Hi Delphinus,
I think I’ve found your John Corkill on the Isle of Man. I’ll PM you the detailed argument and evidence for this, so you can follow it through in your own time.

I now think that your ancestor and mine did not know each other before Samuel was a boarder in John’s home, as they were from different parts of the island.

There are 20 John Corkills shown in the 1861 census as born between 1850 and 1860. I tracked as many of them as I could through the 1861, 71 and 81 censuses (I know, I know, but genealogical problems keep me awake). This becomes very difficult as they leave home, and move around. However, I did eventually find John Corkill, baker’s apprentice in Maughold (almost unreadable, and miss-indexed). I’ve found a family for him, and although the father is a lead miner in 1861, (which put me off the scent), he becomes a farmer between 1871 and 1881. I’ve checked this every way I can think of, but I would advise you to go through it again, to make sure I haven’t made any mistakes. I’ll give you details of my reasoning in the PM.

There are huge numbers of Corkills in the North East of the island in the censuses, and tracking further back than John senior won’t be easy. I suggest that you start to look at wills. On the Manx Lawson site, there are lists of all Manx wills.

www.
lawsons.ca/home.html

Some of these have been transcribed, either by Brian Lawson, owner of the site, or by people who have posted wills that they have transcribed. Unfortunately none of the ones that have been transcribed yet look like they are much use to you. But there are quite a lot of wills for John Corkills listed for the correct period. From my own family history I know that quite lowly people wrote wills on the Isle of Man, so it’s worth looking at these. Don’t forget to look for wills of wives too, women had greater rights on the Island than in England, and many made wills – it was the will of a wife that knocked down a big brick wall in my family history. There is a good chance that a farmer would write a will. This is likely to contain bequests to children, who those children are, and where they live. It may also contain bequests to grandchildren, or other relatives, even those abroad. But – there are considerable numbers of wills, so unless you want to pay for a researcher to do it, you probably need to make a trip to the Island yourself.

Cheers
KJ