Since this line of TURNER is unique, I thought I'd give my few cousins on this forum an update. Oral family history always gave a very detailed account of William GODWIN being a young lad in the British military, being involved in a battle between British troops and French troops near the Irish Sea, his position being overrun by the French. He then decided (along with some friends) that they were no longer interested in the war and they made their way to an Irish port and took ship for America, adding the name TURNER to his name to avoid bringing shame on the GODWIN family. Well, folks, I am on the track of finding out more about this since I have found that there WAS a battle in Ireland where French troops overran British troops (during the short Irish rebellion in 1798). And so the implausible has become the entirely possible. I'm now reading a fictionalized account of this event and hope to trace the name of possible regiments William GODWIN could have been attached to. This gives me a very high chance of finding out much more about him. Sue Bishop, digging at the roots of the family tree