Hallo Lawrence Did you try entering male and female when you were searching? Possibly Ann Births Mar 1842    PEARCE  Female St Jas. West  1 110 Possibly Maria Births Sep 1847    Pearce Female St Giles &c  1 74   St Giles in the Fields is close to St James and Clement Dane. I tried searching for Male Pearce/ Pearse/Peers/Pierce but no joy. If you go to www.freebmd.org.uk and just enter john pearce and limiting dates around 1850 you should be able to access the scans of the GRO register pages and scroll through the Ps for each quarter to see if there is a likely match. You can do it from Ancestry as well. I believe it's quicker to order certs off the FreeBMD site because the link takes you straight to the Identity and Passport Service pages. Use this link to obtain the URL as you will need to register with the site and receive a password before ordering any certificates. You can also use their checking facility (free) to ensure you are only sent the correct certificate. You have a choice of conditions you can enter eg father's name.   You will not find the marriages and births of the Clement Dane/St James/St Giles events on the new Ancestry section because St Giles has retained its registers and the other 2 parishes are in Westminster and their records are held in Westminster Library. The digitised parish records in the new historic ancestry section all come from the LMA/Guildhall holdings. I'll leave the census queries for somebody else to help. Hilary  Date: Mon, 5 Oct 2009 16:57:59 +0000 From: Lawrence Pearse <lawrencepearse@msn.com> Subject: [SRY] request for help or advice To: <eng-surrey@rootsweb.com> Message-ID: <SNT119-W124AE818A034E60FCED5AD0CF0@phx.gbl> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Hello everyone There has been so much wonderful advice and help proferred on so many topics lately that I wonder if anyone can give me some.  I have a family in the 1851 census, but can trace almost no birth/marriage/death records for any of them and no census records in 1861 or 1871.  One of them turns up in the 1881 census but his wife may have re-married by 1888 and there is no death record for him.  Suggestions of how to search or places to search other than census and BMD sites would be very much appreciated.  Details are as follows: The 1851 census records the following in St Clement Danes (yes, I know that's Middlesex but see below!): John Pearce aged 39 painter born St Anns Middx Ann Pearce wife 37 born Durham Ann Pearce daughter 9 born St Clement Danes Maria Pearce daug 5 born St Clement Danes Jane Pearce daug 3 born St Clement Danes - birth recorded in Strand, 1847, daug of John Joseph Pearse (note spelling) and Ann nee Richardson John Pearce son 1 born St Clement Danes Jane Pearce married in 1871 in St Johns Waterloo John Pearse (sic) married in 1873 in St Johns Waterloo and I can trace his children (a mixture of Pearse and Pearce) John Pearse and his wife and family are recorded in 1881 (under Perarse) in Broadwall, Christchurch, Southwark John Pearse's wife appears to have re-married by 1888 when she had a son by another man (Thomas Henry Wright) in St Saviour, Surrey, when she is recorded as "late Pearce, formerly Mayston [known to be her maiden name]"; she is recorded with her son and new man using his name in 1891, together with her children by John Pearse, but there is no trace of a marriage record (she may of course have been simply living with the new man but using his surname) nor a death record for John Pearse, though he is certainly dead by 1904 when one of his daughters married. I can find no trace of the family of John Joseph Pearce and Ann Pearce (or Pearse) in the 1861 or 1871 censuses, nor any of their deaths or other marriages. Suggestions gratefully received! Lawrence Pearse