Hi Carole Thanks for all your help so far. I enjoyed meeting some of the Hawkesbury group at the summer fair and was sorry you were not there so I could at least buy you a drink as a thank you! I now have the marriage cert of John WATTS and Hannah PAINTER. It looks as if our instincts were right and the John WATTS was the one whose father was a butcher, but he has been careless with his age calculations. The cert reads :- 1854 Marriage solemnised in the Register Office Yate in the District of Chipping Sodbury in the County of Gloucester. Second August 1854 John WATTS - 31 years - Bachelor - profession Labourer - residence Hawkesbury - Father's name John WATTS - profession Butcher Hannah Painter - 31 years - Spinster - no profession given - residence Hawkesbury - father John PAINTER - profession Labourer ...... in the presence of John Painter and Hester Collins You had given me John's christening date as Oct 1821, which would give an age at marriage of 32, or possibly 33 if there was a delay between birth and christening, so some one slipped up somewhere, but I am happy to take the butcher /father link as definitive. If you are able to take me further back from your records that would be great. I have belatedly located the notes that my father made in which he says that John and Hannah's daughter Sarah Jane WATTS was ladies maid to the Duchess of Beaufort. Not all of his comments have proved accurate , but Sarah Jane went on to live to a great age and would have had opportunities to talk to family members, so who knows..... The James TOPPS that Sarah Jane married has proved to have Tetbury roots, and I have traced them back to the 1851 census. There seems to be a good network of researchers there, so I plan to lock into their system soon. Regards Liz