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Yes, he would have received a pension. Pension records are one of the main categories of service records at The National Archives, and you could seek his papers there and learn a lot more about him: it will give you at least the dates for when he served in the Boer and Anglo-Burmese Wars.

The surname is from the Middle English spigurnel, meaning 'sealer of writs'. That is what an ancestor of yours is likely to have done in the early Middle Ages. It implies no connections with kings or Normans, I'm afraid, but it should be a lovely family to research and trace back, as it is such an unusual and distinctive surname. .

The questions are coming to me in a jumbled order, so this, the earlier one of your pair, has only just appeared! The ages given in later life may have been wrong: how many such men appear in the 1911 census? Can you find an alternative fate for the 1901 Charles? Maybe your 1901 Charles was actually born elsewhere, such as in Scotland or Ireland - or India - or is in the Army Births, and was then brought to London as a young child - but in that case the 1911 census should still pick him up. If in great doubt, you could trace a close relative of the 1905 Charles, such as a nephew, or niece, and have a comparative DNA test with them (a Family Finder test at www.familytreedna.com)

How interesting: it is possible. You will want to use the many publications of the Huguenot Society - these people should be listed.

They are at The National Archives and are searchable on the Ancestry.co.uk website, or you can hire me privately to search for you (www.anthonyadolph.co.uk). Be warned that about half of the records have been destroyed, but in such cases you can look for a medal card (also at The National Archives), which gives a few scant details.

You must be an unusual man in actually wanting to find your mother-in-law! I am afraid I have no panacea to help you here, though, as your enquiry is really a 'missing persons' one, and you have described a scenario here in which this lady's whereabouts is unknown both to her daughter and to her ex-husband. However, is it a given that her whereabouts would be unknown to any of her own blood relatives. Did she have any siblings, for example, or nephews and nieces? .You never know - one of them may have heard from her. You can also try this: http://www.ic.nhs.uk/services/nhs-adoptions-service/alive-or-deceased-service - which will do no more than confirm whether she is alive - but that should help.

It's not unusual to find such discrepancies in ages, given in the censuses. Sometimes, the people themselves got confused (I'm 44, but approaching my 45th birthday, so have started thinking of myself as 45, and sometimes have to think hard about how hard I really am!). Also, often, it was someone else in the family giving the information, and they could of course make all sorts of mistakes. Do remember that many people were illiterate then, so had nothing written down, and could easily get things wrong.

And good luck with it! Maltese records are on Malta - you'd be wanting the registrar of births, marriages and deaths. I cannot give you any precise addresses, but you may well find them on www.cyndislist.com.

You want to keep a record of exactly how each person's name is spelled in each records you use to piece your family tree together. For the purposes of presenting a clear family tree, it is perfectly acceptable to chose the prevalent spelling, or the one which finally ended up being used, and applying that to all. Having said that, for this website, it may behove you to use the different spellings that crop up for different people in your tree, as then there is more chance of someone searching for your family under a variant spelling to pick up on your presence on the site.

Please tell me a bit more detail

Ah well, maybe this is linked to the same problem - and now you've told me what the surname was. Try writing Bumford in loopy handwriting: you will see quickly how many different interpretations of the penstrokes are possible, by nineteenth century clerks and modern indexers alike. Bamford, Burnford, Bunford... .

It's an appealing story, and may of course be correct, or partially correct (maybe you are actually descended from a cousin of the novelist), or completely wrong (once one person tells a story, of course it gets repeated, and Henry Fielding's continued fame ensures the story would not be forgotten). You could approach this by seeking your ancestor William's baptism in London, assiduously - the censuses should indicate exactly where to look - and you could also seek wills for members of Henry's immediate family, to see if they refer to your William. Good luck!

Yes, do persist. Families who are difficult to find often turn out to be much more interesting, and memorable, than those which are.

That is interesting: they had not simply changed from one surname to another. But, you cannot find the family in the 1891 and 1901 censuses, which is what you want, so I'd advise you to keep your mind open to the possibility of their being in those censuses under a different name or, as I suggested, a different spelling of their existing one. You could do what I suggested for another questions this evening - obtain a birth record for one of their children born near 1891 or 1901, and then search the census for that place.

My first reaction reading this is that Danton could easily be mistaken for 'Denton', so I'd suggest looking under that spelling. You could try the 1891 census for the two Henrys, father and son. I'm not sure if you mean that his father Henry was a solicitor, but if so you can check that fact using the annually published Law Lists, available in good genealogical libraries.

Maybe they were out of England and Wales in earlier census years, elsewhere in the Empire, or in Scotland or Ireland - but if so, you'd expect that to be hinted at by the foreign birth places of their children. Otherwise, maybe they had changed their name - or just changed the spelling subtly, so try variant spellings. If one of the children was born about a census year, do what we used to do in the old days - obtain the certificate, and then search the census for the address where they lived.

If there is a memorial inscription at Peterhead, then maybe a death notice will appear in the local Peterhead newspaper - for which see the at the National Archives of Scotland (www.nls.uk/collections/newspapers/indexes/index.cfm) and the British Library in London (www.bl.uk/catalogues/newspapers). For obtaining records from South Africa itself I suggest you contact my colleague Jean Blanckenberg: : jblanckenberg@netpoint.co.za

.... or write your £37 cheque - I maintain that going to great lengths to avoid buying a GRO certificate is generally a false economy - however annoying and perhaps unfair it is that the GRO charge so much for them.

In that case you've already been to the horse's mouth, but I'm curious to know how you know the parents' full names if you don't have the birth record. Maybe you will find it there, but indexed as Adela, Delia or Delilah. Or, yes, you can try Catholic baptisms, if you know exactly where to look: no Irish Catholic baptisms are on this site, but there's an increasingly good coverage on http://www.rootsireland.ie .

You can ask the local registrars in each place (though they'll likely charge you too) or seek a will instead, or a death notice in a local newspaper (some are on this site) or if you can guess the actual place, you can seek a burial record - but you don't. Travelling to four different areas would cost you hundreds of pounds. Four certificates will cost you £37, and if you order them one at a time you may be lucky first or second (or third) time.