Sue, you are an absolute star, talking of which, in your message about searching on the IOW when you mentioned A* there was me thinking it was the way of abbreviating ancestry! Sorry for the confusion. This will of course make searching a lot easier, since an ALICE EMILY BORN IN RYDE came to my notice I have searched through most of the ones I found, 30 or so. I have now widened this search to include ALICE EMMA and perhaps not born in Ryde but still on the IOW. Although it can't be ruled out I haven't been looking at entries with the name of just ALICE, I think hopefully she was registered with the 2 names, and perhaps was called Emily instead of Emma sometimes.

I tried the search method you mentioned, what a whizz kid you are, that certainly quickened the pace. I think though I will just use the 'find' button to dig out ALICES, and then just scan down to see where they were born, because as mentioned she may have actually been born elsewhere but grew up in Ryde.

Ewan