Hi Lorraine,

Thanks for the reply.

My current brick wall is my 5gt-gf John CLIFFORD born about 1778/79 and always called CLIFFORD in the PRs and other records, but who for some reason always appeared as CLIFTON on the censuses (1841, 1851, 1861).

I have reason to believe this John originated from Buckinghamshire; he said on the 1861 census that he was 84 and born Gawcott, BKM (a village near Buckingham town and a chapelry of Buckingham since 1806), but have not been able to find a baptism for him there despite intensive searching in the Buckingham Hundred. He appears on the 1798 Posse Comitatus as a servant in Lenborough, BKM (another area of Buckingham town) and the first mention of him I can find in any PRs is when he married Elizabeth HOLLAND at Buckingham St Peter & St Paul 9 Sep 1798. My 4g-grandfather William was born to them at Gawcott 10 Jan 1799, and baptised at Buckingham 13 Jan 1799. Thereafter John & Elizabeth moved to Finmere, OXF where they had eight more children and populated the village with Clifford/Cliftons for the next 100 years. John died in April 1863 and was buried at Finmere 14 Apr 1863 aged 84 years. Oddly, it is only after his death that all the Finmere Cliffords stop using the CLIFTON surname on the census returns and shift to CLIFFORD.

I believe my Clifford/Cliftons were in and around the Buckingham/Tingewick area all through the 18C - I find them there in the early 1700s and again in the last twenty years of that century - but there is a complete lack of records of them in the area between, say, 1740 and 1780. I wonder if it's possible they could have been an Oxfordshire family who strayed?

For what it's worth, John had sons named William (b 1799, see above), John (1803), Edward (1805), George (1814), and Thomas (1817), the last four all born Finmere, so I'm fairly certain John's father's name was one of these five, as my ancestors don't seem to have been very original with forenames at this time.

I'm also looking for the following three gents who show up in the Tingewick/Finmere area at the same time, also alternately using the surnames CLIFFORD/CLIFTON, for whom I have marriages and children but no baptisms. I have little doubt they're all related, but exactly how (brothers? half-brothers? cousins?) and where they came from is not known. They all stuck exclusively to the same five Christian forenames above in naming their (male) children:

George b. ca. 1753-54, d. 1820
Thomas b. between 1771-1776 (in Buckinghamshire per 1841 census), d. 1845
Edward b. ca. 1784 Tingewick (per 1851 census), d. after 1851

If you (or anyone!) have/has baptisms of these men but is missing them thereafter, I'd love to hear from you!!

Best regards,

Toni Skidmore
(Note my new email address by clicking on my name above)