Bob

Thanks for your input.

The Laois FHC is not online, and from experience on other counties, the chances of them having any comprehensive coverage pre 1800 is small. So I tend to rule them out. The FHC system is not geared to enabling the researcher to trawl for information.

I have the Griffiths records, but they are more than 50 years on, and although they give a general guide to the density of a family surname, it is too late to try to link family groups, especially as I do not know who Mary HOLMES father was (I do not have the marriage record)

I am in Portarlington at the end of this month and am looking at the Lea C of I registers there. However the problem is that the marriage could have been in any of the surrounding Laois or Offaly parishes.

I have uncovered a Mary HOLMES born in 1803 in Coolbanagher Parish (a neighbouring parish to Lea), but it is not she, as that Holmes family know from their records whom she married.

The Blongs whom she married into have now disappeared from Portarlington, and I have had to rely on expat family information to build a picture of the Blongs.

I feel my best chance of sucess with Mary HOLMES is to unearth an ex-pat descendant

David.