Thanks for your input. I used census & other basic tools 5 years ago to build up a tree and lost interest for a while but now looking to flesh it out a bit and wondering if there's any distant relation working on the same tree.
I didn't know if they were itinerant workers or there were family issues prompting their coming and going back to Ireland. We were led to believe he was a Welshman but declares himself in the census as born in Ireland. His death certificate (1908) suggests his father, John Jones was a sargeant in the Royal Irish Constabulary, possibly at Castlereagh, but I'm unable to take that further without a service number. It's not likely John Jones was from Knockbreda as RIC personnel were stationed away from their home towns to avoid reprisals. As is no doubt often the case in Northern Ireland and W. Scotland, my grandparents mixed marriage meant that there was no contact with our extended Jones family during my life.