Hi Carol,
I'd prefer not to spend the kind of money a researcher would charge... but it may turn out to be my only option.
One problem is that I'm not sure whether the merchant navy records will contain any useful information. We know Morris' approximate birth, and I think it's likely that his records won't include anything useful.
Perhaps tracking his birth certificate down might be our best course... though when I found an email address for the appropriate department, they didn't reply. There is a postal address online, as well as a phone number, so maybe this is what we should do. Though I'm not sure even that will provide what we need, considering that marriages were so rare amongst slave descendants in Barbados (so Morris' birth certificate might confirm his father's exact name, but if his parents didn't marry, we're stuck for any indication of Brandford's birthdate). There's also the problem of not having any BMD index to search... so how does one find the year of a marriage... if it happened at all?
I have found an interesting pedigree resource file on LDS, though....
We know that Brandford is a common surname in Barbados, which confirms a plantation owner of this name at some stage... and we know that, whether a forename or surname, Brandford/Small must surely be descended from a Brandford.
I found a John (Brandling) Brandford, born 1668 in London, married Jane Croke in England, but died 1741 in Barbados. This looks likely to be the source of the later slaves of this name.
Genetic researchers have proven that most people of slave descendancy have white male ancestry along the way... at some point, possibly at numerous stages, white slavers have introduced their blood-line into the slaves. So it's fairly safe to assume that John Brandford or one of his descendants will have introduced their genes to the Brandford slave community.
This being the case, it means that any ancestry of John Brandford will probably be shared by any slave descendant who comes from a Brandford.... and the pedigree resource file traces John Brandford back to Alexander, Baron of Hilton, born 1185 in Hilton, County Durham (if I've counted correctly 16 generations between the 2 men) The line includes 2 Bowes and one Yorke... which both even have Royal links... so it looks quite likely that my chappy is an aristo.... and he always though I was HIS posh totty!!!