This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Clark, Clarke Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/EgC.2ACE/10086.2 Message Board Post: Hello. This will not help your research. But, I'd just like to mention one of my "brick walls." James CLARK mysteriously appears to Rhode Island, USA, in the 1820's, marries in a nearby Massachusetts town in 1829, fathers a baby girl there is 1836, but does not show up in an 1850 Census report with them. It turns out he might have been the James CLARK who got on a ship in New Bedford, MA, in 1845 which was heading for a 4-year voyage to the Indian Ocean. He deserted that ship in NSW, Australia, never to be heard from again. I am told that many of the men doing similar things changed their names, so they are practically impossible to trace. We have NO idea whether our James CLARK arrived in New England from the British Isles as a young man, or whether he was born in New England.