John Wooding appears in the 1851 census with a birthplace of Buckingham. He was a tanner, aged 45. He must have been a journeyman as he married Harriet Alexander in Milton next Sittingbourne, Kent in 1828, had daughters born in Sittingbourne in 1830 and 1831, sons born in Hertford in 1833 and 1834, a son in Northamptonshire in 1836, and a daughter and son (John, my g-grandfather) in Bermondsey in 1837 and 1841. In the 1841 census he and family were in Olney. In 1851 John and daughter Harriet were boarders in Rochester while wife and rest of children were in Leighton Buzzard. Harriet was a widow in 1861 and she, her daughters and youngest son John all emigrated to New Zealand at various dates between 1858 to 1865. I have not been able to find any birth/baptism records for John Wooding around 1805. A Mark Wooding was a tanner in Buckingham in 1841, and other Woodings born in "Buckingham, Buckinghamshire" show up in some census records, so there were clearly Woodings living there. And a second question: Would it have been common for a tanner to move around so much in the 1830s and 1840s? Paul Wooding New Zealand