Hi! Listers, I am new to the list, researching Forster and Williamson in the South Shields area. Frances Forster ( parents William Forster from Tanfield and Mary Unknown from Newcastle) married John Williamson ( a mariner) in 1856 at the Holy Trinity Church in Westoe, she died in 1867, already a widow. Their two orphaned sons, Thomas Forster and John William Williamson I believe were on the Training ship Wellesley at the 1871 census. If any lister knows anything at all about the records of the Wellesley, I should be most grateful for information. Hopefully they may contain a clue as to which of the many John Williamsons from Co. Durham, mainland Scotland or Shetland , was their father. The only clues I have so far are that he died after the 1861 census and before his wife died in 1867, and I know his father was called Thomas. My grandfather, Thomas Forster Williamson the second told me when I was a child that our ancestors came from Scotland and before that , they came over with the Vikings but how many generations back and was he right? Regards, Eileen