OK thanks for the reply Mike.
With Evan he was transported to Australia in 1824 and his time in England during the court trial and then Australia and his descendants are well documented in Australia.
By the 1st Census in 1841 Samuel was already married and had his own family and he is traceable in following Census, 1851 & 1861 living not far away in Leominster, and I'm starting to piece together his descendants in an attempt it might lead into other trees, but I can't find any documents linking Samuel to his parents other than the christening in 1801 at Dilwyn.
At the time of the trial for Stealing Evan gave his location as Pembridge, so not far from Dilywn where he was christened, and with Samuel living in Leominster I'm assuming the parents stayed around that area.
The problem is the parents, John & Mary Preece, are in this time gap when there wasn't a Census till they would have been just the parents left at home, if they were even alive as they would have been late 60s to mid 70s by 1841, and as you say John Preece is a very, very common name, as is Mary Preece.
As for the younger John Preece, brother to Samuel & Evan, I'm assuming after he was convicted with Evan and went to jail for 6 Months he probably didn't go back to live with the parents and by the 1st Census was in his mid 40s.
I think as I indicated, my best hope I think is finding someone having done the Samuel Preece family tree.
I've narrowed down the possibilities of both John the son (out of a list of 51 born between 1790 & 1810), and both John & Mary Preece the parents (again from long list with John & a bit shorter list for Mary), through search records, but the rest is like picking a lottery, there is nothing I can see the ties any of them together.
I think I might have exhausted the searching by records, now it will be left to looking for some sort of connection in the names, or someone else's family knowledge.
Robert