Needles in Haystacks.

[Nessie]

Having paternal gg grandparents who just put Scotland on the census returns and maternal gg grandparent who has Ireland on the census returns, how do you find their place of birth?
Is it better to accept defeat or go on banging your head against a brick wall?
How have other members dealt with this situation?

[Berlin-Bob]

Hi Nessie,

I have this problem too.

Sometimes someone in the family will say something to help localise it, but my main breakthrough came through scottish BMD certs, as they contain MUCH more info than english ones.

For instance: A birth cert. from one of the children had this info:
(excerpt from my website: http://www.margulies-chronicles.com/ag/_ferrie/fam-ferr-stevco.php

BIRTH
WILLIAM JOHN COLEMAN
28 July 1897, 30 Great Eastern Road, Glasgow
REF: 644/2/1221
Son of Warren Coleman, Engineer's Machine Worker and
Hessie Coleman, previously Stevenson MS Baxter.
Married 1886 May 18, Belfast.
Informant: Warren Coleman, Father.

Here for the first time, we have not just Ireland, but Belfast, in Ireland !
This ties in with various references and vague memories: "... she mentioned Belfast Lough ...", Hessie F.'s "... Mum's cousins, in Caith Hill, Belfast ... ", etc., etc.


Note that these other references only came after I had informed my M-i-L of the details that I had found on the above cert. !!!

I haven't got further than that, but at least it's a start. I also have to accept, that I may never get any further back 

Good luck,
Bob

[Nessie]

Thanks for telling me I am not the only one Bob.  It doesn't help that the names James Morrison and Margaret Collins are so common both in Scotland for James and Ireland for Margaret. The census's give a different age for both of them each time.
As I am the oldest member of the family, there is nobody to ask questions of now and I should hate to fool myself into accepting the wrong ancestors.