Hello Barbara

Many thanks for the information about Clare being used for men and women.

I can understand that errors are made on census and tax lists. It was just that in the early records (up to the age of ten) Clare/Clara is recorded as a female, then at ten then switch occurs and Clare/Clara is recorded as a male. This made me think that the early records were not errors. Also Clare/Clare had a brother and a sister and as they were recorded as what I thinks of as "correctly" it added to my doubt. By correctly I mean that the sister was always recorded as a female and the brother was always recorded as a male.

All the best

Geoff