Now that the parents of John Grills seem to have been established I want to take a look forward at the family of John himself.
Firstly his wife who appears likely to be:-
Rebecca d/o James and Sarah Perry bp. 7th May 1802 St Clements, Sandwich, Kent
This entry is from IGI but is the only Rebecca I can find born around the right time.
Certainly more work to be done here but it does seem a good starting point.
Another search of IGI has also produced some other interesting but unsourced information.
There was supposedly a sister who is recorded as Elizabeth Couch Grills.
Details provided give a birth of 1789 at Landulph but what is more interesting is that the mother's name is shown as Elizabeth COURTIS Scantlebury.
Accuracy of this information is unknown but again it is something to start with.
Another record suggests that Elizabeth (nee Scantlebury) died in 1833.
And now for John and Rebecca.
From the Indexes of the NSW Registry of BDM I have found the following children for John and Rebecca Grills:-
William P Grills born 1827
John J Grills born 1829
John P Grills born 1833
James P Grills born 1834
Peter Grills born 1843
From the information you have supplied we are still missing four sons and daughter Esther yet these are the only entries I have been able to find.
I can also find no marriage records indexed for any of this family.
What interests me most in the above list though is the fact that the second initial
P appears in the names of three of those named.
This may or may not be significant so I would be interested if you know the full names of these boys.
Now for the death records.
John J Grills, infant, died 1829
Joseph Grills, infant, died 1838 *
Sarah Grills, infant, died 1841 *
William F Grills died at Maitland in 1859 *
Thomas Grills died at Armidale in 1891 *
James Grills died at Morpeth 1892
Except for the three infants the names of John and Rebecca were recorded as parents.
Those marked with * are of particular interest.
With no parents recorded it can only be conjecture that Joseph and Sarah were children of John and Rebecca.
Although I have to suggest they were given that the only Grills births in NSW recorded in the Index from 1825-1850 were children of John and Rebecca.
William F Grills is next of interest and the question must be whether or not this was actually William P who was born in 1827.
Or was there a second son named William.
Thomas is of interest for two reasons.
Firstly because there is no record of his birth in the Index.
But he is of interest more so because his father's name was recorded as John
S Grills!
This may be an error on the part of the informant but it may also signify the use of a second name for John - and in this case that S might stand for Scantlebury.
John Grills died at Maitland in 1872 with only the name of his mother, Elizabeth, recorded in the Index.
Rebecca Grills died at Maitland in 1877 at the age of 76.
Of the three sons named on Rebecca's death certificate we have deaths for Thomas and James ...... so what happened to John?
And, as mentioned above, I can find no record whatsoever for Esther Ann.
Combining all the above the list of children now looks like this:-
William P - 1827-
? (Is this William F?)
John J - 1829-1829
John P - 1833-
?
James P - 1834-1892
Thomas -
?-1891
Joseph -
?-1838
Sarah -
?-1841
Peter - 1843-
?
William F -
?-1859 (Is this William P?)
Esther Ann -
?-
?
I will leave it to you now to see how this stacks up and also for you to fill in some more information on each of the above.
CT