Good day, Would anyone with knowledge of Quaker history be able to tell me how one can learn of a person or family in Lancaster prior to 1734? My 4th great-grandfather left that meeting to come to America with a certificate from the Friends there. His name was Thomas Cornthwait[e]. Thank you very much for your help. Sincerely, Helen "If you don't know where you are going, You should know where you came from." SEARCHING: Cornthwait{e}, Davis,Read/Reed, Hill, Melcher,Cloud, Blackburn,Rogers,Matthews,Ritchie, Riley, Phelps, Mullan,Graves, mostly in MD & PA and Deschenes/Milville/Kirouac in MA & Canada

Helene Deschenes wrote: >Good day, >Would anyone with knowledge of Quaker history be able to tell me how one can >learn of a person or family in Lancaster prior to 1734? >My 4th great-grandfather left that meeting to come to America with a >certificate from the Friends there. His name was Thomas Cornthwait[e]. >Thank you very much for your help. You first step should be to look at a microfilm of the Lancashire Quarterly Meeting or the Lancaster Monthly Meeting. Problem is - I can't see any microfilm in the LDS Family History Catalog, except for a transcript by Gilbert Cope: English Friends records, Lancashire, births, 1650-1729, marriages, 1655-1729, deaths, 1659-1729 Includes monthly meetings of Hardshaw, Hardshaw East and West, Lancaster, Marsden, Preston, Swarthmore. FHL BRITISH Film 441398 Items 1-3 But a copy should be at the record office for Lancashire in Preston, so I would suggest emailing them. See: record.office@ed.lancscc.gov.uk http://www.archives.lancashire.gov.uk You may also find that the librarian at the Friends Library in Euston, London, would do a lookup for you. See: http://www.rootsweb.com/~engqfhs/ A microfilm will also be available at the Society of Genealogists in London, of which I and others on this list are members. It would be a fairly easy task to do a quick search. I'm not sure whether I'll be there at all this year, though ... but maybe someone else will be able to do a check for you. http://www.sog.org.uk/ Presumably too some American libraries stock the film. Once you've got the basic BMD details of his family, you can progress from there. Minutes, wills, etc.. The only reference I found on a quick search on A2A was for the marriage of Margaret Cornthwaite and Jame Goad in 1699 at the Lancaster Monthly Meeting Ref: FRL 2/1/11 Chris