Hi Wendy, oo... 'how a pro would do it". Actually....I'd ask you to bundle up all your stuff and send me copies. I'd spend a few hours or maybe a lot less (depending on contents) inspecting it and studying, and then I'd decide 'a plan of attack'. Based on what you had done and what you wanted to learn -- I'd try to figure out the fastest way from here to there. One time I was in dispair. The su rname was BROWN! The wife was a BROWN too. Trying to find out, of course, where they came from. They claimed Scotland. This was the late 1800s. They were in the USA censuses, claiming to be Scottish, etc, etc. Of course couldn't find them in a ship list in the mid 1800s. However couldn't find the births of any of their children or their marriage in Scotlnad. Something was wrong. Client provided a death certificate for the wife done by the county. Hmmm..... I have collected, back when I had money, lots of reference books, and I have read a lot of articles, etc. One thing I recalled was that you should go check the actual register for these deaths (births, marriages), held by the Pennsylvania county, since the county asked for more information than there were fields in the certificate form. People think a certificate, especially a 'certified' one is an 'original document'. It isn't. It's a twenty first century document that someone filled in. That means it could have typos and it could be missing stuff (this is not true for English and Scottish certificates, filled out at the time). So I drove to the courthouse, well, actually, the county library, wondering if I was wasting the client's money. NO! I found on microflim the actual register and it gave us the COUNTY IN IRELAND where she was born and the names of her parents. The mother was not BROWN (I rejoiced). I drove home. I found the father in the Tithe Applotment index on my CD. He was gone in Griffiths. I looked in the 1851 Scottish census and found the woman who died, unmarried, living in Scotland with her widowed mother. Apparently she returned to Ireland and married and raised her children. They were Protestants and didn't want to be thought to be Irish. This document was possibly the only document that existed that had all the information we needed. Since then I have found other cases like this -- one free transcribed on the Internet. Again gave the names of the parents and county of origin in Ireland. So this pro can't tell you want to 'go for' as she hasn't studied your 'case'. However often the situation is that you have to pursue a methodical genealogical approach. You get the stuff I explained before (or purchase Legacy) and methodically check everything, dotting the I's..... and either you'll find a magic document or you'll accumulate enough clues to put forth a theory which you can then test. One of the things the books I have read tell you to do when stuck (and we all are stuck on one of our lines, if not all), is to review what you have. Often the info you seek is in your records. I have also found that clients sent me the information they wanted me to find. In one case a pro in Salt Lake who makes WAY more money than me, did research and located a marriage record. Sent it on and informed client that it was probably hopeless to try to do Irish research as it is so hard and recommended an expensive friend. The client hired me instead. The marriage record in PA provided the name of the parents and the county of origin in IReland! She was right that she didn't know how to do Irish genealogy. She had found the magic bullet and didn't even realize it. I found the village where they came from in Limerick. But not everyone wins at the slots .... so then you got to do slow, methodical research and dot ALL the I's (ie getting the original, not a nice certificate). So sit down and inspect what you got for clues. Might pay off. Linda Merle ----- Original Message ----- From: "Wendy Neuman McGuire" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 2010 3:29:01 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: [S-I] James Reed research Linda – Sorry for the delay in reply. Thank you for presenting the avenues that you would use for further research for the James Reed family. It helped to hear how a pro would approach it. To develop the narrative I used census records (both federal and state), glo records, google and ancestry. I also explored collateral lines through James and Margaret’s children, including Joseph, James, Hannah and Mary Elizabeth. The 1925 Iowa census for Hannah Reed Brock yielded Margaret’s maiden name – Fulton. Thus far no signs of obits or wills though I realize they may be out there. <To find out where they lived in Pennsylvania, check the first deed.> The deeds found in Iowa and the possible land records found in Ohio do not have any information about previous residence in PA. I need to continue to identify the precise James Reed family in Ohio in order to determine the county and town. Local histories may yield mention of the family. I tend not to search family trees since they usually are not sourced. However, good to be reminded and search for clues --and then verify. <Naturalization records may have information but at this early date, probably not.> In most census records of Margaret Fulton’s adult children they refer to their mother's birthplace c. 1806 as “ocean”,“at sea” and Ireland. I’ll look for a 1810 census in PA for Fulton that would have a mark for a female under 10 years old, though we only know that Margaret and James were married in PA. It is not known if she lived there with her family prior to her marriage. If she used the Irish naming pattern for her children, her father's name may be Joseph. There is lots of work to do on this line and you provided great suggestions when I was feeling stimied. Now I need to remember to record where I have been in a systematic way. Have people created organizational check lists to save them from themselves? Searches for the name James Reed usually yield too many possibilities. Thanks! -Wendy Wendy Neuman McGuire ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message