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Julie - while not questioning the actual research I'm still inclined to suspend judgement over what exactly WAS the original name and where ultimately it originated, let alone where the WHITLOCK came into the picture and why the three boys adopted it eventually.  I wonder if there may be some credence to my mother's "family myth" of a Dutch ancestor - although its entirely possible that this was based on her being told that Robert changed his name from Vanhackovens!  There was also a mythical "the Whitlocks came from Hampshire" which I'd forgotten about!

Do you have anything positve to connect Thomas Van-Hack Ovens to Thomas Vanhackovens apart from the obvious?  I hate coincidences - and I absolutely dont believe something just because its in writing so when there's an oddity I look for as much confirming evidence as pssible - have you found anything more to tie this down?

DNA is still likely to be our best bet to sort things out of course - and since I'm a generation behind most everone looking at this and therefore closer to the people we are interested in, I need to do more on my own stuff - including getting an Ancestry test done! 

Its all fascinating, even if it does take me away from my primary research - even though nobody on my side will be interested since I've no offsrping, at least someone will benefit from the knowledge! :-)

Picking up on this thread with some interest, there's some points that need remarking.  The Jane and James (1830 & 1832 bapts) in Wooler are of course AINSLIEs.  At this period, my experience is that the AINSLIEs (with clear Scots ancestry) were starting to guard the name quite carefully, unlike the AYNSLEYs and AINSLEYs who often swapped names in the same family and from day to day it seems! It's entirely possible that the ...LIE spelling was *only* adopted for the baptism - to prove Scots ancestry so to speak - but without further evidence all remains unclear.

The other thing to be born  in mind is that there were more flavours of Presbyterianism in that part of Northumberland, than there were sheep - at least it seems so - Wooler for instance had several varieties of Presbyterian Church in one small town! Because of this, people travelled quite some distance to get the precise flavour of religion they wanted, so while North Sunderland is some 14 miles by road from Wooler, its at least conceivable that a family might have travelled there for special occasions like a baptism especially if there was a family connection with the area.

Now turning to the James AINSLEY in Wooler workhouse in 1841: he my have been a resident from any one of 45 parishes and townships in the Glendale Poor Law Union (http://www.workhouses.org.uk/Glendale/) - or possibly waiting on a removal order!  So there is not too much reliance to be placed on this record without further data - although he does look like a suitable candidate, and the later James's apparent reluctance to say where he came from offers another clue, since respectable people didn't come from the workhouse!. 

When looking for the Wooler baptised James, you should also not neglect the James AINSLIE of the same age listed as being in Norham, Durham in the 1841 with his family (but no Jane) - Norham, on the banks of the Tweed, was of course an exclave of Co. Durham  at that time and there are A*N*SL*'s (several spellings!) in Norham and Ford to the south at the time and a bit later on.

Looking at the 1851 James AINSLEY, tailor's apprentice, he appears in the 1861 married to Margaret and giving a birthplace as Newcastle, but in 1871 he's still with Margaret (and the same children - so its him!) but now having been born Wooler, NBL.  In 1881 & 1891 he's back to coming from Newcastle...sigh! (And he has a typical Ancestry mis-transcription of AMSLEY - i must have corrected hundreds of them!)

None of which helps much with Jane.  At this stage you really need to see the entry for her marriage to get any further: its entirely possible you'll have a witness entry as well as - hopefully - her father.  Do you have a clue as to which parish she was married in - there are a lot of them in Tynemouth district!  If not, its the certificate or nothing I'm afraid...

If you do find out more please let me know - these guys aren't on my database (60,000 AINSLEY related items!) and it would help to know more - equally if you'd like to let me know about Jane's descendants I can create a "treelet" for them which will hopefully one day extend further back.

(as a minor aside - remember that censuses were help in April normally - so the probability is close to 70% that someone aged 10 in the 1851 census was born in 1840 - NOT 1841!  So on principle, start by subtracting 1 from the birth year given by the transcribers...!)

hugh

its a very long time after the original question - but i see that the correct answer was not posted - do here goes! 

The best definition can be found at http://www.tpo-seapost.org.uk/tpo2/tpgbrso.html, but basically it means "Railway Sub Office" and as such referred to a post office able to exchange mail directly with the Travelling Post Offices on the railway without the mail having to go to the nearest postal town first.

Hope this helps!

Hugh