Hi Walt, >Hi Linda, Thanks again for your great input. > My brick-wall is Ire origin of Daniel McKenzie b.c. 1815. John not in >US 1880 census but in 1900 he listed as b. 8/1848 Ire with 1st papers (Pa) filed. Where in PA did he manifest and what was his occupation? Might suggest a few things.... Where was his wife born? >I have search for naturl. docu. for ten years and can not even come up with the >Pa's to compare/duplicate info with other records. Before 1906 (I think that's the year) you could get naturalized in almost any court. A lot of times people filled out first papers almost upon jumping off the boat, so they are not where the ancester finally settled. A search in PA is a massive search. You can find books on the topic of naturalization or some great info on the web. I can think of the local court (Phillie or PGH??), district state courts, federal courts. I've looked long and not found some myself!! Many are filmed and in LDS but so far hasn't helped me either.... Another thought I had about the Scottish origin is I am wondering if any of his kids were born in Scotland. If you haven't collected info on all his kids, do this. If you can find one born in Scotland you might get a lead into where in Ireland. I don't think you mentioned his religion. It seems to me that every Irish Catholic moved to the same parish outside of Glasgow. It went from a handful of Catholics to a huge number from 1800 to 1850, and continued growing. What was most interesting is that in the later 1800s the priest was surnamed Gallagher and many of the parishioners also were clearly from Donegal. I had a client I did some work for ... both ancestors had Inishowen surnames and of course this priest married them. I suspect they all knew one another from back home in Ireland. Also use the US censuses to learn about any folk living nearby with the same surname and who were from Ireland too. Might be old neighbors. Church records also might be useful, esp. if they were Catholic. If not, find their records in whatever church they went to. As you move past 1850, there are too many ship records for them all to be indexed. Generally you need to know when they came into the country and where from naturalization records before you can find them. You can't search what's online and then assume you did a thorough search. Ancestry.com is indexing more of the New York records. Until they did it the records of the Famine Years were not indexed at all. You have the other major ports too to consider. I usually use www.rootsweb.com/~bifhsusa for ship records searches. I do not know if it is up to date on what Ancestry has also indexed. I think you need more than a name match to be sure that he came in through Canada. It's a common name. There are no Canadian border crossings till almost 1900, and then we do not have a complete set either. >records etc. John d. 1902 & all my Ire ancestors US vitals etc. records just >list Ire as origin. Only Eliz. passg. record gave Ballymoney (12 in Ire) as Ire >residence which strongly suggest Antrim ? Religion would help. Most Presbyterians of Irish birth would be in Ulster....McKenzie is a Scottish sounding name, but then, many fine Scotsmen are Catholic.... Searching for the place of origin is a long and hard search unless we get lucky and find a smoking gun (Tombstone says he was born in Ballymoney, Antrim !!). You need to collect LOTS of clues. Like investigating a murder case. You profile him. Religion, occupation, etc -- anything. It's good to know the wife's surname. Sometimes you can get clues from middle names of the children. At your point in time, check any and all obits. Ie the newspaper might have had one but if h e was in a trade there might be a longer one in a trade journal. Or if he was an Elk or an Orangeman a periodical? I'd check the Ellis Island site too. My paternal ancestor, my g grandad Peter Mason, arrived through Canada around 1880, manifesting in Michigan and traveling a well known migration south to the coalfields of Ohio. He was from county Durham, a coal mining family. I encountered a lady researching a family from Durham that bore the surname of his wife. They came a generation before. I suspect many of the coalminers came from Durham and are related, just as many came from the area of Scotland where my grandmother's family originated. In the 1860 census there was one guy surnamed Dalrymple, born in Scotland in the area but 10 years later...many! Not surprisingly Dalrymple Prime was manager of a coal mine. He hired all his relatives. So my family followed earlier family members and village neighbors to the same jobs in the USA. How about yours? Found your connection?? You got one. Anyhow, as I said, they came via Canada in 1880 or so, but my great grandad went back to England. We knew that. I found that when he went back in 1900, his entry was recorded in Ellis Island. Got some more clues.... His mum died six months later. He went back to see her one last time. Did yours go back?? By that time he was running a pub in Ohio so he had a bit more money. www.ellisisland.com I think... I'm saying check out the whole neighborhood and pay a lot of attention to death records for him and his wife including obits. Don't stop with finding one obit, check all the local papers. One might have more details. Our forte here is the colonial area, not 1900. Check the naturalization info at www.genealogy.com/university.html for 1900 ish info that I am overlooking. I'm wondering if his sons might not have left some info on him, in draft records (WWI). Also check for someting that stands out: a son named Aloysious McKenzie. He was named after someone....who? You can use the first name to narrow down McKenzie populations in Ireland and Scotland where the first name occurs. Again, the wife's surname can help too. Like in the case of my client whose ancestors with two Inishowen surnames were married by a priest with an Inishowen surname in Glasgow -- hey!! We know where in Ireland to look for them: Inisowen or Belfast. Possibly Derry. The man was a machinist, as I recall. He didn't learn that fishing off Inishowen, well, I'm assuming they didn't use engines on the fishing boats in the mid 1800s. I might be wrong!! If you gather many clues, you can at least narrow down your search. Then your hire the IRA to set up a road block and collect DNA from the locals. I'm looking for red haired, musical ANDERSONS who were Covenantors and carpenters in the mid to north Antrim area. Actually...there is such a family (Donno about the red hair!). They built the mills at Bushmills, I was told. Now I just have to trap a couple and gather DNA <grin>. I don't feel like we're 'lost' anymore, at least, though I don't have proof that we are related to that family. I suggest finding him in Canada in the Censuses but the indexes aren't so good up there....my primary experience is with Ontario though. Anyone know if there are surname indexes for all of Quebec in 1871???? Ie if you can find out where he lived in Canada (or IF he lived in Canada) you could find other clues. If he was born in 1815, I gotta wonder wh y he waited so long to emigrate. Possibly he joined a child? He was no spring chicken in the 1870s.... You should be looking for a son or daughter in the local area before he manifests. Young men set out to start lives in new countries very easily, but not older men, like him. Most likely he joined family. Linda ________________________________________________________________ Sent via the WebMail system at mail.fea.net