From: Audrey Bowne <acbowne1@yahoo.com> > Thanks for the help > It is hard to document any info before the 1st England census 1841? NOT so! Parish registers began in 1538 in the reign of Henry VIII, though few actually survive from that date but some do. You yourself said in an earlier message that you had over 200 Bownes before 15-something-or-other, so where did you get those from? Then there were poor law records, wills, manorial and estate records, legal records such as feets of fines, and many others. And, BTW, the first census was not in 1841 but 1801, though 1841 is generally recognised as the first census to include names and places. However, there are a substantial number of unofficial censuses before then, plus ecclesiastical censuses and so on, from which lists of names have survived in some places. > I was told that the original spelling was DeBohun. The only > alternative spelling I have been using is BOWN. Someone in England is collecting all the > BOWN info and has a website. I think his name is David Bown. I will send his website > address later. I have the BOWNE spelling started in 1330. < Thus, as I have suggested, you cannot have the evidence to link your Bownes to the earlier De Bohuns. You can only speculate. That Bowne may be a variant of Bohun or De Bohun is not evidence that directly links the two together. > Where would you find more info on Williuam the conqueror < Try Google and a few history books from your local library! > I read that alot of people are related to CHARLAMAIN/E spelling ?> It was spelt CHARLEMAGNE and mathematical estimates are that millions of people descend from him. However, the number who can actually prove it is tiny. Equally, there is a well-known mathematical connundrum which says anyone in Britain (not counting immigrants) who can trace their ancestry back for several centuries MUST be descended from William the Conqueror or someone who was alive at the time because the entire population of the country is estimated then to have been no more than about two million, while today it is 30 times that. However, we come back to the same problem - who can actually prove it with the documentary evidence? And, for some of us, nothing else counts! -- Roy Stockdill Genealogical researcher, writer & lecturer Newbies' Guide to Genealogy & Family History: www.genuki.org.uk/gs/Newbie.html "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." OSCAR WILDE