My DOWNING interests are as follows: Starting at a Thomas DOWNING who married Kateryn COOPER on October 15 1568 in Diss, Norfolk, England, I can trace my ancestry down through my paternal grandmother Emma DOWNING, born in Usworth, County Durham, December 16 1879. The family mainly stayed in the area of Diss, and Roydon, a neighbouring village, until about 1845. There appeared to have been some who migrated before then into adjacent villages, including Suffolk and possibly Cambridgeshire. They seem to have been mostly agricultural labourers. (There were other DOWNING clusters in Norfolk, in the areas of Norwich, King's Lynn and Great Yarmouth, but I have found no connections between them as yet). However, in the mid 1800's, there was a major problem in agricultural employment in Norfolk due to the increasing population coinciding with mechanisation, and many people migrated from the area to other parts of England and overseas. My g.g.grandfather Jamed DOWNING, born August 31 1828, left Roydon in Norfolk with his older brother Timothy DOWNING. They both went to County Durham in North England, and became coal-miners. There are quite a few descendants still in that area. Meanwhile, the South Norfolk DOWNINGS largely went into the building trade, mostly as bricklayers. I have had contact with distant relatives in Australia and Canada whose ancestors incude DOWNINGs from the same family, who left Norfolk in the early to mid 1800's. My branch of the family seems to have been notable for longevity - if they first survived childhood! My father lived to 95, his mother to 83, and most of their two generation seem to have lived into their 80's and 90's. There were several who, despite being impoverished, lived into their late 80's in the late 1700's. I would be pleased to hear from anybody who thinks they might be connected. Adrian, in Southern Hampshire, England.