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Only just John Luffman b Alford (Lincs 1798) m Sarah Sizer b Alford Lincs 1791. The rest just made the early to mid 19th century

Confirms my view of Ancestry thanks. Appear to have missed nothing. Intend to pursue the trees see where that leads.

We could have 'upgraded' (rather than added to) our network by improving the Euston to Birmingham line, for much less outlay than HS2 calls for.  More of the route was quadruple back in the 1950s ; parts were later reduced to double, and 20-30 years ago some were put back to quadruple to relieve congestion.  Spending billions for another (only partially separate) route just to save 10 or 15 minutes on a relatively short journey gives very poor value for money.  That is why it is called a Vanity Project, as much of its political value is to show that we can imitate the French - who have rather more space to do it in.

As things stand, HS2 will not even reach an existing terminus (unlike HS1) and trains will end in west London somewhere near Ealing.  And of course it will have only negative benefit for those disrupted by its passage nearby, as they can't use it - no stations !

That is a very good point, it applies to the West Coast main line, and similarly to the East Coast Main Line. Any government which is serious about upgrading the rail link ought to take a strategic look at the entire network, no doubt a similar situation applies on other routes too, but my rail experience is  mainly confined to those 2 routes in particular the ECML where an even better job of upgrading could have been done with more forethought ( like use of former RAF Alconbury and Finningley as an additional London airport, too late for Alconbury now). The big expense of this route would be the quadrupling of Welwyn Viaduct and its approaches.
As regards the foul up in London with no main lines continuous from south of London to the North, blame this on the 19th century House of Lords and in the main the Duke of Westminster who would have vetoed the lines unless they did not cross Euston Road.

The last three words very true! What a lot of money could be redirected if the project was to be abandoned ... but "they" will say they've gone too far along the road to pull back now, of course.

There are at least two practical problems with abandonment, and believve me as a former rail worker I firmly believe that a project to speed up the railway could have been implemented at a materially lower cost than the sums spent on HS2, but that is another argument!
 In my opinion "They" ie HMGovernment of whatever colour believe they have gone too far along the road to pull back now.
They probably have for at the very least these reasons:
1) Contractual obligations, in that if the project were to be abandoned now, the recipients of the contracts would sue (and win) for breach of contract. Not only would the contractors be compensated, they would also receive their legal cost which would be high to say the least.
2) This (1 above) could be overcome if the government involved was prepared to pass laws forbidding any case resulting from the abandonment to come to court if, they could get it through parliament and were prepared to show that they were an anti democratic authoritarian government, I don't think fortunately that either party would want this label available to their opponents to use.

 So, where next, and in future? Before they ever surfact major projects must be subject to a real and meaningful public scrutiny with measures in place to overcome the all to often seen "nimbyism"
Difficult, but in the long term best.Any government should be prepared to take difficult decisions for the public good, even if that goos is in the very long term, which I do not believe was the case for HS2.

I worked on the railway for 40 years, often in positions with personnel records involvement.
During that time I came across one solitary instance of a person with a One letter surname which I shan't mention as it might breach confidence. The person involved had to have his surname extended to the way the letter itself is spelt to enable a record to be accepted by the computers used in producing pay, rosters etc etc.
Has anyone else encountered a case like this, and if possible without breaching data protection regulations what letters were involved please?