Its good to see people back again!! The list has been very quiet and I've missed it!!! The wonderful thing about genealogy is all the skeletons that pop out of the closet! These bigamy stories are really interesting! The skeletons in our family's closet are the ones who were illigitimate and some close calls - a great shock to my elderly aunts (their grandparents - Alfred McGuigan and Maggie Jane Doherty - were both illegitimate). Their mother (my grandmother) married when she was pregnant (another shock!!!) Alfred and Maggie Jane married just weeks before my grandmother was born!!! Needless to say, my aunts, being brought up in a very strict Catholic family, were extremely shocked. I found it very amusing once I'd got over the initial shock, and I'm sure my Mom would have too. I only wish she were still here to know what I discovered! When you think of all the preconceived ideas we have of our ancestors, how upright and proper they were (so we thought!!). Yes, genealogy is an enlightening, often sad but very uplifting, pastime and has certainly opened my mind to just how much like us our ancestors were! Thankfully times, and people's opinions, have changed and life is probably much easier for us. The old stigma of having illegitimate children no longer exists and one can only wonder what our female ancestors went through. My great great grandmother (Catherine Doherty born 1849 in Dumfries I believe) has disappeared and I've been trying in vain to track her down. I managed to trace a Catherine Doherty born Scotland 1849, working as a servant to the family of Alexander Harvey in Didsbury, Lancashire in the 1871 census. Her daughter, Maggie Jane Doherty, was born in Chorlton, Lancashire, in 1869 but in the 1871 census she was living with her grandparents in Newton Stewart, with the name Maggie Jane Oxby! The mystery here is - where did Catherine go after 1871? Where did the name Oxby come from??? I have a birth certificate for Maggie Jane Doherty (father not named) and all the details seem to fit. I think this will be one of those mysteries never to be solved! Oxby seems to be a popular name in Lincolnshire - strangely we moved from Birmingham to Lincoln last year!!! Some ancestral influence I wonder???? We'll never know. Then there's the parentage of Alfred McGuigan!! He's named on his birth certificate (born 1869) as Alfred Guillard Ryland!!!! Now, where would a name like Guillard come from? His mother signed her mark with a X, so was obviously illiterate. Was Guillard the name of his father? His mother, Alice Ryland, married Andrew McGuigan in 1872. In 1871 there was no trace of her on the Scottish census. Alfred was boarding with someone in Falkirk if I remember correctly! Perhaps Alice returned home to Dublin between 1869/70 and 1872. Oh, these mysteries!!! So many things we'll never know, so many questions unanswered. Regards to all and more stories with meat on the bones please!!!!! Names are important but building on them and giving our ancestors a 'personality' makes it far more interesting. Linda (living in Lincoln, Lincolnshire - currently pouring with rain - AGAIN!!!!)