This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Classification: queries Message Board URL: http://boards.rootsweb.com/surnames.dunn/4028.1.1.1/mb.ashx Message Board Post: No problem, Brenda - I had already found out most of it! The Brixham Cornhills were a prolific lot, although they seem to have started off with just one man - Henry - in the mid 1700s. They were mostly mariners or ship owners and travelled widely, often settling elsewhere. Rhoda's own parents settled in Hull, and some of Rhoda's brothers and sisters ended up in Guernsey and Grimsby. Some of her cousins were born in Newfoundland. As for Rhoda's husband William Dunn, he must have died some time between the conception of Maria and Rhoda's marriage to Jon Moon. Maria was born in the quarter ended June 1859 so was barely 2 in 1861. So William could not have died before mid-1858. I think if you send for the death cert I found (I put the GRO reference in) you might solve your mystery! There is another death for a William Dunn in Totnes Deaths Jun 1857 Dunn William Totnes _b 1__ I checked the GRO image and it looks like 5b 116. Too early to have been William Snr, but could be William Jnr who disappears between 1851 and 1861. If you want to know more about Rhoda's Cornhill ancestors, I can put you in touch with Michael Stephens if you haven't already made contact with him - he has done a great deal of research and is a distant cousin of yours on the Cornhill side. He and I have been trying to plot a link between our two Cornhill families. Mine are mostly in Kent, in the Faversham/Whitstable area and there was a lot of sailing traffic between Brixham and Whitstable. One of mine, Adelaide, married in Portsea - though until then she had always been in Berkshire. In Portsea at the same time is a Samuel Cornhill born Brixham, a ropemaker, and his family. Coincidence? Probably, but you never know, especially as the Cornhill name is not common in the south of England at that time. We haven't found Samuel's origins yet, nor those of John Hutchings Cornhill, a shipowner in Brixham in 1850, but we are convinced these two are linked to the same Brixham family - which would make them cousins or even siblings of Rhoda. Another of mine, Samuel of Whitstable, moved to the Isle of Wight and raised another family of Cornhills. But all of the other Cornhills I have found in Hampshire and Devon can be traced back to Henry Cornhill who married Elizabeth Gameton/Gampton in 1758 in Churston Ferrers. Where he came from we have no idea! But given the link between Whitstable, Faversham and Brixham, he might well have arrived on a ship from Kent and liked Devon well enough to stay!