Peter, I also have people paying me to do research. Wolverhampton also covers wednesfield and that cert relates to another benjamin bonr to thomas and sarah. Thx anyway. As he marries a HOWELL off of buggins lane in 1861 I am now wondering if the family may have been travellers. Howell is a traveller name buggins lane had a large contingent of travellers although his wife's family had a property and was a miner Rob Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device -----Original Message----- From: "Peter R Booth" <pbo08596@bigpond.net.au> Sender: staffordshire-bounces@rootsweb.com Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2012 13:03:59 To: <staffordshire@rootsweb.com> Reply-To: staffordshire@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [STAFFORDSHIRE] BURNS - The proverbial brick wall Rob, What indexes are you using? The very first possibility on FreeBMD is Births Jun 1838 (>99%) -------------------------------------------------------------------------- BURNS Benjamin Wolverhampton 17 311 Wolverhampton is the Registration Office for Bilston. So that all fits. I can't find a possible death of his supposed father. It could be he was in military and died overseas, but I'm wondering if he might not be illegitimate. Purchasing the above certificate would tell, but it won't show mother. I also can't find him in 1841, 1851 or 1861. But it was only a quick look. I suspect his mother remarried and he's under different name. There is a Sarah Burns marries 1840 in Wolverhampton as an example. But there's five possible spouses. While the certificate will give some information, I'd also look on Family Search for his birth or possible marriage of his parents c1837. Sorry. I have people paying me for research. There's a limit to what I can do for free. Peter ****************************** ATTENTION TO ALL:- When replying please remove the details that do not apply to your mail and change the SUBJECT LINE for best useage of ARCHIVED MATERIALS. ****************************** PLEASE keep your Anti-Virus and Anti-Malware software up to date. BEWARE of messages making it onto the List with a single URL. NEVER follow the link. It's usually from an infected source! ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to STAFFORDSHIRE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message