However, additional research in 2014 showed that John Carter Allen did not marry until 1780 and that his three children were all illegitimate, born in a period in which he held no commission. The three were named ‘natural children of John Cator Allen’ in the twelfth of sixteen codicils to the will of Elizabeth Arnold, his first wife’s mother, dated in 1788 and proved in 1789. She left them twenty guineas each and £1,000 to their father. The identity of their mother(s) has not been found. There was much tension in the family later and at one time the youngest son, John, was heard to say of Thomas, ‘he is no brother of mine’.