Genealogy centenaries

Isn't it always the way? You wait years for a significant genealogy anniversary and then three come along at once. That's how it is in 2016 for my ancestors - three significant bicentenaries for three of my convict forbears, Nicholas Delaney, Sarah Marshall and John Simpson.

So I thought I'd share a bit of information about them. A lot of Australians are descended from this trio of law-breakers and maybe one of them will find this post and get in touch. We genealogists love hearing from cousins...

The first genealogy centenary is 13 June, 2016, the 200th anniversary of the official founding of the Royal Botanic Garden in Sydney.

The Domain and Mrs Macquarie's Point, 1830, Creative Commons by Paul K

On 13 June, 1816, Nicholas Delaney, my 3x great grandfather, and his gang of convict workers finished building Mrs Macquarie's Drive, the road that runs round what was then the Government Domain. It's now part of the Botanic Garden.

The Botanic Gardens in the 21st century CC via Wikipedia

Cleverly, Nicholas arranged to finish the work on the birthday of Governor Lachlan Macquarie's wife, Elizabeth. The delighted Governor awarded Nicholas and his 10-man gang five gallons of spirits as a reward. There would have been sore heads as well as muscles the next morning.

Inscription on Mrs Macquarie's Chair, celebrating the day Nicholas finished the road CC by Graeme Churchyard

I've already written about building Mrs Macquarie's Drive as well as the only part of the original road which now survives, the Macquarie Culvert. As the 200th anniversary comes even nearer I hope to post more over on the A Rebel Hand blog.

Update: here's the first of those posts on Nicholas Delaney, Mrs Macquarie's Drive and the Botanic Garden's 200th anniversary.

The Macquarie Culvert, Mrs Macquarie's Drive, Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney CC via Wikipedia

There's going to be a big party in the Botanic Gardens on the 13th and I've heard from some fellow Delaney descendants that they'll be going. If only I weren't half the world away I'd be there celebrating my ancestor's achievement. But I can't get to Australia this year. You can bet I'll be keeping up via social media and other channels, though.

The next bicentenary of this year is of the trial and sentencing of Sarah Marshall, my 3x great grandmother, on 24 July, 1816, at the Lancaster Assizes. 

Sarah Marshall's sentence via Ancestry

Sarah was convicted of 'stealing a petticoat valued at one penny, a bed gown valued at one penny, two caps valued at one penny, a pair of silk stockings valued at one penny and a sheet valued at one penny, being of the Goods and Chattels of John Oldham.'

And for fivepence-worth of clothes, she was to be 'transported to some part beyond the seas.' To New South Wales, in fact, like all my convict ancestors.

Australian Convict Transportation Records for Friendship II via Ancestry

Sarah's story - or what I can find out about it, because there are plenty of strong Lancashire brick walls surrounding her life before she half-inched the goods and chattels - includes two particularly dramatic episodes after her trial. She was sent out on a notorious convict ship, the Friendship, famous for the licentious behaviour on board during the voyage. Again, I'm planning to write more about that.

And she's popularly believed to be the 'Sarah's Ghost' who is said to haunt Castlereagh General Cemetery, having been murdered by a group of  lust-driven men. But the story's inaccurate. I'm glad about that. Poor Sarah, as if she hadn't suffered enough.

Sarah went on to marry, or live as if married to, John Simpson, a tailor, and his is the last of my trio of bicentenaries.

John was born in Yarm, in the North Riding of Yorkshire. On 8 November, 1816, he was charged with 'feloniously taking and carrying away two bales of goods, consisting of muslin and shawls' at Hope in the Derbyshire Peak District and committed to Derby county gaol. The Derby Mercury reported the facts on 21 November.

 

Derby Mercury report via FindMyPast

He was to stay in Derby Gaol until the Lent Assizes in March, 1817, when he was tried and sentenced to seven years' transportation.

John and Sarah's daughter Lucy Simpson married Thomas Delaney, the son of Nicholas and his wife Elizabeth Bayly, which ties up my three bicentenary ancestors neatly.

Finding ancestors in the 'wrong' year in records

If you're fortunate (or dedicated) enough to trace any ancestors back to before the 1750s, and they were from Britain or its colonies, you may come across some odd-looking dates in documents from the early months of each year. They might be in letters, books, newspapers or parish records.

Here's an example, from the parish records for Merioneth/Meirionnedd in north-west Wales:

It looks as if nobody was baptised, married or buried between March 21, 1748, and March 25, 1749 - which isn't very likely. But not understanding this record could cause problems.

Suppose you're looking for Hugh Ellis and all the evidence points to him being born in Cae Gwernog in 1749 - and you found this record. You might think your other information was wrong, because it looks as if he was baptised on 21 April, 1748.

You might find a parish record which is even more puzzling (but gives a clue to the solution), like this one for the baptism of Mary Roberts of Tarporley, from the Diocese of Chester parish records:

She was baptised on 1 January, 1744. But wait a minute - just above her in the baptism of Thomas Garnett, on 30 December... 1744. Couldn't these people keep their records in order?

And yes, of course, they could. It's just that the calendar was organised in a slightly different way until 1752 in Britain and its colonies.

Old Style

From the late 12th century until 1751, the legal year began on Lady Day, the Feast of the Annunciation, celebrated on 25 March (exactly nine months before Christmas Day). So the year changed on that day: 24 March, 1750, would be followed by 25 March, 1751, and the year's length was calculated according to the Julian calendar. It seems odd to us, but since it was the way things had been for centuries, it was easy to understand.

Except...

New Style

Except that in October 1582, Pope Gregory XIII introduced a new calendar. By then, because the length of a year under the Julian calendar had been slightly over-calculated as being 365 days and six hours, with the six hours being added together every fourth year to make a leap year, the date of Easter had drifted too far away from the Spring equinox.

This also resulted in 'removing' 10 days from the calendar to make up for the drift. The new calendar, known as the Gregorian, was adopted by Catholic countries. But the English-speaking world was officially Protestant, and Protestant states weren't having anything to do with a change decided by the Pope. They stayed with the Julian calendar.

This caused confusion in dating letters, reports and documents which crossed the time zone between Protestant and Catholic countries.

To avoid this confusion, people often dated their papers using OS (Old Style) and NS (New Style), or gave two alternative years for those awkward days from 1 January to 24 March, like 1700-01, or 1700/1.

Here's how one newspaper, the Newcastle Courant, coped with the date problem:

You'll notice that in the latest edition the paper is dated 1744, but the first article mentions a date as being in OS - it's a report from (Gregorian, NS) France.

Just to add a little more confusion, the legal year in Scotland was changed to begin on 1 January in 1600, and after the Union of Parliaments in 1707, this caused more legislative problems.

Parliament wasn't happy. In 1750, it stated that the use of the Julian calendar was 'attended with divers inconveniences, not only as it differs from the usage of neighbouring nations, but also from the legal method of computation in Scotland, and from the common usage throughout the whole kingdom, and thereby frequent mistakes are occasioned in the dates of deeds and other writings, and disputes arise therefrom.'

And so the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 was passed. It ruled that the English-speaking world would make two changes in 1752: that year would start on 1 January everywhere; and there would be 11 days removed from the calendar, since the drift had widened another year since 1582, when the Gregorian calendar came into force.

Still with me? Phew! I think we both deserve a picture to help explain the effect this had on record-keeping.

These are burials from the parish records of St Stephen's Church in Norwich. You'll see that 1750 burials go from 31 March to 14 March; 1751 burials are from 25 March to 24 December; and 1752 burial start on 2 January.

The other part of the changes brought about by the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 was the removal of 11 days. Here's the law:

 

So you went to bed in the evening of September 2 and woke up on the morning of September 14. Which was not much fun if your birthday or other special day fell into the 'lost' time.

The Whitehall and General Evening Posts tried to explain the whole muddle on the morning of 14 September, NS:

Until recently I believed the story that the loss of 11 days caused widespread riots, with people furiously demanding: 'Give us back our eleven days!'

Unfortunately, it seems that this is an urban, and rural, myth, though the phrase was well enough known at the time. It appears, as 'give us our Eleven Days', on a placard at the bottom of William Hogarth's satirical painting An Election Entertainment:

But the missing 11 days isn't just a story about how daft the uneducated people were. A very recent blog post has pointed out that, though poorer people's wages, which were often paid by the day, fell by a third in September 1752, their rents did not. A good reason to be angry.

The taxes still had to be brought in, and so (rather than lose 11 days' tax) the government ruled that the new fiscal year should start 11 days later than Lady Day. And an extra day was added in 1800. That's why the UK tax year begins on 6 April - it's the old Lady Day, plus the (now) 12 days' drift.

Finally, as everyone's going Shakespeare mad, with the 400th anniversary of his death on 23 April, here's a brain teaser:
Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes died on the same date - but not on the same day. How can that be?

Notes:

Believe it or not, I've simplified things a lot here. The original Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 can be read online, if you really want to
All images are from FindMyPast, except for the Hogarth painting, An Election Entertainment, which is CC via Wikimedia, and the extract from the Calendar Act
If working out OS/NS dates is too much of a time-waster, there's a handy online date converter to do the work for you

Irish Catholic parish registers - which is the best site to search?

It's St Patrick's Day on the 17th, so it's probably not surprising that FindMyPast Ireland chose this month to release its collection of Irish Catholic parish registers. With the same records available on Ancestry, that brings the number of sites - and ways - to search these records to three, which is a giant bonus to those of us researching Catholic ancestors from Ireland.

Free Irish records

In July last year, the National Library of Ireland first released these records, which were warmly welcomed by genealogists all round the world. It's not just that they help us trace our Irish ancestors, a notoriously tricky thing to do (but not as hard as I thought when I started out). The other wonderful thing is that they're free to access.

At the time, I posted on Worldwide Genealogy about my first impressions of using this wonderful resource, which the NLI provided without an index. I wasn't going to look such a ground-breaking gift horse in the gob. But now, with FMP and Ancestry both providing access to the parish registers, it's possible to search them using the methods that many genealogists are used to on these two sites.

So this month I'm going to conduct a genexperiment and try all three out, looking for the same person, and see if any of them will become my favourite for Irish Catholic parish register research. I also want to know if I can search all three for free.

Catholic parish register search

I'll start with the first publishers of the Irish Catholic parish registers, the NLI's own website. Because you need to know which parish you want to search, I'm going to look for Daniel Delaney of the parish of Tomacork (Carnew). He may be related to my ancestor Nicholas Delaney, who was from the same parish. It's a fairly unusual surname in the area.

Shane Wilson has a useful tool on his excellent website for finding RC parishes.

NLI

Going to the home page, I entered the parish name (Tomacork, in this case). This took me to a page offering three microfilms. I needed the earliest:

Selecting any of the categories or the image all took me to the same page, the first image in this collection:

And from then on it was a case of scrolling through the records, looking out for the name Carnew (usually at the right-hand side of the page).

This took a while, and I found Daniel only as a father, here with his wife Mary as parents to Anne in February 1794:

The display's fairly small and I recommend switching to full screen view using the button on the top right. You can also adjust brightness using the buttons, but here I'm just giving you the image as is, for comparison.

Daniel's baptism and marriage must have taken place before these records were compiled, or else he moved to Carnew from another parish.

Ancestry

Next I searched for Daniel in the Catholic parish registers on Ancestry. I've got a subscription, but I wanted to see whether I could find Daniel without logging in. From the Birth, Marriage & Death, including Parish screen I selected Ireland as my collection focus and opened the card catalogue. Ireland, Catholic Parish Registers 1655-1915 is the last collection on the second page, so I hope I've saved you some time!

If you want to just browse, you'll need to know which diocese you're searching for to use Ancestry. I'm looking for Ferns. You then have the option to enter the parish name and year range - for me, it's Tomacork and 1785-1845. However if you just hit the year range it takes you to a page asking you to sign up for a free trial, which I don't need. I still wanted to see how far I could go in searching records which are available free elsewhere. So don't browse if you haven't got an Ancestry sub, you need to actively search.

So going back to the screen above I entered my search. I found that entering the exact diocese brought up a few results but not the one I wanted - but if I didn't enter the diocese I got 240 results and none of them were the one I wanted. That told me that I couldn't search baptisms by parents. So if I hadn't known that I was looking for the father of Anne, I'd have had to browse, just as with the NLI records. So I searched for Anne, and...

The first record! But to check, I hovered over View Record, and...

The right record (though Mary's name in the original is Costolough, not Cossolough). And that's as far as you can go without signing in. I don't know if you can go further by opening a free account because I don't need one. But I wanted to check the quality of the image, so I signed in, and here it is:

It's a slightly lighter image that the NLI's, but (peering at the screen) I think it's not quite such good quality. While using Ancestry, I found it fairly easy to navigate around the record set, so that will save me time researching these records in the future. If I hadn't got an Ancestry sub, I could use it as an index and get the images from the NLI. Or is there an easier way?

FindMyPast

FMP offers its Irish Catholic parish registers for free. Again without signing in, I went to the Ireland Birth, Marriage, Death & Parish Records screen. But when selecting the record set, I found that FMP has separated the baptisms, marriages and deaths into three different record sets, so unlike with the other two sites, I had to choose.

Luckily, I knew I was looking for a baptism. But this time I got zero results. Once again, it was lucky I knew Daniel and Mary's daughter's name. Searching for Anne, I got zero results again. Was this because I'd gone straight to the record set, which is a method of searching FMP recommended by several genealogists with much more experience than me?

Back to the Search screen, and selecting only Births & Baptisms as a subcategory, no record set:

And there was Anne, the first record.

Clicking on the image icon brought me to a register/sign in dialogue box. I know that FMP Ireland has promised that the registers will be 'free to search, forever', but there's no mention of whether the images are free to view. Again, I don't want to open a new account just to check this because I already have a subscription to FMP. (How do I afford these subs, you may ask? I grab the special offers.) So I signed in, and here's the image:

It looks very similar to the NLI one. You can navigate using the < and > arrows, but there's no jumping to a page as there is with Ancestry.

So there you have it - three ways of accessing the NLI's Irish Catholic parish registers. Which will I use in the future? Obviously, it's a huge help to be able to search, though you need to know who you're looking for first (eg the daughter's name, not the mother's or father's, in this case).

I think I prefer the NLI site for scrolling through the images, though, as I said, I'll be using full screen. But for jumping around the records, Ancestry's the easiest. I suppose, in the end, it's a very personal choice.

And I'm hugely grateful to all three providers for making these superb records accessible.

It's a long post, so thanks for staying with me. There's so much more to say about these records! 

 

I'd love to know your thoughts if you've used the Irish Catholic parish registers via any of these sites. Have you got any favourites, or tips? Is there a clever shortcut I've missed?

Irish genealogy webinars

PS: There are some free Irish genealogy webinars taking place this week:

Family Search is hosting two sessions a day on Thursday 17th and Friday 18th. Full details over at Claire Santry's unmissable Irish Genealogy News blog.

FMP is holding its webinar tomorrow (Tuesday 15th) at 1600 GMT and the link is available here (this works for the UK; please check for your own area).

Thursday 17 March: Where is That? Finding and Understanding Places in Ireland. Starts 11am MST; 6pm GMT.

Thursday 17 March: Ireland & Census and Census Substitutes. Starts 1pm MST; 8pm GMT.

Friday 18 March: Ireland Catholic Church Records. Starts 11am MST; 6pm GMT.

Friday 18 March: Irish Protestant Records. Starts 1pm MST; 8pm GMT. - See more at: http://www.irishgenealogynews.com/2016/03/family-search-four-irish-genealogy.html#sthash.f3itwe7R.dpuf

Thursday 17 March: Where is That? Finding and Understanding Places in Ireland. Starts 11am MST; 6pm GMT.

Thursday 17 March: Ireland & Census and Census Substitutes. Starts 1pm MST; 8pm GMT.

Friday 18 March: Ireland Catholic Church Records. Starts 11am MST; 6pm GMT.

Friday 18 March: Irish Protestant Records. Starts 1pm MST; 8pm GMT. - See more at: http://www.irishgenealogynews.com/2016/03/family-search-four-irish-genealogy.html#sthash.f3itwe7R.dpuf

Twelfth night, or what they ate at Christmas

With Christmas just over a week away, I'm going to write about a custom most of my UK ancestors were familiar with – but which has died out here in Britain.

It's not about a Christmas Day custom, though, but one which occurred during the festive season. Janet Few's already written a lovely post on Worldwide Genealogy about her own family Christmas tree tradition, so I thought I'd branch (sorry!) out a bit.

Dividing the Twelfth Night Cake

These days, the Christmas season seems to start in November (and in September in the shops). But go back in time and it really started on Christmas Day, or the night before, and continued for 12 days until Epiphany, also known as Twelfth Night. For many people this day was an even bigger one for parties, feasting and present-giving.

So today I'm looking at something which started out as part of the celebrations of Epiphany, when the three Magi, or Wise Men, or Kings, arrived in Bethlehem. Twelfth Cake, also known as Twelfth Night Cake, Bean Cake or King Cake.

It was a rich fruit cake in which a dried bean and pea were baked. When the family, friends and neighbours were gathered round the table, the cake would be divided up and whoever found the bean in their slice would be king for the night, while the person who got the pea would be queen.

Misrule: The King Drinks, David Teniers the Younger

Most accounts skip over what happened if a woman got the bean, or a man the pea, but it seems that whoever got a 'wrong' legume would then choose a king or queen, as appropriate.

The monarchs for the night then ruled over all the others until midnight and were in charge of the feasting.

This seems to be a distant echo of the Roman Saturnalia, a midwinter festival which was partly assimilated by Christmas festivities, when a Lord of Misrule oversaw the upturning of social norms and a wild time was had by all.

By the end of the 18th century the King and Queen were joined by others, such as Sir Tunbelly Clumsy and Miss Fanny Fanciful, caricature characters picked out of a hat or bag. They acted as the merry monarchs' courtiers.

Plain Twelfth Cake (plum cake)

Twelfth Cake probably started out as a delicious fruit, nut and spice cake, but, as sugar became more available, would be dusted with icing sugar or covered in white icing. A paper crown, or one or two made of sugar paste, was often put on top.

During the 18th century decorations increased until the cake ended up covered in paste mouldings as elaborate as a Robert Adam ceiling, while usually keeping the crown or crowns. Sometimes the other Twelfth Night characters were also added to the decorations.

And with the cake, and the feasting, and the fun, and present-giving, Twelfth Night was 'probably the most popular day throughout the [sic] Christmas' when William Sandys published his book Christmastide in 1852.

So why don't we eat Twelfth Cake these days? What happened to it?

The Victorians did. In particular, Victoria herself. As Christmas Day became more of a family celebration, thanks to Dickens, Prince Albert and all the rest - because many of our 'traditional' Christmas customs are fairly recent in historical terms - it began to rival Twelfth Night.

Then in the 1870s Victoria banned Twelfth Night. Boo! Hiss!

To be more specific, she thought it was too pagan, too un-Christian, with its boozy celebrations and dangerous misrule, and too disruptive to hard work, so she had it removed as an official holiday. No day off work; no feasting or upsetting the social order.

The cake, with its decorations modified, and without its pea and bean, moved to Christmas Day.

Well, my ancestors weren't going to lose a delicious treat as well as a holiday, were they?

Black Bun

And it seems that Twelfth Cake was also the ancestor of a Scottish cake/pie called Black Bun, which I've eaten on Hogmanay.

Another Twelfth Night tradition was drinking a wassail - spiced cider, or wine or ale. With the flesh of baked apples floating in it, it was known as Lamb's Wool. It would go very well with a slice of cake or Black Bun.
The inspiration for this post came from my friend Lesley, who asked me if I knew anything about Twelfth Cake. I said I did, a bit, and dashed off to do some research. Any excuse! It was so interesting I wanted to share it with you.

So thanks to her, and to you for being a wonderful Worldwide Genealogy community. I'll end by wishing you a very Merry Christmas, if you celebrate it, and a happy holiday season to all. In the words of a favourite of mine, the Wassail Song:

Love and joy come to you,
And to you your wassail too!

Twelfth Night Feast by Jan Steen

All illustrations are in the public domain

UK National Archives webinars - a new genealogy resource

The UK’s National Archives (TNA) at Kew has started a new initiative for genealogists – interactive webinars. I took part in one last week and thought I’d pass on my experiences to the Worldwide Genealogy community.

The National Archives © Chris Reynolds  Creative Commons

If you’ve got ancestors from the UK or its former colonies you may have already used TNA’s catalogue, Discovery, its online collections or its podcasts. You may even have visited the archives at Kew. Now these webinars may be another way to learn more about genealogy and how to research different aspects of your own family history.

I found out about the webinar I took part in because I’m signed up to TNA’s enewsletter, but you can also see upcoming events on their home page.

You have to book your place on a webinar via Eventbrite, and you’ll get a confirmation email and, nearer the date, a link and instructions. They suggest using a PC or laptop rather than your phone as the sound quality will be better. If you’ve got headphones, better still.

It’s a good idea to go to the webinar a little early to get used to the layout and to iron out any possible glitches as well as to sign in. You’ll see an e-curtain where slides will display once the webinar gets under way, and on the right hand side a small dialogue box where you interact with the TNA mods and other participants. This is also where you post questions for the speaker to answer at the end – you can ask questions at any time and some people’s queries were answered by other participants during the webinar I attended. Above this is a video feed of the speaker.

TNA says:

This webinar will identify relevant record series at The National Archives and help you trace individuals from this period.

We will also show you some key primary sources available to help you with research around this topic.

Webinars are interactive, online seminars designed to support and develop research skills. You access this event from the comfort of your own home, by logging in on your pc, tablet, smartphone or other device. Being online, you will be able to take advantage of the expertise of The National Archives' staff from your own computer or tablet, without having to travel to Kew. During the session (which will last no more than an hour), you can interact with staff members and fellow researchers taking part in the webinar, as well as listening to, and viewing, the presentation on screen.

How was my first TNA webinar? Instructive and enjoyable, with only a few minus points. There were some glitches with the sound. At first there was none, then it was too low, and later on I and another participant heard a very distracting echo which made it almost impossible to follow what the speaker was saying. This wasn’t too bad while there were slides on the screen, but made the Q&A at the end impossible to follow.

In addition, the dialogue box was supposed to stay on screen after the session ended so that attenders could go on talking for a while, but it disappeared.

I’m sure these were just teething troubles. I found the TNA staff very helpful and keen to sort out the problems. They generously offered to send us the slides and a link to the audio so we could catch up with the bits we missed.

Apart from these small problems, it was a very positive experience. The slides were clear and left on the screen for long enough to take notes from (though I did take a few photos as well), and the speaker, Dr Katy Mair, used several documents from TNA’s collection to illustrate points, which was an added bonus.

She was excellent at explaining the sources available from the National Archives and how to search them. And it’s always a joy to hear an expert speak.

I’d definitely recommend taking part in a TNA webinar if you can. Some older ones are also available on their website.

Finally, a few notes about the session I attended. With this being the 300th anniversary of the Jacobite Rising of 1715, TNA is marking the event with some commemorative events, including a small display in their Keeper’s Gallery. This talk was about tracing Jacobites (supporters of the exiled King James) in the National Archives.

There are no sources online (apart from State Papers Online, a subscription site only available to institutions), so it’s necessary to go to TNA or get someone to do the research. Discovery, their online catalogue, has descriptions of the relevant series. They are:

• State Papers (SP) – the key series
• Various legal series – Treasury Solicitor (TS), Kings Bench (KB)
• Forfeited Estates Commission (FEC), Patent Rolls (C66)

The State papers fall into two categories, State Papers Scotland (SP 54), letters to the Secretary of State from Scotland, and State Papers Domestic George I and II (SP 35 and 36), letters to the Secretary of State from England.

Flora MacDonald, captured in 1746 (Wikimedia)

In addition, SP 41 (State Papers Military) covers the risings of 1715 and 1745, with letters and papers directed to the Secretaries of State in their military capacity; SP 42 (State Papers Naval) holds correspondence from the Board of Admiralty; and SP 44, which covers letters sent dealing with warrants, pardons, petitions, licences and reports.

Katy also talked about women prisoners taken after the Jacobite Risings and about what happened to the people captured and convicted – if not execution, then banishment, pardon on enlistment or transportation.

She showed us lists in CO 1 (State Papers Colonial) of Jacobites transported to British colonies in America and the West Indies, where they were sold as ‘indentured servants’ to plantation owners.

Britain used its American colonies for transportation until the independence of the United States, after which it turned to New South Wales... but that’s another story.

My earliest Australian ancestors

We’re halfway through National Family History Month for genealogists researching in Australia and New Zealand. I’m based in the UK, so the only way I can join in is online. But that’s OK – we’re Worldwide Genealogists here!

© Evelyn Simak and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

So I decided to do something I haven’t yet done. It's about time! 

I’m going to mark NFHM by putting together a list of the first of each branch of my ancestors who arrived in Australia. They all came from the British Isles. Well, as far as I know – there are brick walls in my tree, of course. In fact sometimes I think my family tree grows out of an old brick wall, like the one in this photo.

I’m going to do this by starting with the earliest, first on my grandfather’s side, then on my grandmother’s.

Grandfather’s side:

Nicholas DELANEY (Ahnentafel no 48), arrived 30.10.1802 on Atlas II. Convict and Irish rebel, from Carnew, Co Wicklow in Ireland. Married to:

Elizabeth BAYLY (A49), arrived 3.4.1807 on Brothers. Came free. May have been from Kent. A brick wall. Their son Thomas married Lucy, the daughter of:

John SIMPSON (A50), arrived 10.1.1818 on Ocean II. Convict, born in Yarm, Yorkshire, arrested in Derbyshire. A tailor. Married/lived as married with:

Sarah MARSHALL (A51), arrived 14.1.1818 on Friendship II. Convict, from Salford or Manchester.

(Thomas) Robert Sandon WILSON (A26), called ‘the Man of Mystery’ because we know nothing much about him. English, possibly a bigamist. Certainly a brick wall. Married to:

Sarah Emma HENLEY (or DICKS?) (A27). Arrived before 1854. From Sussex. Their daughter Mary Maude married Lucy and Thomas’s son Tom.

Grandmother’s side:

James Thomas RICHARDS (A30), arrived 12.12.1835 on Royal Sovereign. Convict, from Deptford, Kent. A Thames waterman. Married to:

Rebecca HARRINGTON (A31), arrived between 1857 and 1873. Probably assisted immigrant (meaning that she didn’t pay for her own voyage). May have come with her father, Thomas Harrington (A62), a dock labourer, or he may’ve joined her later with his wife Julia (A63), nee Gamin, or Cannell, or even Gemmell, from somewhere in Ireland. Yes, Julia’s a brick wall. Rebecca and Thomas were from Hackney in East London.

James and Rebecca’s daughter Eleanor Ann Edith (Minnie) married Thomas Henry, the son of:

John WINTER (A28), arrived 9.2.1857 on Parsee. Assisted immigrant from Tebay, Westmorland (Tebay’s now best known as a service station on the M6 motorway). Married to:

Ann GRAHAM (A29), arrived 23.7.1857 on Alfred. Assisted immigrant from Butterknowle, Co Durham. She came with her parents:

Thomas Rume, Rumneys or Ramneys GRAHAM (A58), a quarryman born in Gaitsgill, Cumberland, and his wife:

Elizabeth BELL (A59), from Bishop Middleham, Co Durham.

Convicts

Looking back over my earliest Australians, I can see three big brick walls. Interestingly, none of them are convicts. OK, so three of my naughty ancestors have so far resisted my attempts to track down their parents, but at least because the legal system kept tracks on them they’re fairly well documented. That’s one reason I like having convict ancestors – they leave traces. And they’re cool.

Two of my branches are from Ireland and the rest are from what’s now London or from the north of England. A nice mixed bag. No Scots yet – but who knows where those Grahams came from before they turned up in Cumberland? All my Welsh ancestors are on the other side of my family.

As far as I know. And that’s one of the reasons I love genealogy. There’s always something new to discover. It’s a bit like being a time-travelling sleuth. I’ve got quite fond of some of them. Others I could spank for being so secretive. But in the end, they give me hours of fun, days of frustration, and a lifetime’s work. 

If you recognise any of the names or other information - places, ships and so on - that I've mentioned, please get in touch. I'd love to hear from you.

Thanks to everyone involved in NFHM, get well soon Shauna Hicks, and a big G'day to my Aussie geniemates!