Mary Ann, If you go to the Brooklyn Genealogy Page at http://www.bklyn-genealogy-info.com/ you will find information and links about Brooklyn. I lived in Flatlands a long time ago. It was a Dutch town established sometime in the 1600s. It didn't become part of Brooklyn until the second half of the 1890s, so doesn't always appear on Brooklyn directories, etc. It is near Bergen Beach, Flatbush, Mill Basin. A map at http://www.bklyn-genealogy-info.com/Map/Bklyn.Neighborhood.html clearly shows the neighborhoods of Brooklyn that will help you find it on other maps that show streets. Some of the street names are Flatlands Ave, Avenues L, M & N, numbered streets beginning with "East", particularly above the East 40s. Do you have them or their sons on any censuses or know the dates of death of any of them? Have you tried the FamilySearch.org site? They have the 1865 census for Flatlands. Near the end of the New York, Kings section, Flatlands is a choice. It contains 37 images and you can't search, but would have to browse each page. http://pilot.familysearch.org/recordsearch/start.html#w=0&p=waypoint&s=waypo intsOnly&c=fs%3A1491284 The Brooklyn Genealogy Page has, under Worship, a large section about Catholic churches, their locations and dates of establishment. I don't know of any in that area that existed in the 1870s, but one possibility is "Holy Family [1871] - Flatlands & E. 98th {off map - Canarsie} (the Diocese indicates this church opened in 1883)". Churches that opened later were Mary Queen of Heaven (1927) and St Thomas Aquinas (1884). Kathleen -----Original Message----- Message: 7 Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2010 10:31:34 -0500 (EST) From: MAS13751@aol.com Subject: Re: [NY-IRISH] NYC Irish Neighborhoods in the 1800's To: ny-irish@rootsweb.com Message-ID: <13d15.694124f8.3a0971d6@aol.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Jackie, since you live in Brooklyn maybe you can help me with my search. My great grandfather Michael McMahon lived in "The Flatlands" in 1865. He married a Mary Sullivan and had 2 sons in NYC - Thomas & John - born between 1868 & 1875. They were Catholic so I've been trying to locate church marriage or baptismal records but don't know which churches may have been in that area at that time. Would you happen to know? If not the churches, which streets comprised "the Flatlands"? Thanks for any help...Mary Ann In a message dated 11/8/2010 9:13:42 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, Kiskatomcreek@aol.com writes: