Official records in the modern sense started in 1837, so what you get today are there when Norris Hall Forbes was born. And you get exactly the same difficulties today when someone arbitrarily changes their name for whatever reason.

But I see we've been reinventing the wheel as 2 1/2 years ago on GenesReunited you had another thread going which gave you all the detail we've given you above, and which reached the same conclusion that we have - that Norris Hall Forbes was in later life known as James Stuart, and even later as James Norris Hall Forbes Stuart

https://www.forces-war-records.co.uk/ViewRecord/indian_mutin... has a record for Pte Norris Hall Forbes in the Indian Mutiny in 1857. I'm not a subscriber but it may be of interest to you. Might go some way to explaining why he was estranged from his family, and ties in with Caroline's thoughts above that he was a "black sheep"