Hi Colin & Margaret, the honest answer would have to be "I don't know"! I have a definite link back to Joseph Middleton, born in Dent in 1822 whose father was Thomas. There we run into a problem because there are two Thomas' born in Dent in the right period, one in 1793 and one in 1784. The one in '93 has a good lineage backwards and was the one I THOUGHT I'd traced my line to. The one born in 1784 may have been illegitimate, because there's only a mother's name at his birth and I have no other information yet. Some people who share the same line believe that we descend from the 1784 Thomas and I haven't yet formed a final opinion. In the family of the 1793 Thomas, whose father was also Thomas and whose mother was Elizabeth (nee Nelson), he has 8 children with his wife Jane (sometimes Jennet) Allen none of whom were named Mary. Thomas and Jane were married Christmas Eve 1814 Not much help, I know, sorry abut that :-) Pete Hulme