This discussion reminded me of a certificate I have that made me smile. When my g-g-g-uncle, having spent 15 years in India, returned to England and left the army he married. On the certificate his father is named accurately, but is described as a labourer. This is in 1868. I can find no trace of his father in any record after September 1832, and I am prepared to take a small bet that the person filling in the form substituted labourer as the groom hadn't a clue what his father had been doing (assuming he was still alive!) after he'd sailed for India in 1849. Mind, if anyone can disprove that by finding a William Thurgood, born in Hempstead, after 1832, I'd be overjoyed! Adrian