I AM researching my family history. Do your readers know where Barry Edge, County Durham, is? My great grandmother was born there in 1847. - Ronald Evans, Ferryhill Station.

I DO not know of a place called Barry Edge in County Durham and my guess is that the name is a mis-spelled record of Berry Edge. This was the name given to the area now occupied by Consett. Consett grew as a town from virtually nothing after the Derwent Iron Company was established here in 1841. Most people who came to settle in Consett were connected with the iron industry and I understand that a significant number came from South Wales. There was much coal mining in the neighbourhood of Consett. However this information presumes that Barry Edge is actually Berry Edge, so if any reader knows of a place in County Durham called Barry Edge, please write to me.

COULD you or any of your readers supply me with the complete score to James Cagney's Yankee Doodle Dandy. Did it really include the line, Put a feather in his hat and call him Macaroni? - AG Hall, Catterick Village.

THE musical film Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) paid tribute in a largely fictional story to a popular early 20th Century Irish American entertainer called George M Cohan. It is a rags-to-riches story and its release in the year following Pearl Harbour made it a patriotic, almost propagandist movie which helped to support the war effort. In the film Cagney (who plays Cohan) sings the lyrics to Yankee Doodle Dandy.

I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy,

A Yankee Doodle, do or die;

A real live nephew of my Uncle Sam,

Born on the Fourth of July.

I've got a Yankee Doodle sweetheart,

She's my Yankee Doodle joy.

Yankee Doodle came to London,

Just to ride the ponies,

I am that Yankee Doodle boy.

As far as I know, Cagney does not sing the more traditional and familiar verses which begin:

Yankee doodle came to town,

A-riding on a pony.

He stuck a feather in his cap

And called it Macaroni.

This more traditional song was popular at the time of the American Revolution, but the tune is thought to have originated in Britain and was used by the British during the French and Indian War in 1754. Other sources claim that a British Army surgeon called Richard Schuckburg wrote the song to ridicule the Americans. Variations of the song were also sung by the opposing sides in the American Civil War. Yankee Doodle was used to describe colonials as the word yankee derived from either Jan Cheese, a reference to Dutch colonists, or from an American Indian word yenghis meaning white man. Doodle is thought to mean backwoodsman. As for Macaroni, Oliver Cromwell is said to have rode into Oxford in 1653 with a feather in his hat called Macaroni. This was in emulation of an old Italian festive custom.

l If you have a Burning Question, or can improve on any of the answers above, please write to Burning Questions, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington, DL1 1NF or e-mail dsimpson