TB, I know you always knew it, but how cool to find more evidence that your fam was fighting against The Man from way back!

Oh, here's another one. Andreas Koch (1759-1826) emigrated to Baltimore ca. 1798. Daughter Sophia Dorothea Koch. I can't find him in immigration records, I can't find him in a census, nothing. Everything I know about him is from a 3x5 card in my grandfather's handwriting/

Sorry, I can't find anything either. I think that a lot of the records back then were kept in church registers, and not too many of those are online.

Well, according to wikipedia, Finland didn't require hereditary surnames until 1921, and there were a bunch of regions that didn't use them before that. So it could just be that they had different names.

Hmm, Ok. Jacob had two other children (that I've found) who did share his last name. But Finns did do things a bit differently than others. Maybe Issac just wasn't feeling the whole Eliasson thing and decided there wasn't that much tradition to break. Thanks for looking into it!

I checked a database of births in England, and found people named Malcolm Cornforth born in 1931, 1943, 1944, and 1954.

Of all those, he'd most likely be the 1931 birth; that would make him two years younger than my mother.

Oh! Malcolm W Cornforth married Shirley Wood in 1964 in Yorkshire North Riding. But you said he came to the US in 1963.

Cool! That's probably him! He was living in the US for a while before he got his green card in spring 1963 (a few months before I was born). I have a copy of that document somewhere. He listed my parents' address as where he was living. (mm-hmm) (yeah, I'm probably one of those scandal-became-anecdote.) I'm fairly sure he wasn't married at that time. So he would have gone back to England to marry his bride and brought her back with him to New Jersey, where they lived happily ever after (because she never knew about me). As far as I know, they never had children.

Can you find where he was born? I know there's a town in England called Carnforth, because I drove through it (pretending it was my ancestral home), but whether he's actually from anywhere near there I've no idea.

Hil, is there a marriage or baptism record in Ancestry, in Maryland, for Georg Reiter and Dorothy/ea Koch? With a daughter named Sophia Dorothea Reiter, maybe? Edit: I would love any dates associated with that.

Malcolm Wright Cornforth, born August 26, 1931, Thirsk, Yorkshire North Riding. Mother's maiden name was Wright. Married Shirley Wood, 1964, Thirsk, Yorkshire North Riding. Then a bunch of records of living in New Jersey for years, then died September 1992, Ryedale, North Yorkshire.

Yes! That's him! I knew he died in the early 90s, but not that he died in England. I had no idea where he was born. Thank you!

Hil, is there a marriage or baptism record in Ancestry, in Maryland, for Georg Reiter and Dorothy/ea Koch? With a daughter named Sophia Dorothea Reiter, maybe? Edit: I would love any dates associated with that.

Born to Georg Reiter and Dorothea Katharina (in various spellings) Koch, all in Baltimore: Dorothea Sophia, 27 November 1804. Catherina Louisa, 13 March 1806. Andrew Friederich, 11 February 1808. Georg Friedrich, 3 January 1810. Johan Georg, 12 December 1810. Wilhelmina Henrietta, 15 January 1813. Then there was also a Georg Reiter born 20 December 1814, and David Friedrich Reiter born 28 May 1817, but there aren't any parents listed on those records.

Hey, James Herriot lived in Thirsk. Cool.

Yes! That's him! I knew he died in the early 90s, but not that he died in England. I had no idea where he was born. Thank you!

You're welcome. I'm pretty sure his parents were Robert Cornforth and Annie M. Wright, and they married in Thirsk in 1923.