Dear Listers, I apologise for sending the second message, but being new to lists, did not realise that on clicking "send" the message just disappeared instead of arriving in my "outbox" first. Obviously, I thought I had done something wrong so wrote the second message, trying to remember what I had said previously, clicked "send" and exactly the same thing happened!. When I looked at the web site, there was the first message and then it appeared also in my inbox so it had gone after all. Now, the second message has appeared and you must be wondering why! Thank you so much, Jenny De Angelis for your information about finding vessels' details from the census returns. I had previously found Thomas and John on the Wellesley and had also found a great deal of general information about the training ship movement, how and why it began etc. from various internet sources but had not discovered the vessels link before. Using that information I found a John Williamson on board the ship "Lucy" in 1861, a cook and able seaman from Lerwick, Shetland and discovered that "Lucy" was then in Hamburg. Going back from there, it looks like my Grandfather could have been right about the Scottish connection because there was one John Williamson born in Lerwick with a father called Thomas! Now I need to find out where and when John died between 1861 and 1867 when his wife died, a widow. The Lucy is not listed for the 1871 census so perhaps she went down, taking my g.g. grandfather with her? Regards, Eileen