Thanks Sandra, That was good advice. It gives me some hope! Cheers Karenn -----Original Message----- From: Sandra J Smith [mailto:sandra.s@ntlworld.com] Sent: Thursday, 28 July 2005 9:20 PM To: WESSEX-PLUS-L@rootsweb.com Subject: [WSX] Brickwalls etc To all those brickwall climbers! When I first started my genealogy 40 years ago, there were no databases, few deposited registers and even fewer transcriptions of registers. So when I cane up against my "brickwalls" the investigation had to be pursued along tried and tested research procedures. Most people were living within a few miles of their parish of birth (can't remember the source of that information, but I seem to remember reading that pre-industrial revolution, approximately 75% were born within a 5 mile radius) Draw a cirle round your parish of 5 miles radius - Parloc is ideal for this - and search each parish in turn. If you still cant findthe person concerned, extend the radius by a couple of miles and search those parishes too. One particular brick wall I had was overcome after about ten 180 mile round trips to the County in which I was interested. In many cases arrangements had to be made with incumbents of parishes to view their registers and in many cases a fee was payable. Today, life is so much easier, particularly if the LDS has filmed the register and it is available through a local LDS Family History Centre. However, one still has to resort to a systematic search through the surrounding parishes. Another point worth remembering is that even though someone claimed to be born in a particular parish, it did not mean that they were baptised there. Sometimes a child was baptised in the grandparent's parish, perhaps at the time of a family gathering, so it may be worth considering the parish of origin of the mother. Hope my words are not considered too much "teaching how to suck eggs" by experienced listers, but I thought that they might help anyone who is relatively new to genealogy. Regards Sandra ==== WESSEX-PLUS Mailing List ==== The Free BMD Project: http://freebmd.rootsweb.com/ Hampshire Parish Register transcriptions at:www.knightroots.co.uk www.knightroots.co.uk