Stephen Think I may have solved the problem. I've traced Thomas right through from Ramsgate to Newtown, Bembridge, Shanklin, Ryde, Hastings and then to "Caslek Bay". The important bit of information is the number alongside the Name in the "Station removed to" or "Station removed from" column. This is a reference to the "Folio". The folio number is on the top left corner of every other page, so on Page 195 the folio number is 99. Now if you look at Page 4 of the whole document you will find an index of stations "in England". Folio 137 is allocated to Wall End station, but this was abolished in 1833 (see page 272). So here it seemed like my theory fell down, because there is no record for Thomas on Folio 137. Then the penny dropped. This document covers only Stations in England. There must be another similar document for Stations in Ireland. It seemed odd that there were very few transfer to Caslek Bay, in fact I only noticed one, a John South on the same page. Then I did some "googling" for Caslek Bay, and eventually tried "Casleh Bay", and Bingo. Casleh Bay is in Ireland and is also known as Costello in Co Galway. You can find a reference on the Coastguards of Yesteryear (an Irish Coastguards site) at http://www.coastguardsofyesteryear.org/articles.php?article_id=96 I'm afraid from there the trail goes cold as far as I am concerned, I don't know if the Irish Coastguard records are available anywhere. If not perhaps Tony Daly on the aforementioned site can help. Hope this all helps. I may be a bit geeky, but I love following up these trails, even when I don't have any particular interest myself. As an aside while looking through the ADM/175 file I did find quite by chance a possible lead for the future for me, I just spotted an "Agnew" from Donaghadee who was stationed in Shanklin, Agnew is one of my wife's family from Northern Ireland. Cheers Jon Baker -----Original Message----- From: Stephen Shafer [mailto:shpcount@earthlink.net] Sent: 19 October 2009 22:03 To: Jon Baker Cc: chriscjbartlett@hotmail.com; Creal, Michael Subject: Re: [HAM] enquiry re place name Caslek Bay (?) Hello, Jon It's on or about p 195 of the pdf under the Hastings station . Transfer date is 18 June 1842. Thanks for all your help. You should know that just this afternoon I got an email from my cousin in England who was aware of my Crea = Creal hypothesis but hadn't had a chance to say explicitly that by the records he has seen Thomas Creal the lighthouse keeper at the 1861 census was on active duty in the RN from 1823 to 1857. He could thus not be the Thomas Crea who was in the Coast Guard 1836-1842 (possibly earlier and possibly after 1842 also). My cousin has not had a chance to send me the documents about Thomas Creal's service to convince me that admiralty records place him in the Navy for all those 34 years. He's probably right. Waiting for them to come, however, allows me to cherish a little longer the faint hope that Thomas Crea the Coast Guard boatman at Hastings 1841 and Thomas Creal the lighthouse keeper 1861 are the same person. I like that because it gives me "fixes" on him, not because one branch of service is better than another. If they are the same person, however, I still have to account for a son born about 1834; that's a sticky wicket. Is it possible that admiralty records could get blurred so that service in CG would not be distinguished from Naval service? Did people ever cycle Navy to CG back to Navy? I tried sending something to the list saying how helpful you had been causing me to revisit the census, but it bounced. Don't know whether it was too long or the "footer" interfered. What is the "footer," anyway? ccs to Creal relations following this case Cheers, Stephen ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jon Baker" <baker.jon@sky.com> To: "'Stephen Shafer'" <shpcount@earthlink.net> Sent: Monday, October 19, 2009 4:22 PM Subject: RE: [HAM] enquiry re place name Caslek Bay (?) > Hi Stephen > Glad to be of help. > > I downloaded ADM 175/6 (as it was free), can you give me a pointer on what > page "Caslek Bay" occurs. > > I have some Coast Guard folks as well, although a bit later, > coincidentally > also at Bembridge. > > Thanks > > Jon > > -----Original Message----- > From: Stephen Shafer [mailto:shpcount@earthlink.net] > Sent: 19 October 2009 14:15 > To: Jon Baker > Subject: Re: [HAM] enquiry re place name Caslek Bay (?) > > Hello, Jon Baker > I am very grateful for your inquiry, because it showed me you had found > "Thomas Crea" in the regular 1841 English census, yet I had not when > using > ancestry.com as a search machine. I had only found him through that > special coast guard file in genuki whose url was posted in the HAM board a > while ago. When I looked again using ancestry.com this time "Thomas > Crea" > did come up just as you said, as a Coast Guardsman in Hastings. (Also > there > > was his son James, aged 7. I don't know what to make of James) > > > As to your question about "Caslek Bay." That comes from the file ADM > 175/6 > in the National Archives, which I downloaded last week to another PC much > more capacious than mine here (it took two hours to do it, as the file is > almost 700 mB). > >