Hi Julie, >Linda, I spent three excruciating days at NARA in New York City last month >combing the passenger lists on microfilm, looking for two months on either side >of Edward's proclaimed arrival date on his naturalization papers, turning up >nothing other than severe eyestrain and headaches. Then here is what I suggest, which you will not like: hire an expert. I have done this personally on a couple problems and gotten very good results. I have also done it for clients and gotten very good results as well. I know I didn't like hearing it the first time. If the expert cannot locate him, then you know he isn't in those records. If the expert does, then you have the information. An expert is someone who has a lot of experience with New York Passenger lists (It doesn't matter if the person does it free or is 'certified', etc: what matters is that they know this record WELL). The second thing you must do is let the expert do the job. The expert I consulted in an English Civil Registration problem insisted on checking the censuses too, though I had already done that. I was stupid. He used the censuses to 'triangulate' the civil registration results and ultimately produced the records I needed - with proof that they were the right ones despite some inconsistent information.) Seriously, this is the only way to go beyond going back and looking more yourself. > I have only been that >thorough with the New York arrivals, because basically I'm assuming he wouldn't lie >or misrepresent himself on his application for naturalization, while he might >be more casual with the truth on other, less important, documents. Right, I agree, that's why I think it is there. I would also have the expert inspect the naturalization records too for some small clue that might strike the expert as important and that we'd all miss. On the professional list I am on, people do this all th e time. They know that they can't know everything and that when a diligent search doesn't produce the expected results, it's time for an expert. Seriously, I looked for a Tennesee grant for months and months. The man's will left 200 acres to a son: the 200 acres 'granted by North Carolina' (Tn was NC then....). I got an expert. Took him 2 minutes to find it and cost $3. The problem was the man didn't get a warrant. He bought it from another man so he wasn't in the warrant index. He also was missing from TN indexes for grants. Probably in the county index -- it wasn't filmed or available to me. The source used by the expert was not available to me. Next time I know the books to check!! (I don't claim to do TN genealogy...esp. after THIS experience <grin>). >I assumed if I could pinpoint his townland with some certainty, I could then >begin checking the FHL microfilms for any church records that might have been >indexed, as well as write off to others that are still in existence. Is this >not the case? Yes, that's a good way to go. There are not a lot of Irish church records filmed by LDS. There's a collection from Ulster that I have used a lot by I think Mettam. But it's only a handful of churches. It's probably 'worth it' to run him through the aggregated indexes. For Co Down and Antrim The Ulster Foundation has indexed them. You can find them on the web. This makes sense if you can narrow it down. Warrington does sound promising. However most people in Ulster didn't necessarily go to the nearest church. The Catholics attende their parish and so do the Church of Irelanders. A third of the church of Ireland parish records burnt up in 1922. The Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, etc, they all could go wherever they liked. In Warrington, people could go to church in Louth if they wanted. We tend to get too fixed on county lines as barriers. To spend a hundred or so dollars searching all the indexed church records in ANtrim and Down is an immense bargain, but if Warrington is where he's from and you can't find any records, consider Louth. > That he made certain so often on American church records and >censuses that "N. Ireland" was specified, even before the Irish Free State and Ulster >split apart politically, I felt that he was making a statement, that it was >important to him to be differentiated, possibly for religious reasons. I think he was making a statement about the "north of Ireland", a region. Unless he was psychic, before 1922 he could not have known most would be a different country. However people deeply into the regional identity of Ulster would probably be Protestant, so I agree with you about it suggesting his religious bent. > I have >absolutely no intention whatsoever of <<can pay to have a search done of >indexes for records that are indexed -- 32 times>> which is why I'm trying so hard >to ascertain his townland. This would result in a lot of money spent and not very good results, as we don't know if he appears in any church records that are available at all. Many are not indexed or never existed. NOT the way to go in Ireland until you have specifics. Since you have the name of his parents, consider searching the civil registration indexes for other children born with the same parents to get the location. LDS has the indexes. Or even for the marriage of the parents. You may want to hire someone to look at all the stuff you have collected to see if he/she can find any key clues. This struck me when I first was told it as very stupid advice, but <gulp>! I've found a number of times that I did have the evidence in my files but couldn't see it. Fresh eyes help. I am lucky enough to have a sister who is good at finding my blindspots <grin>....free!! >Apparently, poor, landless, Irish immigrants did not leave a wealth of documentation >around, even after they landed in the States, but I will re-read THE SOURCE one >more time and see if there's anything I might have missed. This is the truth....Still all you need is one clue, one inadvertent slip by one grandchild who has one other findable placename, for example. A middle name that is unique to a place in Ireland, the name of a family camp that is named after an Irish placename....anything. Another possiblity is to widen the search to include more associates and neighbors. This is advice I also thought was very stupid when I first heard it. I think we were working on KELLYS at the time. OUr idea was to make a spreadsheet of every old Kelly in Westmoreland Co and to reserach them all to determine if they were the parents of our brick wall great great granddaddie. A lot of work. However in the census there is ONE Kelly family in the township and instead we were able to find connections in court cases. We also realized that the witness to his will was not the local minister but the minster son of another ancestor of ours who was minister at the RP Presbyterian church in Wilkinsburg. We researched that congregation and did learn there was a KELLY family in early Wilkinsburg associated with the RP church. That means we have two good leads on Kelly families in two specifical locales with known connections. So we revised our opinion of this piece of advice too <grin>. The name of the witness was one of those pices of info we had in our files for decades but the significance of the witness to the will never hit us. I have learned most of what I know the hard way !! I think if you keep chugging on you'll bag your man. Linda Merle ________________________________________________________________ Sent via the WebMail system at mail.fea.net