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I seem to have a brick wall with my ancestor James Wotton 1815-1891.  He was baptized in George Nympton base child of Eliza Wotton a widow.  On his marriage certificate to Mary Bendle in 1841 he names his father as John Wotton a labourer.  However, there is no sign of an Eliza Wotton having any children with a John Wotton in George Nympton.  Checking FindMyPast, she had several children from 1805 onwards before she had James baptized in George Nympton all saying base child of Eliza Wotton a widow.  There is a marriage in 1793 between an John Wooten and Elizabeth Harward near Exeter, however, he seems to disappear before 1805.  A distant cousin told that he may have been a soldier and may have been abroad or died in the Peninsular War.  To further complicate things Eliza Wotton married a Thomas Nichol after the baptism of James Wotton in 1815.  Could he be James's real father?

Thank you for this as well as the info on Robert Frayne.  I am sorry for not getting back to you sooner.

I am trying to find my ancestor Robert Frayne born 1821 in North Molton Devon England.  He is on the 1841 census for North Molton and then disappears.  On Ancestry some users having recorded as dying in 1909 in Exeter, Huron, Ontario aged 88.  How far back does the Canadian census go back?  Was there one in Ontario in 1851?  This would be before Canada became a country in 1867.  I know Canada has a census each year when the year ends in 1 just like in England.

I am trying to find where my ancestor Hugh McMahon Clark born 1872 in Glasgow Scotland to David Clark and iron turner and his wife Isabella Stewart.  Hugh was an engine finisher and an auger finisher, and married Agnes Shield in 1893 in Glasgow aged 20.  She was 17.  According to a distant cousin he emigrated to the USA from Glasgow to Boston on the the ship SS Peruvian in 1895.  His wife followed in 1896.  Did he have any children in the USA?  Did he stay in Massachusetts or go elsewhere?  Any help would be great to see where he went and when he died.

I have done a DNA test on Ancestry a few years ago.  I have had very few matches from Devon.  The DNA test Ancestry does is the autosomal test, that does all of your lines, rather than just your Y Chromosome or male line.  Most of my distant cousin matches have been from my maternal lines through my mother, that goes back to Suffolk, Durham County, Northumberland, South West Scotland such as Glasgow, and Northern Ireland.  For some reason Devon doesn't seem to be coming up in my DNA test in the places my ancestors came from.  My lineage back to the Passmores to North Molton is correct, and I did contact someone whom was a 5th cousin descended from an Aaron Bendle, brother of my 4x great grandmother Mary Bendle 1813-1879 of South Molton.  She is the mother of my 3x great grandmother Eliza Wotton 1844-1910, whom married my direct Passmore ancestor John Passmore 1838-1903 from North Molton.  The distant cousin said that Aaron Bendle emigrated to Australia to Victoria in 1854.  If my lineage as not correct, I would not be related to this distant cousin.  The limitations of the Ancestry test, is that you can only go back 200 or more years, and have good matches to 6th or 5th cousins, though most of my matches are 4th cousins, mainly from USA, Canada and Australia.  Because we are 8th cousins once removed, we are too distant for the test to prove our relationship from our common ancestor Philip Passmore 1672-1743.  In the near future I think DNA testing would probably be able to go further back, but for now it doesn't.  It can work for people on 23andme, if you have taken a Y Chromosome test, for your male or paternal line, but you mentioned it is through one of your maternal ancestors that goes back to Philip Passmore 1747-1802, so it wouldn't work.  If there was any male Passmore descendants alive today descended from Philip Passmore 1672-1734, it would prove that the male line is correct.  However, I haven't found any Passmores yet that have done a DNA test on either Ancestry or 23andme.