Hi sre, and thanks for your swift response.
My grandmother was Evaline (various spellings) Maud Taylor b 1887 Pembroke Dock, the younger sister of Margaret Alice Taylor, whom I met briefly when she visited my family's home in Smethwick ~1965. My mother is Evaline Amelia Brown née John(s) b 1921 Pembroke Dock (still living). A few days ago I received a message on Ancestry from a lady named Kathryn Hughes, whose father was James Cyril Evans (1921 - 1986), one of the ten children of Henry Prosser Evans and Margaret Alice Taylor. She told me that she was a novice at family history and asked for any information re. HPE & MAT. Since I had already extensively researched the Taylor family I was able to help her on that side, but I struggled with the Evans family, particularly as the dates & places of birth on Army documents didn't match other sources. I had a suspicion that he might have added a couple of years on to his age on enlistment so thank you for confirming this. This morning I have received another message from Kathryn (now resident in Australia) containing HPE's Army record plus a family tree that has just been supplied to her by another family member. This gives HPE's parents as John Evans (1834 - 1874) and Eliza Prosser (b 1838). Fathers of these are given as John Evans and John Prosser respectively, but no dates.
If you are an Ancestry subscriber my username is algobr666 (I'm not sure whether this information alone allows you to look at my family tree) I am now living in Neyland in Pembrokeshire and have been able to make use of the County Records Office for research, and am reasonably confident of the accuracy of my results on the Taylor side, going back to George Taylor b 1821 in Ilsington, Devon; his father possibly Joseph Taylor (1781 - 1853); his father possibly Richard Taylor (no dates).
I would be grateful for the sight of any original documentation relating to either of these families plus any other information that you may have dug up. Also: it may be peripheral to your interests but my mother tells me that MAT had another sister, known to my mother as 'Aunty Sophie'. This lady has a variety of names in the documentation that I have found, i.e. 1883 birth records suggest Mary Sophia Taylor (may be another individual?) 1891 census = Sophia Taylor 1901 census = Maria M Taylor (surely some error?). My mother tells me that she moved to Scotland and died there ~1926. This left MAT & Evaline Taylor as the only surviving members of a family that had had nine children born living (according to 1911 census John Joseph Taylor).
With thanks in anticipation of any assistance that you may be able to offer.
Alan Brown (b 1951 Birmingham), now resident in Neyland, Pembs.