Thanks Barbara, I tried substituting the prefix letter of C for K,J and M as you suggested but came up with no results. Is there further magic I should be working? All the searches resulting in marriage records of male or female using Hugh Wallis's program come from batch numbers starting in "M" All the christenings coming up with a result ( all female ) start with "C" Do the male births all fall into another category starting with "?" Or is the system of batch numbers purely random and the records of male christenings not included in the IGI listings? I would welcome your input Best Regards George Wallace