Hi Toni. Re the right path.
Unfortunately I do not subscribe to those websites that ask for large subscription fees, so my access to census info is more via indexes to them than the censuses themselves. I had picked up that Reuban & Sophia Stevens always seemed to be sequential entries with Mary's family, suggesting they may have either been living together or in close proximity with them. Your findings on the 51 & 61 census above tell us they were certainly not living under the same roof, but do seem to have a liking for permanently accommodating displaced members of the family, so perhaps are still worthy of consideration.
As for the elusive Joshua Stevens of Hailsham, the LDS Copy of the 1871 census is a little flexible with his age, but lists him and his wife Mary Ann Stevens, and children: Flora Eunice Stevens 1864 and Joshua Chas Stevens 1868. He is still in the same location in 1881 (a further year of flexibility with his age), and appears as a widowed pork butcher, having seven children to care for. Mary Ann died Hailsham district 1880 (Freebmd)
It might be worth your while to find or purchase a copy of his marriage cert to see who he lists his father as, and who were the witnesses.
His marriage was in the Hailsham district, Sept quarter 1863, ref 2b 101, Joshua Stevens to Mary Ann Paine.
LONGSHOT
Given the fact that FreeBMD has no Joshua Stevens - Stephens born Sussex 10 months before the 1841 census, a longshot is a Freebmd first name search for a Joshua (no surname) born in the Hailsham district about that time. Only one name turns up, a Joshua Billins, birth registered in the Hailsham district in the June quarter of 1840. Could this be your Joshua's birth registered under the surname of a father who was not married to his mother? The 1841 census shows only 3 people with the Billins surname in Sussex, all of them living in Hailsham, and none a Joshua. Two were husband and wife, born in the 1780s, and the other a William Billins born 1821. Unfortunately there were also a number of people in Hailsham whose surname was Billiness but again there is no Joshua amongst them. So there certainly was a Joshua Billins or Billiness born about 10 months before the 1841 census who that census has no record of. The question you have to ask yourself is, could Joshua Billins have been the 10 month old son living with a 40 year old Mary Stevens who either was, or purported to be, his mother?
Roy G
