problem about finding a birth certificate for your grandmother. If she was born in 1878, that is well within the time of civil registration, which began in England and Wales in July 1837. If you live anywhere near a Mormon FHC, then many of them have copies of, or access to, the GRO (General Register Office) indexes of births, marriages and deaths on microfilm. The indexes are arranged annually in quarters ending in March, June, September and December. You search the indexes until you find the appropriate entry, then send off to an address in Southport, Merseyside, England (which the FHC should be able to give you) for the certificate. COCKAYNE is not a particularly common name, so there shouldn't be too many of them, I imagine. If she was called Smith, Brown or Jones, then you might have a problem! If you are not anywhere near an LDS FHC, then the alternative is to hire a researcher in London to get the certificate for you. Most of them are quite reasonably priced and charge by the hour. As a matter of information, though, it would be easier to find her if you had a more precise location than just "Lancashire, England". I realise this is a very American-dominated list and, unfortunately, far too many Americans seem to be under the impression that Britain is a tiny country consisting of a few villages, each populated by about 20 people and a dog! I am afraid it isn't! OK. I am exaggerating slightly, but you know what I mean. Lancashire, for instance, is a very densely populated county, being heavily industrialised, with numerous cities and towns, including large major cities like Manchester and Liverpool. The population of the whole of Lancashire in 1878 would have been several millions. This is one of the things that drives we UK genealogists who try to help you folks slightly potty sometimes! I get requests from over there from people wanting me to find "my gt-gt-grandfather Joe Bloggs believed to have been born in Yorkshire, England". Yorkshire, on which I am something of an acknowledged expert, is a huge county (the largest in Britain) with a population today of around 6 million, and finding someone of a common surname with such a vague reference is near impossible, especially if the birth took place before 1837 and thus pre-civil registration. I should explain that in Britain counties are large administrative units, more like your states, not the small units that you call counties. Yorkshire, for instance, has a population roughly the size of that of Virginia, albeit packed into an area only about one-eighth of the size. I recognise that the problem was created by the US immigration officers, who in the last century were probably not terribly literate or knowledgeable people and "Lancashire, England" was probably sufficient address for them. This, of course, is why so many American surnames that came from Europe became hopelessly mangled when they got over there, because the immigration officers hadn't a clue how to spell them! However, surely someone in the family must know where in Lancashire your grandmother came from? She must have talked about her home town and her English roots at some time. On a more general note, I see Dr Bill is bemoaning the lack of activity on this list. I, too, have been disappointed in the apparent apathy since I joined. I have offered myself as an adviser on English genealogy, but so far nobody seems to want to ask me anything! Original message..... >>My most wanted is my grandmother Edith Cockayne. Date of birth is (probably) October 8, 1878, Lancashire England. All I know is that she came here with her family around 1886. She died in California in 1964. I have a lot of blanks to fill in.<< Roy Stockdill Editor, The Journal of One-Name Studies The Stockdill Family History Society (Guild of One-Name Studies, FedFHS) STOCKDILL PREST YELLOW BOLTON WORSNOP GIBSON MIDGLEY BRACEWELL SHACKLETON BRADLEY MOODY in Yorkshire North & West Ridings MEAD YOUNG in Somerset, Wiltshire & Gloucestershire Web page of the Stockdill Family History Society:- http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/roystock ”Never ask a man if he comes from Yorkshire. If he does he will tell you. If he does not, why humiliate him?" - Canon Sydney Smith (scholar and humorist 1771-1845)