Hi Clare, As I read your Email about the PETRIE family in Tranmere in the 1881 census, I couldn't help thinking what a small world it is! I wonder in what part of Scotland these PETRIEs originated? Tranmere is now part of Birkenhead, I believe....my Father and his family came from that area of Birkenhead....although he wasn't born until 1903, and his family apparently originated in the Shocklach area, near the Border of Wales in Cheshire on the maternal side and in Yorkshire on the paternal side. My father emigrated to the US in the early 1920s and met a Scots lass with a maternal Grandmother named PETRIE from Wick, in Caithness. They sometimes commented about the fact that they had to move 3000 miles away from home to find a spouse and start their family in a new country! Now I'm trying to research all the possible connections to trace where everyone came from. An interesting thought is that if you could go back 500 years you've got about one million direct ancestors......that's parents, grandparents, great grandparents, etc.....And if what I've read is true there were only one million people living in England, Scotland and Wales at the time of the Norman conquest.....that's 935 years ago, so you and I must be related to everyone in England at that time....except the Royal Family, since they're German!!!! What is it that someone quotes on all their Emails....old genealogists never die, they just lose their census....please forgive the rambling, but I would certainly like to find a connection between my maternal and paternal ancestors in the 1800s in dear old Tranmere!!!! George Weston Suisun, CA USA