Janice wrote: "...my great great grandmother, Elizabeth Griggs Eanes c.1828-c.1893. She told her granddaughters that she was stolen as a child. One branch of the family says she was stolen from England; our branch says Ireland. This story has greatly puzzled us, especially because of her date of birth. Could this be true of an earlier ancestor?" Hi, Ms. Janice. Your tale is very interesting!! While I cannot speak to other than general principles, such might help a bit. Money could be made by procurers of people since the earliest days of the American colonies. Grabbing up "street urchins" and other homeless folks of any age (and even by outright kidnapping), as well as rounding up criminals and other social outcasts, from everywhere in the British Isles, and transporting those people across the oceans, was a means by which to supply labor to Canada, Australia, and all other colonies of Great Britain, including these colonies and later states. Not only the procurers and agents were paid for that service, but also, of course, upon delivery here and to the other colonies, the ship owners were paid for their loads of people. In the early days here, the agents of those ships' masters/owners often either wholsaled such cargo or went about the countryside peddling their human wares to whoever needed help. Then too, large landowners in need of such labor very often made known their needs to such procurers who, for profit, filled that request on their next voyage to here. Britain was not the only source; others occasionally were shipped from Europe. Paul