Sue, thanks so much for that information. I understand that there were planters named Ashby in both Nevis and Barbados during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. In fact, there is an "Ashby's Fort" in Nevis. Our Thomas may indeed have been the son of a 17th century transportee named John Ashby--if so, he seems to have come up in the world very quickly, for a commission in the Orange Militia is not cheap; nor is the land he bought himself in Stafford. Of course, Thomas' father could also have been transported as a POW from the English Civil War or the Monmouth Rebellion (there are still descendants of these transportees in the West Indies). Next question: is there an online source for marriages in the Caribbean in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries? we could paw through them and see if one of the Ashby fellows named Thomas married a girl named Rose anywhere in the Islands. ~Andy