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I am researching the Biglands who lived in Birmingham in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.   My husband is descended from Joseph Henry Bigland and his first wife Elizabeth Maria Ashmore.  Joseph's parents were Edwin Frederick Bigland and Mary Jane Sykes.

If anyone else is interested in these families maybe we can compare notes.

I'm looking for any information about Henry Thomas Phillips who married Eliza Mona Thompson about 1918.  They had two sons that I know of, my grandfather George Percy Phillips, and Brian. 

Henry is supposed to have died before George's marriage in 1944 to Joan Redfearn.  George served in the Army during WW2 in the Far East - I understand he was in Burma.  He caught a whole list of diseases and was demobbed after the war suffering from ill-health that eventually led to his early death in 1953 at the age of 37.  Joan never remarried.  They had a son, who is my Dad.  Eliza came to visit my Dad when he was seven but he never saw her again after that and doesn't know what happened to her.

I'd like to know what happened to George's brother Brian and whether there were any other children.    The family came from Peckham/Camberwell.

I'm hoping to track down some information about my great-grandparents, John Hughes and his wife Catherine Connell, of Ballina, Co Mayo, who it seems married in Ireland, around 1922, had their first son, Edward and then came to Burnley or Padiham.   They were Catholics and were active worshippers at St John's RC church Padiham.  Their children were Edward, John, Patrick, Ellen and James.  Catherine died in April 1935 of double pneumonia and there was a requiem mass for her at St John's.  John died in April 1950 after being struck by a light engine whilst working on the line at Hapton.  They are both buried at Padiham Cemetery, together with their daughter Ellen who died in 1993 leaving a husband and possibly two daughters.

I wrote to Dublin for Edward's birth record but there was no trace of it even though I had all the details.  Even so I still haven't been able to find a trace of his birth over here.  Edward was my grandfather and served in the 2nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment.

Could anyone kindly look up Walter J Green in the 1871 census for London please?  He was born about 1841 in Lee, Kent, which is Lewisham, son of James Green, a merchant, and his wife Ann.

By 1871 Walter had been married for a few years and had a young family which included Louise, Katharine and Mary.  I don't know his wife's name which is the information I'm hoping to obtain from this look up.  Walter was a civil servant with the India Office - I gather he was an accountant or something similar.   

Many thanks for any help.

MrsLizzy