Quote Originally Posted by Hamish
I have no proven details about my family other than details of my parents and that my late father told me that his mother came from Sutherland in Scotland. I've no dates for her nor precise locations to go on.

With that information, I went to Rootsweb.com, put in my own details and as much as I could of my parents - but the search told me that nothing could be found!

Do I exist?
Rootsweb.com is rather USA-centric, Hamish. The UK equivalent is GENUKI <http://www.genuki.org.uk/>

Your best first step would probably be to locate your parents in the census, as children, with their parents. That will give you the general area of their parent's birth, and you can go from there. There's good odds you could follow your family back at least into the early 19th century in the census.

Will Pratt