Hi I am Gary Cain from New Zealand and a descendant of Robert Cain ( 1865-1935) the older brother of Emily Jane Cain (abt 1879- 1946) who married John William Gelling , whom I surmise from this forum must be an ancestor of yours and we would therefore be related.
I have been doing genealogy on and off for the last ten years or so and I have accumulated a reasonable amount of information about the Cains, but relatively little about the Gellings. I have not been very good about reading the Manx Genealogy Board in recent years so I have probably missed quite a bit of information.

Just the other day I came across the name Thomas ( Tommy) Ellison Gelling ( by pure fluke to be totally honest) in the New Zealand military records held here. I know this name to be the name of William and Emily's children but I had no idea there was even a possibility he was in New Zealand. I sent away for the records which have come to me via email as a PDF - nevertheless it is a comprehensive file.

Having got the record I have my doubts however - Tommy has carefully hidden his age giving only August 9th as his birth date but no year - was he really underage to enlist I wondered?
Ploughing on through the records i see he was discharged aged 25 17/9/1919 aged 25 giving him a birth year of 1884 and certainly not too young to enlist in 1917.

I cannot place this particular Thomas Ellison Gelling in the 1891 , 1901 or 1911 census and so I am a bit stuck. Our soldier gives his next of kin as T Gelling ( father), Braddan, Isle of Man - so it is a reasonable assumption that his father was alive and well in the IOM. Can you help me I wondered?

I am happy to send you a copy of this military record - probably not through this forum but by email. In time to we may find we have further Gelling/ Cain information we can share also My email address is cains@ihug.co.nz

Gary Cain
PS
We are in contact with other branches of the Cain family tree - 100 years of contact now - each generation has picked up the mantel as someone got too old or died and we are still in contact in significant ways - several of my family have been to the IOM and we have hosted them in NZ in return.