Hello Listers Apologies for not replying to your responses yesterday - I tried whilst at work using the email on my phone, but decided that I didn't really understand how it worked!!! Which is how I managed to contact Ron on his home email address. Firstly, many thanks to all who replied with help and suggestions. I now have a few more 'family roads' to travel down; as Adrian pointed out, it is perfectly possible that William wasn't registered at birth, but in case he was, I have looked at BMD and entered his forenames; first quarter of 1853 and Shoreditch, which produced around half a dozen possibilities (thank you Peter). I looked also under his mother's maiden name (which I thought was Eliza Matthews - assuming that he is part of the family I have found), in case he was illegitimate, but that gave me a zero result. But 'nothing' is very useful when it comes to narrowing down the possibilities. To check whether he was registered (or not) I will do as Nivard suggested, and send for a certificate without the reference index. And Jon, in 1861 the father of the possible family appeared to be living apart from his wife and I couldn't find the rest of the family. Nivard found him on board a ship in 1871 (possibly HMS Fi! sgard?), and Ron has now suggested a connection with China which is not something I'd even considered! Thank you Fee for your search too, the estimated DOB is three years different (from 1853) and his mother is Betsy (Elizabeth) so it is a possibility - I may have the date of birth wrong, as he may have lied on his enlistment paper. As I mentioned to Ron when I contacted him inadvertently off list, my G grandfather was obviously on the run from something - he died in 1907 when his dray (he was a brewers drayman) accidentally ran him over; so from his death certificate I believe that I know the closet thing to the truth about him - his name was William and he was 54 when he died - probably! It certainly is a 'tangled web', and I thank you all for your on-line 'brainstorming' - I now have other areas of research. Kind regards, Chris