Thank you so much for the info. I've traced the family back to 1833 where they lived in New York for 2 generations. For some reason when I try to go further, records appear showing a Charles Elias Duncan as being the father of the first heir given the Erskine "middle" name. My dad said we could trace our line clear back to Ireland because of that one unique identifier and yet it's missing from the 1833 Duncans. I don't know if it's a mistake in documentation or a mistake on my dad's part. I did learn something rather interesting though. The first surnames were matriarchal. It appears the name "Erskine" was attributed to women in our early days. The thought occured to me that at some point a ggggggrandmother's maiden name was Erskine and rather than giving that up when she got married to a Duncan, (when patriarchal surnames became customary), her name was incorporated into the names of the male heirs. That's kind of wild, huh? Of course, I could be way off base :-)

Karen