Okay - let's start from here!
Thomas James married Maria VEAL at Camborne 5th March 1843 (Mary d/o Thomas Veal and Mary Sincock) - unfortunately baptisms from 1837 to 1889 are not currently available for Camborne so you have to rely on the Census for a lot of information. But then the Census is not a bad place to start in any case as a picture can be formed showing what you need to look for.
You have already mentioned that you found Thomas and his family in the 1851 Census but it is worth noting the names of the children again as they can come in very useful at times.
- William, Elizabeth, Ann and CHARLOTTE. (I have highlighted Charlotte because it is more of an unusual name)
Now then, I have updated my database with the basic information from the Victorian Pioneers Index and have also now included all members of the family of Thomas and Maria from the UK Census.
The next thing to note from the Census is that all members of the family are recorded as having been born at Camborne. That can change from Census to Census but in this case it is consistent from 1851 through to the 1871 Census.
We already had the parents for Maria Veal so we now need to look for parents for Thomas James. The Census has provided us with his age and birthplace which tells us he was born at Camborne about 1820 or 1821 probably. Camborne records up to 1837 have been transcribed and are available and a search provided me with the following as the most likely candidate:-
Thomas son of Thomas (copper miner) and Ann James of Ramsgate baptised 4th March 1820 at Camborne
What I usually do in a search like this is to see what baptisms for a particular name might have occurred in that Parish over a period of years. In this case I have searched from 1815 to 1825 for any baptism for Thomas James and this was the only one that appeared. That makes it so much easier!
There are two things that can be done next -
1. search for a possible marriage for Thomas and Ann or
2. see what other children there might be for this couple
It probably doesn't matter a great deal which of these is done first but you should always make sure that you do both in case there are two or more couples in the area with the same names! In that case it can be helpful if the abode is recorded when the children were baptised.
When searching for other children you need to be aware of possible variations of names of the parents. In this case the mother is ANN so she might appear as Ann, Anne, Nanny, Nancy for example. But start with Ann and then play around to check for other children. And also make sure you search a reasonable number of years.
Remember also that we not only want names of siblings for your Thomas but we also want clues that might identify his grandparents.
I had previously identified the probable marriage for Thomas and Ann:-
Thomas James of Illogan, miner, married Ann CLIFTON at Camborne by Banns 5th January 1818
So let's see what my little venture into the Camborne baptisms turns up. You will be able to find these children on the OPC site so I won't list all the details here. The list of possible children is:-
1818 Mary
1820 Thomas
1823 William
1825 Henry
1827 John
1832 CHARLOTTE CLIFTON
1836 Philippa
Daughter Charlotte gives a possible link to Thomas and Maria and the fact she was named 'Charlotte Clifton' also confirms the marriage of Thomas James to Ann Clifton. But it possibly gives us also a clue to the identity of Ann's mother.
But what else can be learned from this?
Well, there are a couple of things that might be very useful:-
1. I work on age 48 being the maximum age for a woman to have children back then so if Philippa was born in 1836 then Ann was probably born no earlier than about 1788. Of course, Philippa may have been a couple of years old when baptised so perhaps we can allow Ann's birth a bit of leeway to around 1785.
2. A really useful thing is that with children born into the 1830s there is every chance that we might find this family in the 1841 and even possibly the 1851 Census!
And the best thing about this is that the family actually can be found in the 1851 Census which gives us a lot more information to work with!
1851 Census - Camborne
Park an Bowan
Thomas JAMES, head, mar., 53, tin miner, Camborne
Ann do., wife, mar., 57, Camborne
Henry do., son, unm., 24, tin miner, Camborne
CHARLOTTE do., daur, unm., 20, tin dresser, Camborne
Philippa do., daur, unm., 17, dress maker, Camborne
We now know that Thomas and Ann were also born at Camborne and their ages tell us that Thomas was born sometime around 1797 and Ann about 1793!
I think that will be enough to set you on the right track so I will leave it with you now to see what more you might be able to find. But before trying to leap back to quickly it would be a good idea to try and find out a little more about the children of Thomas and Ann as well as the other children of Thomas and Maria.
CT
Yes please, they might prove very useful and informative, particularly those related to Jane Quick Richards and her family.