We know him as Ephraim Doe alias Bowler. When I found a marriage for Ephraim Bowell and Charlotte Doe it seemed a pretty close match for a set of parents, even though the marriage seemed to be a year after Ephraim was born. If he was born before they marrie, it sems natural that he may have taken his mother's name. When I told Auntie Bett, she said, "That's funny, father always used to say that our family name was really supposed to be Bowl but we thought he was only romancing.
Mum said, "But he used to pronounce it Bowell. What a dreadful name that would have been."
So it looks as if there was some evidence there all along but nobody believed it!
The Suffolk/ Norfolk border was his haunt as he spent his time turning the world upside down around there. The next question I have to ask myself is. "Was he a street kid?" He missed the 1841 census (on holiday in Van Diemen's Land), so I can't check to see where he lived. Wherever it was, I would be pretty sure he slept under a thatched roof.
The Does were thatchers and the Bowells were weavers. Together they could have made some beautiful roofs.
Do an image search of Lopham, Redgrave Worthing or Botesdale.
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