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Thanks for all that information. I'm not suggesting your research is faulty.  Just I was never able to figure out which James Giles was the right one. No one else I have talked to knew where the 1797 date came from, or which of the several James Giles born in Somerset that year was the one who married Mary Willey. For that matter, no one seemed to know where the Somerset information came from, either. This has been my sticking point, too. Based on the way he named his sons, I thought his father might have been called Thomas, though I suppose it could have been after Mary Ann's father, since we know even less about her! Also, the personal names of his children were much more common in Kent than in Somerset, so I wondered if the Somerset thing might be a red herring. Too bad his parents didn't have the foresight to name him Ulysses, or something else we could use to find the right guy 200 years later

Happy hunting,
Gene-ee-us

Thanks Donald! I have been looking for these people for years. I have seen these people in the records I searched, but wasn't able to determine if they were the right ones. Are you related to them?

Thanks again,
Myrna

Just as a matter of interest, this salary works out to about 15.25 pence per day, which the Measuring Worth Web site (www.measuringworth.com) says had a purchasing power in 1853 roughly equivalent to £5.48 in 2014. Apparently common soldiers were not the best-paid people on the planet. Deducting 3.5d for hospital food would have been a big chunk of a day's wages.

Geneeeus

Thanks for this. In Jim's day, Thornliebank was only about 3 miles or so from Glasgow, so it would be quite possible that a recruiter was in his neighbourhood. Perhaps he knew they would eventually be going to Canada, or some other foreign place, and looked upon it as a way to leave the calico factory? The dates you have so far, and the time he appears to have left the army might indicate such a scheme.

Thanks again.
Geneeeus