The British archives answer
On 17 September 2026 the UK National Archives was searched for the first time in this project. The Lerena surname is absent from Britain. The wife's line is not: the Brayleys fill 639 records, and five men of Northam and Bideford came back with their exact dates of birth.
Documented Discovery, the catalogue of The National Archives, searched 17 September 2026. It is free and needs no account, and it aggregates roughly 2,500 UK repositories rather than Kew alone — on the control query, Kew held 4,791 records and other archives 11,719, most of them the North Devon Record Office.
The control was run first. Bideford returns 16,510 records, so every zero on this page is a tested zero rather than a search that failed.
The surname is absent from Britain
Lerena returns two records, and neither is a person of this family — an 18th-century street plan of Seville dedicated to a Spanish finance minister, and a 1915 crew list that matches incidentally. Llerena returns one Peninsular War letter about the Spanish town of that name. Lerina returns two, both incidental.
This is what it should look like. A family that went from Rosario to the Cape without ever touching Britain leaves nothing in British archives, and now that has been tested rather than assumed.
What was searched, and what came back
| Query | Count | What it holds | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lerena | 2 | FO 925/3930, a 1788 Seville street plan dedicated to Don Pedro Lopez de Lerena, a Spanish finance minister; and BT 400/3953/3, a 1915 crew list matching incidentally. | A CLEAN TESTED NULL, AND THE FIRST ONE THIS SURNAME HAS HAD IN BRITAIN. Neither record is a person of this family. Llerena returns 1 (a Peninsular War letter about the Spanish town) and Lerina 2, both incidental. The surname is absent from UK archives, which is what you would expect of a family that went Rosario to the Cape without touching Britain. |
| Brayley | 639 | 347 at Kew, 292 elsewhere. Chancery suits from 1603, wills, and a dense run of North Devon Record Office deeds. | THE ENGLISH SIDE IS RICHLY DOCUMENTED AND THIS ARCHIVE HAD NOT LOOKED. Mary Septima Taylor, who married Pablo Armando, was a Brayley on her mother's side - Mary Ann Hellen BRAYLEY, 1843-1900. |
| Brayley + Bideford | 23 | Leases and releases naming George Brayley of Bideford, gent across 1769, 1831 and 1861; B194/277/1-5, valuations and a list of leases of G.B. Brayley's property in Northam, Bideford and Barnstaple, 1915 and 1929. | A BRAYLEY FAMILY OF STANDING IN BIDEFORD AND NORTHAM, 1767 TO 1861, IN DEEDS NOBODY HERE HAS OPENED. Whether they join Mary Ann Hellen Brayley is untested and is not assumed here. |
| Brayley + Appledore | 3 | ADM 106/1153/18, 1767: timber from New England on the brig Cato, George Brayley master, at Appledore. 2239 B-8/41, 1827: George Brayley of Orchard Hill, parish of Northam, gent. | Appledore is in Northam parish. A Brayley shipmaster in 1767 and a Brayley landowner at Orchard Hill in 1827. Recorded as context, not as ancestry. |
| Will of Brayley + Northam | 6 | IR 26/337/185, abstract of the will of George Brayley, Gentleman of Northam, 29 May 1800. B127-8/126/1-3, probate copy will of Emily Kate Brayley of Northam, dated 1935, proved 1943. B127-8/139/1-12, probate copy will of Edith Mary Brayley of Northam, dated 1943, proved 1948. | WILLS NAME RELATIONSHIPS, WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT THE BRAYLEY ASCENT IS SHORT OF. Three of them, two within living memory of Mary Septima. The highest-value thing this search turned up for the ascent. |
| John Walker Brayley | 4 | ADM 157/197/182 , folios 182-186: John Walker Brayley, born Middlesex, attestation papers for the Royal Marines, 1861, aged 18, discharged 1868 as an Invalid - and joined from the SOUTH DEVON MILITIA. | A CANDIDATE, AND IT LANDS ON AN OPEN DISCREPANCY. This archive has John Walker Brayley born 1845 at St Paul's, London - which IS Middlesex - and has already logged that his death index gives age 53 in Dec qtr 1900, implying about 1847, a two-year gap left open. Aged 18 in 1861 implies about 1843. Three sources, three different years, and a Royal Marines attestation states date and place of birth outright. And the militia line is the strongest thing here: a man born in Middlesex who was serving in a South Devon regiment is a Devon family's son born in London, which is exactly this family's shape. Still not asserted as him - order the document. |
| Backway Brayley | 0 | Nothing. Control: 'Backway' alone returns 120, so the term works and the engine handles two-word queries - 'John Walker Brayley' returned 4. | A TESTED NULL FOR JOHN BACKWAY BRAYLEY. Recorded only because the control was run first. |
| Geneva Place + Bideford | 33 | IT IS A SCHOOL. ED 70/427 (1909-1919) and ED 21/26168 (1921-1933), Bideford, Geneva Place Council School, at Kew; and 629C at North Devon Record Office, log books and ADMISSION REGISTERS, 1885-1949. | THIS REOPENS ROW 123, WHICH I CLOSED THIS MORNING AS 'NOT TESTABLE FREE'. That verdict tested the census route only and never asked whether a catalogue held the street. School admission registers name the child, the date of birth, the father and THE ADDRESS - and Lucy Elizabeth (b.1881), Mary Septima (b.1884) and Agnes Walker (b.1889) were all of school age inside 1885-1949. It does not confirm 23 Geneva Place for Horace, born 1872 and too old for these registers. It gives the address question a route it did not have. |
| Septima Taylor / Horace Archibald Taylor / Isabella Temple Taylor | 1 / 8 / 19 | Every hit is a document that merely contains the words - crew lists, a Metropolitan Police leavers' register, an 18th-century division list. | THE LIMIT OF THIS SOURCE, AND IT MATTERS MORE THAN ANY SINGLE HIT. Discovery does not name-index ordinary civilians. It indexes people only where a SERIES was catalogued name by name - ADM 157 and ADM 188 for the services, PROB and IR 26 for wills, ADM 73, AIR 76 and AIR 79. Searching a civilian's full name here will return noise and must never be written down as a null about that person. The Brayley results above are catalogue entries for deeds and wills, not a family index. |
The naval sweep, and a near miss that is now closed
Northam parish contains Appledore, so if the Taylor men went to sea the Royal Navy registers should hold them. ADM 188 is indexed man by man and gives an exact date of birth, which makes it testable against a tree instead of merely suggestive.
It returned five men of these two parishes. Not one of them is a man of this family — and that the method found five is precisely what makes the absence of William John and Horace Archibald Taylor a tested null.
| Name | Born | Record | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Taylor, William | 14 October 1871, Northam | ADM 188/195/140021, Royal Navy register of seamen's services - THE DOCUMENT ITSELF, read 17 September 2026. O.N. 140021, Devonport. Born 14 Oct 1871, Northam. Engaged 14 October 1889 for 12 years, his eighteenth birthday. 5 ft 1 in, brown hair, brown eyes, fresh complexion, burn mark on back. Entered as a Boy on Lion, 29 January 1887, aged 15. Then Shannon, Royal Adelaide, Vivid, Impregnable 20 May 1890 to 4 October 1892, Melita, Sappho, Swift I, Royal Oak, Cambridge, Defiance, Curacoa. Promoted Acting Gunner; pension traced 18 January 1909. | EXCLUDED, AND NOW BY THE DOCUMENT RATHER THAN BY AN INFERENCE. The catalogue rejection rested on a census age; the record gives two harder reasons. FIRST, the form asks for 'Names in full' and the answer is 'William Taylor' - our man is William JOHN Taylor, and the Navy had no reason to drop a middle name it had asked for. SECOND, AND IT IS CONCLUSIVE: on census night, 5 April 1891, this man was borne on HMS Impregnable at Devonport - he joined her 20 May 1890 and left 4 October 1892 - while William John Taylor was enumerated at home in Northam, aged 20. One man cannot be in two places on one night. They are two men. The near miss is closed. |
| Taylor, Joshua | 28 August 1881, Northam | ADM 188/592/16240, Royal Naval Air Service, 1916 | No Joshua in this family. Not ours. |
| Taylor, Robert | 17 March 1869, Bideford | ADM 188/197/141061, entered 1887 | No Robert in this family. Not ours. |
| Taylor, Richard Henry | 7 April 1899, Bideford | ADM 188/825/89228, 1918 | Born long after this generation. Not ours. |
| Brayley, William Ewart | 29 November 1885, Northam | ADM 188/376/214660, entered 1901 | The only Brayley of Northam in the whole series. Born in the Gladstone years and named for him, as thousands were. Too late to be a sibling of Mary Ann Hellen Brayley (1843-1900) and unattached to her by any document, so he is recorded and not claimed. |
| The Taylors of Appledore, in the merchant service | 1846, 1888, 1893 | Crew list of the Ulelia, official number 74429, National Maritime Museum: T Taylor, Mate, b.1846 Appledore; J W Taylor, Master, b.1888 Appledore; T G Taylor, Ordinary Seaman and Cook, b.1893 Appledore; previous ship Annie of Bideford. | A SEAFARING TAYLOR FAMILY IN THE SAME PARISH, AND NOT ONE DOCUMENT JOINS THEM TO OURS. Appledore is in Northam. The generations are wrong for our men - ours are 1870 and 1872 - and no relationship is asserted. Recorded as context, and as a warning: a Taylor at sea out of Northam is not by itself our Taylor. |
| WILLIAM JOHN TAYLOR (b. Nov 1870) and HORACE ARCHIBALD TAYLOR (b. Apr 1872) | - | NOTHING. | A TESTED NULL, AND A USEFUL ONE. Both parishes were swept, both spellings of the birthplace, and the series returned five other men by name and date while returning neither of these two. They were not Royal Navy ratings. If they went to sea it was the merchant service - and merchant crew lists are indexed by SHIP, not by man, which is a far harder search and should be costed before it is started. |
| HOW THIS WAS READ, AND THE WALL THAT CAME DOWN HALFWAY | - | Discovery's JSON API, then Discovery's own web search. | The API answered 200 for about twenty queries and then began returning 202 with an empty body and the header `x-amzn-waf-action: challenge`. That is AWS bot detection, and it was not worked around: the control query itself started failing, so every zero collected at that moment was thrown away rather than recorded. The rest was done in a browser at reading pace, which is the access the catalogue is built for. Anyone scripting this again should expect the challenge after roughly twenty rapid calls and slow down well before it. |
| WHAT COSTS MONEY AND WHAT DOES NOT | - | ADM 188/195/140021 and the rest. | The catalogue entry - name, exact date of birth, birthplace, year of entry - is free, and it is the part that does the genealogical work. The scanned service record is £3.50, or free to a signed-in TNA account, and shows ships, conduct and physical description. A watermarked preview is offered in their viewer and the image cannot be fetched outside it. No account was created and nothing was bought; that is David's call. |
| WHAT MAY BE PUBLISHED FROM A TNA DOWNLOAD | - | The order's terms, accepted 17 September 2026. | The download is licensed for 'private study or research for a non-commercial purpose' and for education. This archive is a public website, so the safe line is the one already taken here: cite the reference, transcribe the facts, and do not republish the scan. Facts are not copyright; the image is licensed. Any wider use goes to image-library@nationalarchives.gov.uk. Download links stay live for 30 days. |
What is free, and what is not
The part that does the genealogical work — name, exact date of birth, birthplace, year of entry — is free to anyone, with no account. The scanned record behind it is £3.50, or free to a signed-in National Archives account, and shows ships, conduct, physical description and pension.
Downloads are licensed for private study or non-commercial research. This site is public, so the line taken here is to cite the reference and transcribe the facts, and never republish the scan. Facts carry no copyright; the image is licensed. Download links also expire thirty days from the order, so anything wanted for good must be read and written down inside that window.
Related: The Taylors · Sources · The work list · What has been read