Hello list: Feel like tackling yet another elusive Scots-Irishman? Edward Parks was born somewhere between 1856-1863 in "N. Ireland" according to the 1910, 1920, 1930 US censuses, his death certificate and his marriage license. Of course, also on those same censuses, he was 50 in 1920, 50 in 1930 and 50 when he died in 1934. According to his naturalization papers, he was born in 1856 ... according to his marriage license, he was born in 1863. (Mathematically challenged, to say the least or else he tapped into Ponce de Leon's Fountain of Youth.) His naturalization papers state he arrived at the Port of New York on 15 July 1886 -- he's not on any immigration list anywhere, even on boats that arrived on that date. I checked the Canadian lists, thinking he might have snuck over the border and also checked Baltimore, Gulf Coasts, Philadelphia and San Francisco as well as checked into Australia in case he went their first in chains. Nada. Nowhere. Maybe he rowed across. To complicate matters, he stated on his marriage certificate that he was from "Wellingstown, N. Ireland" Turns out there isn't any such place. There are four different streets named "Wellington" in Belfast, there was a farm named "Wellington Lodge" in County Down, and there is a Wellington townland in Co. Tipperary which I've discarded entirely because he was always careful to specify "North of Ireland" as if it were an important designation to him. There is a "Warrington" in Northern Ireland...could that possibly sound like "Wellingstown" to an untrained American ear if said in a broad Ulster accent? I assume he was a Protestant because a) "Parks" is an English name originally, b) all the Parks families I've found in Ireland were Protestants and c) all the Parks families I've found in Scotland were Protestants. But he married an Irish Catholic woman in a Baptist Church in New York, raised all his kids Catholic and is now buried in a Catholic cemetery. His father was Samuel Parks, his mother Elizabeth McAvoy/McEvoy or MacElvoy. I can't start writing away for church records when I have no idea where to look. Any guidance/thoughts will be much appreciated. Julie Anne Parks Searching: Parks, Finley, Doherty, Donnelly, Flynn, McAvoy, Mahoney Hettrick, Cassidy, Donahoe, Donahue, Timmons, Winrow