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Please can someone advise me? Over the last 6 years I have developed quite a good family tree using mainly online resources, but I think I have now exhausted Findmypast and Familysearch. Most recently I have been using the text search facility in the Bishops Transcripts on Familysearch for parishes in SE Kent (although I can't see the images there are some leads I'd like to follow).

I am just not clear how good their coverage is and I am wondering whether there is anything to be gained by spending a few days in Maidstone looking at the originals. Do they still have records that aren't included in online sources?

I have a gap in my line between about 1755 and 1783 that is very frustrating!

Thanks in anticipation

Betty Macey

Hello.

I wonder if anyone can help me confirm when the tradition of highlanders meeting under the railway bridge began? I've found a reference in a Glasgow history that says it was at its peak in the 1920s and 1930s but I'd really like to know whether it dates from the construction of the first railway bridge over Argyle Street in about 1879.

There is a family tradition that my great-great grandfather played the pibroch under the bridge. I now know that he was a ship's carpenter born in Islay about 1833. He was based in Port Glasgow or Greenock most of his working life when not at sea but came to Glasgow from Greenock in the late 1880s. He died in 1898 so his musical career in Glasgow definitely predates the bridge built between (I think) 1901-1905.

Thanks

Betty

Can anyone help with the parish records for St Peter and Paul, Sutton-by-Dover, please? I am looking for the christening of Ann May born about 1780-1790. She married Joseph Dison Meecy (Macey) at St Leonard's, Deal in 1807 and in the 1851 census she was living in Walmer and gave her place of birth as Sutton.

Many thanks.

Betty Macey

Hello.

From Familysearch I have a reference to a marriage between Robert Masse and Ann Hammond at Godmersham on 12 October 1720. Batch no IO4623-0 lists 4 other marriages that year in Godmersham.

However the parish registers for Godmersham on Findmypast (images 76 and 77) show no marriages at all in that year. There is an entry for 1720 and a blank space before moving into 1721, and there doesn't appear to be a page missing as you can see the ink seeping through on the following image.

Can anyone suggest where else I might look?

There is also a baptism record for John Mace, son of Robert and Ann, 14 May 1721 at Godmersham.

Thanks

Betty

It certainly looks more like Mercer than Messey. Is the second reference the same?

The Macey-Mercer variants may seem far-fetched, but I became quite satisfied after finding all the different forms that the name was transcribed in such wildly different ways. I didn't find Mercer until slightly after I'd got used to Meesey and Maser and so on. My ancestor Rebecca Macey had a brother, Joseph, who lived most of his life in Walmer and was known as Joseph Mercer. However when he married in 1843 it was to a Deal girl at St Leonard's under the name Macey. Rebecca was one of his witnesses and a few years later she married the nephew of Joseph's wife.

Rebecca's first son Edwin Macey was born prior to her marriage and he and his descendants have always used the form Macey. Needless to say I have given up all hope of ever finding out who Edwin's natural father might have been!

Regards

Betty