Frances,

thanks,
Up to a point, the Manx Notebook is useful, but I have got a bit further than that. The problem is that John Wood appears on the island for a meeting in Dec 1829, and meets Isabella Kerr Kayle, and within two years is engaged to her and she goes to Port Glasgow to meet her prospective in-laws, and sadly takes ill and dies. How did he meet her. One possibility is that Douglas families rented rooms to respectable visitors in the 1820s, so Wood may have stayed with the family as a paying guest.

The Isabella who married John Garrett at German in 1813 was Charles Kayll's daughter so was J J Kayll's first cousin and second cousin to Isabella Kerr Kayll. That is clear from the Notebook and other sources, BUT what about Garratt. Was John Garratt of German related to Dr Philip Garratt. If so, and the Kayll and Garratt famiulies are related, Dr Garrratt who was a key figure in the creation of the Packet may have asked Kayll to put Wood up.

However there is an alternative scenario. J J Kayll's girls had some unusual middle names, Booth, from JJ's mother, Kerr from an unknown source and NAPIER, from an unknown source.

JJ's family originated from Paisley. It is PURE SURMISE, but if the NAPIER in Elizabeth Mina Napier Kayll's name is related distantly to David Napier or Robert Napier, the two leading steam engine builders between 1812 and 1850 on the Clyde, then it may be that Kayll had chatted to his friend Dr Garratt about them, and Garratt asked Kayle to speak to them. Napier would have asked John Wood to go, as the hull builder would be the first guy to speak to. If this Napier-Kayll-Garratt surmise is correct, then it would be natural for Wood to stop with the Kayll family.

There are plenty of Napiers so it is no more than surmise, but it is a very striking coincidence, and that is what I am trying to break into,which is a mix of Manx and Scots genealogy, and I am at a loss to know how to unravel the Scots end.

All the best

Robert