Some time back you helped me with the baptism of my g2 grandfather William Cooke (1800-78), at Welsh Bicknor. His mother Amelia Morse was a sister of the barge and mine owners Henry (1754-1815) and George (1760-1812), both of whom left wills. Childless Henry's is a virtual family register. Again, many thanks for making that find possible.

In 1824, William Cooke married Eliza Rosser, the daur of William Rosser, in St James's Westminster. Until recently I understood William Rosser to descend from the Rossers of Tarrington, but clearly I did not realise how many Rossers there were in the wider Monmouth region.

The 1851 Hereford census lists a new possibility: William Rosser, 86, born in Gloucestershire -- a retired barge owner! Also by 1851, old John Cook (Amelia's widower) was 92 years old and living in Lydbrook with his daughter Ann (then Taylor). Next door is a family of Rossers.

So, although Eliza Rosser and her elder sister Ann Elizabeth (who scandalously married Viscount Lascelles in 1818) were born in Hereford, it's looking increasingly possible that the link between the Cooke (or Morse) and Rosser families had its origins in the Forest. However, the only William Rosser on the Forest Parish records was bapt English Bicknor in 1756, which is ten years out.

Can anyone help me find the old bargeowner?