Dear Larry and Coreen, I was very interested to see that you have been able to do some look-ups. I would be so grateful if you could shed some light for me. I have never had much luck in finding records pertaining to my great-grandmother Emily Elizabeth de Silva (alias Hudson). She would have been born in about 1860 - she had her first children (twins) in 1882. According to family lore, she is supposed to have been the illegitimate daughter of an English planter/businessman named Thomas Hudson and "a local woman" - whether burgher or Sinhalese I have no idea. On one birth cert (the twins')she is given as de Silva; on my grandmother's death cert she is given as Hudson; the legend is that she was left in the care of the de Silvas (with her sister Mary Jane) when Thomas went back to England... but I'm not sure Thomas did go back to England... I don't know if or where or when she was baptised, who her mother was, when she died - I think she died quite young. I know who she married (a soldier named Alfred Ernest Whatmore, who left the army, worked on the railways and died in Colombo in the 30s.) Oh, and at the time she had her twins, they seem to have been living in Cinnamon Gardens... can anybody explain how the family of a railway guard lived in what I gather is and has always been an expensive part of Colombo? I am pretty sure I have tracked down the right Thomas - he seems to have been born in London - but his daughters defy me. Any help appreciated. By the way, can anyone tell me if de Silva is more common as a Burgher name or as a surname used by Sinhalese? Many thanks, Becca Kenneison England.