First, I got a free one month subscription to FindMyPast, that I turned on this morning. While I have several of my own lines that originate in the UK, I've never had success (nor tried very hard) at making connections "across the pond". But I'm doing a variant on a "house history" by researching the families associated with the land on which our house was built in 1985. The house is fairly new, but the land was an 1840s Mexican land grant that was acquired in the 1850s by a Scottish sea captain who had married into a Californio family. With me so far? I'm trying to learn about him and about his son (the son returned to England and died there). I've had relative success finding records for them on Ancestry, but am getting absolutely NOWHERE with FindMyPast. Any tips on finding stuff on FMP, or am I just out of luck? Briefly, what I know, focussing more on the UK and less on California. Captain John Wilson was born in 1798 in Dundee, Scotland (so it says on his San Luis Obispo, California tombstone, where he died in 1861). Using additional information about other kin, I believe him to be the son of John Wilson (1768, Dundee - 1839 Dundee) and Jean Wedderburn (1772 Meigle, Perthshire - 1832, Dundee). He can be found in Ancestry's "Scotland, Select Births and Baptisms, 1564-1950", which is an index ... I was hoping to find the actual records on FindMyPast. Captain Wilson married the widow Ramona (Carrillo) Pacheco in Santa Barbara, California. They had three daughters, and a son John Wilson (born 1843, Santa Barbara, California). The son was sent to "Europe" for schooling and never returned home, living in Liverpool at the time his father's estate was settled. The daughters stayed in California, married, etc., etc. Using Ancestry, again, I was able to find this younger John Wilson in Liverpool in the 1871, 1881, 1891 and 1901 censuses, the latter two decades in Toxteth Park. He married Georgina Margaret Wrenshall (Google?), and (FreeBMD, the census) had J. W. Wilson (1876), George L. Wilson (1877), Margaret Anita Gore Wilson (1878), Duncan William Wilson (1881) and Jeanie Wedderburn Wilson (1883). I'm not all that interested in tracing his descendants, but would like to know when he died (probably between 1901 and 1911 ... Georgina is a widow in the latter census). He apparently became a naturalized British citizen, and I'd be curious to see that record. Ditto passenger lists. And the 1851 and 1861 census records, if he shows up for those years. In 1871, he was living with his aunt Margaret (Wilson) Young (born 1801 in Dundee). Can FindMyPast shed any light on any of this, or I "done good" with Ancestry and need to be thinking of offline research angles? I've got a month to test drive FindMyPast and would like to understand why a subscription would make sense. I thought this would be a good test case, and am so far disappointed. Thanks in advance! Karen [email protected]