Thanks Linda. I've actually got questions on my blood side and my adoptive side. My adoptive grandmother was Emily Smith b. 1907 in Ware, Herts (long line of pig farmers), and it's complicated by the fact that her daughter (my adoptive Mum, surname Chalkley - also prolific name in Herts) married a man who may have been Jewish (family changed their name in the 1930s because of the Oswald Moseley trouble). We never could work out why Nan didn't like Dad; he would never talk about a Jewish connection (although his Jacob and Hyatt cousins were jewellers in Hatton Garden), and Nan would never talk about a Romany connection. So that all ground to a halt.

My sister (bio-granddaughter of Emily Smith) married a Smith from Cheshunt, Herts who is definitely Romany; she was never accepted (they thought of her as a gorgio as she had no proof of Romany blood) and they divorced after a couple of years.

My ancestral Smiths on my bio-mother's side are from Wiltshire in the early 1800s, as are the Hiscocks, Hibberds etc. John Smith b. 1838 (no knowledge of his parents) married Lucy Pearce b. 1839 in Whitechapel; her parents were William Pearce (b. 1816, Surrey) and Jane Ayres (b. 1816, St Katharine Coleman, London). Jane's father was George Ayres b. 1786, Middlesex, who married a Sarah, but that's as far as I've got with that line. I suspect I'll need to go to parish records to get back any further. On my bio-father's side I have Irish and Indian blood (no Romany to my knowledge, unless Boorman counts - the only line of his I haven't been able to get back further because I can't find a UK birth record), so it's all a big mix!

Thanks,
Jules