On Tue, 24 Jul 2012 14:17:41 +0100, Karen Palandri <[email protected]> wrote: > I thought perhaps they wanted to hide because of bankruptcy so I had a > look at the London Gazette. There was a court case Brain v Brain listed > which > went to the High Court of Chancery in 1847 which I sent you privately. > Could this be the cause of the change of name perhaps? Hi Karen and Listers, Thanks for the reference and thanks for the suggestion, Karen I've been thinking along the lines of some scandal, myself. I wonder if a member of the BRAIN family had committed some crime in the second half of the 1830s. The two BRAIN brothers I mentioned were using the BRAIN surname up to the mid 1830s, when they were having children baptized, and then by the 1841 census their surname had become LEWTON. It's a puzzle, but I'm much nearer sorting them out than I was, plus I think I've just found another BRAIN brother calling himself LEWTON at the time of the 1851 Oldland census and there's also a BRAIN grandchild in this John's household. Whippers Hill Piece 1944 Folio 0422 Schedule 044 He was John LEWTON, a shoemaker, aged 63, which doesn't fit with the date of baptism of John BRAIN, son of Richard and Ann, on 17th. August 1800 at Hanham, but he could have been baptized some time after birth or a mistake could have been made with his age on the census. Food for thought anyway. It looks like this John was having children baptized under the surname of BRAIN in Oldland, too. Josephine --