Hi David   Thanks so much for your help.  I am now beginning to suspect that the reference I found for a William, son of Squire in America is nothing to do with the English Bowkers.  It was just that "Squire Bowker" is such an unusual name, I felt I had to follow it up.  Thanks for the info that you sent, which I hadn't seen before.  Will now check more to see if I can link John Bowker to Squire - many thanks once again.   Joyce   --- On Sat, 23/7/11, David Wightmore <[email protected]> wrote: From: David Wightmore <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [ENG-MAN] Squire Bowker To: [email protected] Date: Saturday, 23 July, 2011, 7:56 Hi Joyce, First off, no relations or family knowledge... Elizabeth BOWKER died at age 40 in 1860  (lancashirebmd.org) I suspect that Squire had a (perhaps, older) brother named John, who married Hannah WOLSTENHOLME in Radcliffe in 1846.  Again using lancashirebmd, with the surnames BOWKER and WOLSTENHOLME, district, Bury between 1840 and 1860, there are a total of 6 children, one of whom is your John James born in 1850.  The others are Elizabeth (1848), Matthew (1850), Thomas (1851), James (1853), and Mary (1856).  The first two are John and Hannah's children (from familysearch using the batch number search) and I suspect the rest are as well (nothing shows after 1850). I had a quick look through Radcliffe in 1861 but, not having an index, I didn't find much... hth a little... David     ~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~ PLEASE and THANK YOU -- Don't cost a thing and mean so much. ~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~ ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message