Hello Barbara. You're right, we did correspond via this board about 5 years ago. It came back to me when I reread the thread. Sorry for my memory lapse.

However I haven't anything to add to help you. The genealogy we figured out in 2005 still looks solid but it's equally dead-ended as it was then. I understand Findmypast is in the process of indexing all the registers. When they complete deaths, hopefully we'll be able to find Richard Gelling Sr. He's still not in FreeBMD, which goes well into the 1930s. It would seem he lived a very long time to not be indexed yet, unless they missed him.

The interesting person for me in this line is Richard's great-grandfather Michael Gelling who married Margaret Clague in Santan 1787, then Elizabeth Cottier 1808, with children by each, and then died 1814. I'm completely clueless on who he might be.