Carolyn Archambault of Granisle, British Columbia, Canada, writes: I am trying to locate the birth of George Dallas born about 1824 at Reed, Herts. I did a family search and came up with this info Film number 6142825. I live in a remote area in northern Canada where there is no family history centre. I would be most grateful to find out how I can obtain this birth record so I will know the parents names.

The IGI at familysearch contains many useful references - mainly extracted from parish registers and a lot of very misleading dross - see The Limitations of Familysearch. An entry with an "about" date and only a film number reference is normally a wild guess - and I would even doubt the place given for the birth. If you search using the surname Dallas and number 6123825 you get 5 miscellaneous references and none of the others would appear to be related to the George in any way - which reduces confidence in the quality of the information still further. I would suggest that if you followed up the reference you would be very lucky to find anything useful. If there was any information about his parents or wife (even wild guesses) these would also have been recorded in the index - so one can be certain that the record would not help you in this matter.

What I can say is that while the 1881 census shows that the name George Dallas is relatively common in the British Isles the surname Dallas (with any given name) is virtually unknown in 19th century Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire (Reed being near the Cambridgeshire border).

I would suggest you treat the reference you have found as a red herring. I suggest that you look at My Ancestors emigrated from Hertfordshire - and if you still feel that there is good evidence that your George Dallas had a Hertfordshire connection feel free to ask a further question.

August 2002

Deborh Taylor writes  Re the name George Dallas in Hertfordshire: Although later than the date of your original enquiry, the name "George Barnes Dallas" appears on the Boreham Wood War Memorial.  Research shows he was a Lieutenant in the 8th Bn Machine Gun Corps, killed 1st Sep. 1919 and is buried at Archangel Allied Cemetery, Russian Federation.

If you can add to the information given above tell me.

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