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Hello Rootschatters,

I am hoping that someone may be able to assist me in locating a birth certificate in Northern Ireland.

A baptism on August 30 1876 in Downpatrick's RC Church tells me that Ellen Owens was the daughter of Bernard Owens and Eliza Fox, but while I can find her siblings, her birth certificate eludes me.

Can I please ask if others mind looking her up for me, just for some new pairs of eyes? Her parents had married in 1858 so she wasn't illegitimate and as far as I can see as her parent's second youngest child, cannot see any evidence that she was adopted.

Any help you are able to provide would be warmly welcomed.

Kind regards,
Matt.

Hi all,

I hope this isn't a duplicate thread, but just wanted to share that I have noticed www.familysearch.org is currently indexing Cambridgeshire Bishop Transcripts, so it looks as though those of us with Cambs roots might finally get to see some images soon. The FS site says about 8% have been verified, so we might have to wait some weeks yet.

I remember visiting CRO a few years ago and all of their PR's were transcribed. If like me, you like to have copies of the images instead, this is a welcome step forward.

Just thought I'd share!

Kind regards,
Matt.

Hi again everyone.

Apologies - the notification of replies had gone into my junk folder - rude!

Wow - what can I say?

Thank you for all of this fantastic information - especially the obituaries and the newspaper reports into James Mackie's murder. That has come as a real shock but one that has meant I can now trace his descendants to try and make contact with them. It's a sad, sad story, isn't it?

I have been trying to find Isabella for years now and have often thought something within this family seemed awry. No marriage to be found for her in the UK and her husband disappears without a trace before she and Constance move to Canada. This now helps me close a specific part of the story, but I'm still fascinated.

i'll have a look through the Montreal Gazette papers when I get some more spare time as I'd quite like to find out what happened to the men who killed James. the report from the funeral certainly seems to paint a picture of it being quite an event.

It must have been awful for Constance

Thanks again - I sincerely appreciate the help

Matt.

Hello all,

I hope that someone may be able to add some clarity to a problem I have researching an ancestor of mine who fought in the First World War.

The man I am researching is my great, great grandfather, Sergeant 15471 Thomas James Griffiths, who served with 5th (Pioneer) Battalion South Wales Borderers from 1915 and was demobbed in 1919. According to the medal rolls compiled in 1920, he is listed as being 'attached to 19th Machine Gun Corps'.

So here's the issue I have: Thomas' service record does not survive so I am relying on a medal card to give me the date he went overseas and the war diaries of the 5/SWB. But because he is listed as being attached to the Machine Gun Corps, I am confused as to precisely which war diary I need to look at.

A brief look at the war diary for the 5th Bn SWB tells me there was indeed a machine gun section in the battalion which occasionally conducted duties away from the bulk of the battalion, but what I really would appreciate some clarity on is whether I rely on the SWB war diaries for Sgt Griffiths' movements or is there a MGC diary somewhere that I need to find instead/as well?

Any help that any of you awesome people could provide on this would be warmly welcomed; it's difficult not having his service record and as a result I am relying heavily on war diaries, and so I'm obviously keen to get his movements correct.

Thanks for reading this post and in anticipation,
Matt.