I’ve been going through my family tree adding sources for every fact and checking what’s new on the web.  It is amazing how much has gone up in the last year or so.  Anyway I was checking the research Ros had done on Henry Edwin Atkins and unfortunately without the parish records we are still stuck but I have found something that I think changes things a bit.  Your researcher stated that the only 1841 census he could find for the family is for James (wife Jane and son George).  However the 1851 census for this family has James birthplace in Oxford somewhere I can’t read or find on the map.  If this is correct it means not one of this family was found in the 1841 census.  Susannah may have married and changed her name (there are only three possible marriages, none in the right county, or she could have married prior to civil registration),  I would have expected at least one of the sons to have established himself by then, Charles  at 31,  Henry would have been 29 and  James 25, all old enough not to be living at home. 

The later census that the researcher quoted was for;  George, I can only find an 1861 and 1881 for this guy and he is consistent in the year of birth being 1815.  So a maybe here.    Then David with 1851-1881 census, this all fits nicely but it is a fairly common name.  Unfortunately neither of these had any children or family with them on any census night so there is nothing to link them to this family.  It also means there are no other family trees on Ancestry.com to help us. 

If the suggested deaths for the parents are correct it would mean they missed the 1841, 1851, and for Ann, the 1861 census.  Your researcher was right, Henry Edwin does go missing but I suspect the whole family went missing.  This would call into question the Henry Edwin/Edwin link which is good to explain Henry missing but not the rest of the family.

I know Findmypast.co.uk is working with the Gloucestershire genealogists to get the parish records online but none of these are up there yet.  The marriage certificate for the David Atkins who married Hannah Holder in 1842 would give us his father’s name, his middle name is not on the index so that doesn’t help, this would be the cheapest way of checking if he fits this family.  If his father wasn’t Joseph, and with George a maybe I would suggest the whole family may have migrated somewhere.  I have not been able to find anything on Ancestry but then I haven’t access to records outside Australia and the UK.  If any of the libraries that you visit have the world coverage it might be worth checking to see if this family can be found elsewhere. 

This doesn’t have any relevance to the Edwin Atkins convict/our Edward Atkins question as they are completely separate questions.  Even if we find Henry Edwin elsewhere in the world, Edwin was still here, it just excludes this family and the Henry Edwin to Edwin link.