I have received four emails recently from four completely unconnected people, all of whom have said they are giving up work on their DNA test.  It’s too complicated, it’s too uncertain, it’s all just too ….  big.

I most certainly understand – I’m there too, for a few minutes at least each time I log in and see potential leads which go nowhere.  But a result is possible, and the last thing I want is for my newly discovered cousins to declare themselves defeated just when I am working on my own tree.

DNA testing has now entered mainstream genealogy.  When I first tested with FamilyTree DNA back in March 2014, I was getting a new cousin match every couple of weeks.  Now I’m getting about six new cousin matches every week.  Each week there’s a new hope that I might identify a connection, confirm an ancestor and know from whom I inherited a particular segment of DNA.  I don’t expect to know all my new cousins, but you would think I might get lucky with some!  After all, I have a big tree and I’m trying to be as accurate as I can.   The more tests there are, the more chance of a breakthrough.  But testing alone won’t achieve this.

Genetics is a complicated business.  It really is an exact science but there are so many factors that the exactness seems to be hidden behind a random mess.  Genealogy is very similar, a complicated puzzle which resolves perfectly when that missing detail is finally located. Once the whole story is presented, we wonder why we didn’t see it before.

I’m going to give my tips for working with FamilyTree DNA tests, just in case they help someone.  People are different, maybe what works for my family won’t work for others. But it might.  If it does, the whole thing may seem less daunting.  This might take a few blog posts.

BEFORE TESTING

Why are you testing?  Just to see who is out there? To meet new relatives, break down brick walls, confirm ‘best guesses’ in your tree?  Or are there more specific objectives?  To find an unknown parent or siblings? To confirm that a Y-DNA match shared an ancestor within the last six generations?  To ascertain which of your great grandfather’s two wives was your own great grandmother?

If you are testing for a very specific purpose, you may think you have made this clear to all matches by keeping your profile blank – but you haven’t.  Others will just assume you have not gotten around to adding the details.  It’s best to post a message on the test profile politely stating that the test was undertaken as part of a specific project and not for general genealogical purposes.  Or set the test to profile so it doesn’t drive us all mad with it’s potential to break down our brick wall!

 

NASTY SURPRISES

Having the management of ten DNA kits, there has so far been one complicated surprise, two slightly awkward revelations from the 1870s and one from the 1850s.

Some of us know our families well.  We might know, for instance, that a neighbour is rumoured to be the child of our uncle the family black sheep.  If we know this we won’t be very surprised to learn that he fathered another child a year earlier.  This might still be awkward but it won’t change our perception of that uncle of ours. But if the uncle was a loving and devoted husband it might be more difficult to accept.

What if there’s an unexpected sibling?  The past century has seen adoption, war babies, free love, communes, and both sperm and egg donors.   Someone is going to find relatives where they shouldn’t have any.  That someone might be you and it might take diplomacy and great discretion to pave a way through.  Some of those unresponsive DNA tests in our match lists are probably a result which shocked the test taker.

DNA testing will provide the truth with no regard for cherished illusions. I have no idea if there are statistics on this, but the odds are slightly in favour of uncovering secrets. Those of unknown or suspect parentage are very likely to DNA test.

Forewarned is forearmed. Many people find exactly what they expected all along, no rude shocks at all.

 

WHO ARE THE COMMON ANCESTORS?

We all have our own ways of doing this part.

DNA testing matches us to our cousins but it’s up to us to find the common link.  My first cousins share a grandparent with me, probably two but not necessarily.  My second cousins share a great grandparent.

There is software that does this, but I made myself a table.  Manually constructing the table helped me think it through. This is my mother’s relations and the ancestors are listed from paternal down to maternal.  So to be my mother’s second cousin, you would need to descend from one of the four couples in the second column.

If FtDNA suggests that someone is a 2nd-4th cousin, they ought to have an ancestor who appears in the 4th cousin section at least of my list.

The more unknowns in this list, the less chance of identifying matches.  But the list still helps. Every few months I can update a name in here.

 

WHERE ARE THEY FROM?

Location is everything.  Here is one branch of my ancestry, one with multiple records and confirmed DNA matches.

I might not have any matches who share an ancestor surnamed Wookey, but I might have several who have ancestors from West Harptree.  If I can’t find any common ancestor this is the next thing to look at.  West Harptree was a little village and after several generations most of the inhabitants were some degree of relation to each other.  This means they all shared DNA.  If a proposed 5th cousin has ancestry in West Harptree, we probably need to look in that location and go back a few more generations.

The same holds true for Fermoy, Cork, Ireland.  The Peards, Gumbletons, Woodleys, Conners and Leahys married into each other’s families for three centuries.  If someone has an ancestor from Fermoy – or more specifically Castlelyons or Mitchelstown – then we have a 75% chance of a match there, maybe higher.  Finding it may take us back more generations than expected because of the many cousin marriages, but it’s probably there.

It helps enormously to put the location on FtDNA with the test kit.  Names are good but locations are – as I said – EVERYTHING.  ‘Unknown’ from East Harptree finds a DNA match much faster than ‘Samuel Wookey’ from nowhere specific.

IT’S A SLOW PROCESS

Genealogical research for most of us in ongoing.  We learn new facts all the time, we learn new name spellings, find more children, realise we took a wife’s name from an incorrect source, discover that the eldest son was born before the parents could possibly have met.  This is the way of research and not a problem.   As a result, people might have their trees wrong.  We might, our matches might.  That information just might get corrected as more records are digitized or the tree owner finally gets to make that trip to the ancestral home.  We might convince a cousin to test with spectacular results, or we might just have to sit for a year or two as remote matches trickle into our match list, waiting for the one. It’s a bit like the old idea of marriage, going through life trying to make oneself perfect so when we meet the one, we will be properly attractive to them.

What we do here is very similar, but the one is now that person with the right DNA who also holds the family bible/oral history/photo album that can confirm a connection which has eluded everyone else.  We all know they are out there – it keeps us going.  When their test shows up in our match list we’ll have that Eureka moment.

Maybe that person exists, maybe they don’t.  All we can do is work on our own trees and provide enough information to assist but not obfuscate.

We can do it!

This is my recap-the-year blog, perhaps more interesting to myself than to others.  But you never know!  It was a very busy year.

Modern family events.

Two family members were lost to us in 2015.

One was my mother-in-law’s uncle who passed away at the age of 99.  He was determined to reach that magic 100, but missed by fifteen weeks.  I had never met him, unfortunately.

The second was a DNA match from England who was aged 97, another man I had never met but he was one of the few DNA matches with whom I had identified a common ancestor. His daughter emailed to inform me of his passing.  I feel privileged to have communicated with him in his exotic homeland of Somerset and of course his match data is still there in my list, as if he were still with us.

In happier news, one of my cousins was married and another cousin has become a mother for the first time.  Wonderful stuff!

My family tree research.

A step forward, a step backward and a whole lot of sidesteps.  Progress? Yes, since I am not at the same point for any direct ancestor.  Some of my research was wrong but at least I know that now. Much was correct. The old mysteries have been replaced by new mysteries. I think this is all we can ever say with regard to family history research.

The size of my family tree a year ago:

Oh, those old days when I was such a newbie thinking I had a big tree! This is the current figure:

Not only is this new statistic of 40,419 people almost double the previous number, but I now realise that I have barely scraped the surface.

My original family tree objectives were

1) Identify every emigrating ancestor and their reason for emigrating.  

2) Track the families of those emigrating ancestors back through the unsettled 1800s to their true towns of origin,  since most families stayed put through the 1700s. 

3) Track those families back to the start of parish registers wherever possible

This seems neverending but all the easy ones have been completed.   When I find a new ancestor the latest plan is to add all the detail I can find, as far back as it takes me.  Even if it takes me back to Rollo the Viking.  Yes, I now have him in my tree, along with William the Conqueror and various Plantagenets.  But interestingly, not Charlemagne so far.

The new objective is to add all the descendants I can find from the tenth generation and closer.  This is what is swelling my tree.  So many of my DNA matches have small trees with limited information.  Initially I thought they would all fill out their trees as I have and we would only need to look for the identical ancestor.

Very few people do this, no doubt for good reasons.  I have much more success if I meet them halfway to themselves.  If I take my line back to England for instance to a couple in 1700, then add in all their descendants, eventually I will find some who emigrated to Canada, Australia, Trinidad or the United States.  Following their children for a few generations has netted me some confirmed cousins.   Thus the tree grows and grows.

That said, I’m not into data entry for its own sake.  The fun in finding a new relative is in properly ‘meeting’ them, learning what their childhood was like, how they met their future spouse, what their experience of parenting was, whether their old age was secure or a struggle.  These are the details which turn a statistic into a living person. The only point in bulk-entering families from census and BDM records is to quickly reach those living DNA matches.  I have a lot of tasks building up on my ‘to-do’ list by racing over these lives.

This is another of my objectives for 2016 – become better acquainted with the other descendants of my ancestors.

By Imars: Michael Shea. CC BY-SA 2.5  creativecommons dot org/licenses/by-sa/2.5 via Wikimedia Commons

Genealogical DNA Testing

I have eleven kits to play with now, each showing about 800 matches. There is some overlap. Progress here is slow and very unsteady but I’m learning a lot about colonies and colonists, even if I’m not finding cousins.

For instance, in Australia in the 1850s there was a big melting pot where everyone’s DNA was thrown in together and mixed round till it was scarcely identifiable.  You can’t go by who was married to whom, and if any woman was widowed there, her children will emerge with DNA belonging to no one she was known to associate with.

This melting pot was called Ballarat and it is the biggest thorn in the heel of my DNA research.  If I trace an ancestor and find they spent any time in Ballarat at all, I may as well give up the whole game.

I won’t, of course.  I will one day overcome the Ballarat stumbling block which has now appeared in three completely unrelated kits.

Another  melting pot was Norfolk Island in its first incarnation as a penal colony.  A third was Cork, Ireland in the decades following Cromwell’s invasion.

Another visit to my home state

Those who have followed my blog for a while will know about our mystery relative.  This year I was thrilled to meet our relative and his wife in person.  No longer just a voice on the phone or an email correspondent, but more a part of the family than ever before.  Several of our family members met and it was a very great pleasure to see them all collected in the one room. This is one of the unexpected rewards of family research.

He is still a mystery, but we might have the answer.  A new tested kit, a few new matches and it all looks very promising.  I will be very pleased if DNA comes through for us in this matter.

Family History Photographs

The final point of interest was during my visit to Tasmania when I finally revisited those areas which I often blog about – Hamilton, Ouse, Osterley and New Norfolk.  I now have the photographs I so badly wanted and they will appear in future blog posts with their respective ancestor or local history stories.

Next objective for this year – photograph some family history locations closer to home.  There may be some posts coming up about South Australia and the ancestral towns here.

So that was 2015. A heavy study schedule, a flood, a few heatwaves, a bushfire, a lot of data entry and a great deal of new DNA data to make sense of.

It will be interesting to see what revelations come to light in 2016.

 

This blog has been and will continue to be a blog about local history and my ancestors, but every so often a current event occurs which warrants recording, particularly if it is an event which our ancestors may have also experienced. This entry, therefore, will be about our recent bushfire which has heavily absorbed the time and resources of our whole community for almost a month now.

Some context from the past, an account from the Midnorth district of South Australia (1867):

“STOCKPORT.” South Australian Register (Adelaide, SA : 1839 – 1900) 23 Dec 1867: 3. Web. 1 Jan 2016 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article39183793>.

I like this update from the Stockport correspondent. He or she generally writes with more preparation and editing.  At the time of writing, the shock and fright come through clearly.

The above report might have been written about the Pinery fire experienced by the Midnorth on 25 November 2015.  Very hot strong winds and dry crops early in the process of being harvested.

People in rural South Australia are very aware of the risk of fire.  I had an appointment out of town on that day which I chose to cancel after seeing the wind. I learned later that several others made the same decision.  It was very clear that if a fire started, it would be difficult to control.  We all stayed glued to the fire service incident website and the RSS page feed. Farm units (farm vehicles fitted with firefighting equipment driven by trained farmers) were geared up just in case.  When the fire did begin it took about fifteen minutes to jump in status from ‘Advice’ to ‘Emergency Warning’ for the town closest to the fire.

This is not common.  Fires are reported firstly as an incident, then upgraded to ‘Advice‘ which our fire service defines as ‘Fires that may pose a threat to property or public safety or events that may generate interest or involve a specific risk’.  This status means we should keep aware.

Next in the process is the ‘Watch And Act‘ which means the fire is proving difficult to contain. Residents need to be aware that they might be in danger.  A ‘Watch and Act’ is no joke.  This is when you need to assess your safety and defence capability.  Many people will evacuate at this point.

Finally comes the ‘Emergency‘ warning.  There are a few versions of this but all of them mean – ‘you are in extreme danger and need to take steps to ensure your survival’.  It’s too late to get out of town. Yes, a strong message.

For a fire to jump directly to this status is quite serious.  Our ancestors had no such warning system.  They might have smelled an occasional whiff of smoke, or maybe seen the fire from a distance, but they could only guess at its strength and speed.  They could only estimate its direction and wonder what would happen if the wind changed.

Our family lives in a house which does not provide good defense against fire, in a town which is not deemed a ‘fire safe’ town.  What’s more, our nearest ‘fire safe’ town was in the direction of the fire so probably not a good escape plan if needed.  At this point we had no warning regarding our own town, but obviously we needed to be vigilant.

We packed the car ready for evacuation.  In went the family bible, the clock from my grandparents, our hard drives with all the family records, the wedding album.  It’s an interesting exercise, deciding what needs to go and what should stay.  I had a list prepared but at the last minute I changed a few items.  I’ll shout this one:  ANYONE WITH FAMILY HEIRLOOMS SHOULD KEEP A LIST!  In the event of an emergency the mind tends to go blank.  Things get forgotten.  A list written in a calm, safe moment and kept in an accessible place is extremely useful.  This was my first opportunity to test this piece of advice and for me at least, it works.

There were more emergency warnings but so far the fire was moving around us.

So there we were, not a breath of smoke in our town because the wind was blowing the fire away from us.  It was big, it was dangerous, the day was hot and a wind change was forecast.  The wind change was what everyone was waiting for.  Until that came it was too easy to run straight into the fire if we left home.

I would like to mention that our fire service was wonderful.  This was a fast, reactive and intense event and we received a lot of information.  I say this because after every natural disaster there is always a big enquiry with questions and accusations flying around.   The uncertainty was due to the weather and the unpredictable conditions around a wind change.

So we waited, knowing things were about to get very nasty.  Then suddenly at just a few seconds after 3pm it was there in front of us:

It was truly a monster, a writhing, billowing mountain rushing purposefully towards us. The picture doesn’t really do it justice but it was huge and closing in on three sides.  Now of course, we knew which direction to take to get out.  We joined the stream of traffic fleeing our little town and headed north east.

They were brave people, our pioneer ancestors.  They faced the firefronts with their lives and livelihoods at risk.  Without insurance or outside assistance, without a motor vehicle capable of travelling at high speeds, they had little choice but to go through with it.

Another report of the 1867 fire from Stockport:

“STOCKPORT, DECEMBER 19.” South Australian Weekly Chronicle (Adelaide, SA : 1858 – 1867) 21 Dec 1867: 3 Supplement: Supplement to the South Australian Chronicle and Mail. Web. 1 Jan 2016 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article91262091>.

Once again this report described our own fire.  It chased us halfway across the Midnorth.  We went to the evacuation shelter at Riverton which was soon placed under an emergency warning itself, but being a fire safe town we were in a defendable position at last.  As it happened, the anticipated cold change arrived and by 7.30pm the main roads into the fire ground had reopened to allow homeowners to undertake final fire extinguishing activities.  We headed back.

As the above article from 1867 said:

“a thousand lights may still be seen through the darkness upon the land over which the conflagration passed”

We saw this, for sure.  Unfortunately I don’t have a photograph, I had the wrong youngster manning the camera and I was driving. But we saw it! Spots of flame everywhere, flicking away on a black background as night fell.  Without knowing if our house was still standing, we drove deeper and deeper into the fire ground.

By some complete miracle – coupled I suspect with an efficient firefighting service and at least 22 water bombers – our house survived intact. Covered in ash, for sure and the smell of smoke was everywhere inside and out.  That’s nothing! We had a house, a property, our chickens were alive.  We had no power or water but we had a water tank so that was fine.  We had our battery-powered radio and heard about the two fatalities – one a mere eight kilometres from us – and the rising count of destroyed houses.

We went a few days without power and water, long enough to lose everything in the fridges and freezer.  Small fry compared to the losses of others.  We feel very fortunate.

Once the sun came up on the morning after our return an assessment of the region resulted in a new closure of all roads.  As a result we were stuck in our house without power and water and not very much canned food.  We were however not alone and it was one of those events which brings the community closer together.  On that first post-fire day, the smoke and ash was everywhere around us.

With spot fires constantly flaring around us, we heard sirens all day and half the night. We patrolled for embers and learned to tell the difference between fresh smoke and stale. We tried to console our neighbours who were spending their days killing their injured sheep, cattle and pigs. We saw a lot of dead sheep in paddocks too on that first day.  An awful sight, quickly removed.

I’m not going to post any photos of burned out houses because the event is still too raw for those who have lost so much.  There are plenty all around us.  Instead, I’ll finish with a few scenes from days after the fire when the roads reopened.

Finally, here is another photo from the same position as one of the first photographs above:

Our ancestors did a marvellous job of picking up the pieces. Despite reading the newspaper reports, the aftermath is hard to conceive at times. The continuing smoke, dust, livestock losses and need to treat injuries, water sources polluted with ash … and after the disaster, they rebuilt and still managed to leave us mementos and heirlooms.

How did the little town of Stockport manage after their fire on 19th December in 1867?  Here’s the report from that same correspondent for Christmas Day:

“STOCKPORT.” Adelaide Observer (SA : 1843 – 1904) 28 Dec 1867: 3 Supplement: Supplement to the Adelaide Observer.. Web. 1 Jan 2016 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article159515346>.

The above sentence comes from the preface to ‘The history of Limerick, ecclesiastical, civil and military: from the Earliest Records, to the Year 1787‘ written by John Ferrar.  It’s a wonderful book, a very enjoyable read and a useful reference if you have ancestors in Limerick.  I first found it about four years ago and I have read it several times.

This book is an update of John Ferrar’s 1767 work ‘An History of the City of Limerick: Containing Some Account of Its Antiquity &c‘.  This, also, is a good read.  What’s more, one really gains an understanding of Limerick society by noting the changes between the two editions. Changes in Limerick, and changes in perspective.

For a long time I wondered at the above sentence.  It’s not hard to detect the mood of the author in any piece of writing, and this book never came across as a laborious task for its author.  Eventually, the answer came to me.  To be strictly honest, John Ferrars told me right on the frontispiece of the 1767 edition, but I’d always skipped that page and headed for the substance.

John Ferrars did not actually write the history.  He compiled it from the work of others.  This does not in any way devalue his efforts.  To locate private manuscripts, assess their accuracy, decide on a format for his book and to choose what to include and what to leave out without offending anyone of importance is a colossal undertaking.  If he hadn’t done this, those manuscripts would not be with us today.  I, for one, am very appreciative.

So who did write it?  In 1767, Ferrars makes only the briefest reference to his sources.

There we have a reference to a man for whom I have the greatest respect.  The Reverend Mr White is not an ancestor of mine.  Since he was a Catholic Priest I expect he was nobody’s direct ancestor.  He was a man with an active mind and a gift for writing. I’ve known him for years through his writing.  I would guess that he was creative and generally enthusiastic. I’m sorry that I did not meet him.

The Reverend White did not exactly write the history either, although he created the format and it seems conducted several oral histories to fill out the detail.  He did as John Ferrars did later, and rescued manuscripts written in earlier times.  He was a great transcriber.  Still, I would credit James White with the arrangement of the history.  If flows very well.  I’ve read a lot of books from this era over the years and some are stiff and awkward, as if the author could not properly communicate without seeing how his words were being received.  The Reverend White was different.

Even though I knew this much about the Reverend White, I had no idea where he actually lived.  He produced a history of Limerick and one of Clare, and collected manuscripts from several counties.

Then came the Irish Catholic Parish Records, made publicly available last week by the National Library of Ireland. On the search for Fitzgeralds and Appleyards, my intrepid distant cousin went online, into the St Mary’s Limerick baptisms.  Here she found the records we needed.  She sent me an email, I went to see for myself – and there was the Reverend James White himself!

This parish register is a transcription, made probably at the end of each month, possibly each third month.  I first realised this when I noticed a few entries out of order.  A February 12th entry before a January 4th entry.  There were a few errors in name too, errors which are unlikely to occur at the time of the event.  Getting the mother’s name wrong, for instance. I don’t think it happened much, but there was an error in one of my own family records so I became aware of this.

This register is also indexed – something I have not seen with any other.  Remembering that these records have been available for one week so I’m hardly an expert on their organization. Someone – and my money’s on our Reverend White as the first – actually indexed seventy five years by first name of baptized child.  That’s what the numbers are all about at the side and the top.  Page number and each baptism individually numbered.

The indexing continues for half a century after the Reverend White’s death, but I do think he began it.

So what happened to the Reverend James White?  He passed away on 7th February 1768 and worked basically till the end.  Here are his final entries in the register, and since the handwriting changes permanently at this time I am pretty sure it was our Reverend White doing the writing up till now.  From here on, the Reverend Welsh seems to take over.

Somewhere in early July 1767, Reverend Welsh takes the bulk of the work along with the continuing Reverend John Creagh, but the Reverend White remained on the payroll. He is named at the top of each page still.  He pops back in about once a month or so to perform a baptism or marriage.  He appears to be on light duties.

By today’s standards, he wasn’t even so old!  At this time he was in his early fifties. He performed his final baptism at St Mary’s Limerick on 29th December 1767.  Maybe he formally retired at the end of the year.

The 1787 edition of John Ferrars’ Limerick history contains the following brief biography:

James White was born in the city of Limerick in the year 1715; he returned from the College of Salamanca in Spain, in 1736, and was ordained a priest in 1738.  He published in 1764 a short description of the county and city of Limerick, and in 1766 a description of the county Clare, he also compiled in one folio volume, the annals of Limerick, from whence the first printed History was taken in 1767. 

He was for twenty five years, the pious and exemplary priest of St. Mary’s parish in Limerick, where he died on the 7th of February 1768.

John Ferrars’ History of Limerick is now available via Google books so we don’t need the hardcover to read it.  A few later versions on Google books come with pictures. I have not posted those images here since the terms of service are not clear regarding them.

There are several Ecclesiastical histories of Irish counties, and I recommend perusing these while viewing the records.  It gives the whole process context.  Otherwise one is faced with the very dry task of trawling smudgy faded Latin text on the search for family surnames, and one set of spidery handwriting looks very much like another after a while.  To visualize the life of the parish helps a great deal and keeps the mind alert.

This is a very quick post, just to explain that I am deep in the newly released Catholic parish record images via the National Library of Ireland website which went live yesterday/today (depending on where you live in the world).

I love viewing original records in a continuous format like this.  One learns so much more about a community!  The ebb and flow of life is easier to see.  Did they have a steady flow of marriages and baptisms, or were there only one or two per month?  What was the priest like?  Was he meticulous, was he busy, was he careless?

So far I have only looked at the parish of Athea in the late 1820s and beginning of the 1830’s.  I soon found surnames I recognised.

What I think I can see is a few family groups.  In one cluster we have eg Sullivan/Ryan/Houlihan/Culhane, all witnessing each others’ marriages and acting sponsor for each other’s babies.  In another we have Dillane/Woulfe/White/Ahern doing the same. There are three or four discrete groups, I’ll have to look at applotment records to see if they are geographic divisions or social ones.  Or simply family based!

With the Dillane bunch are a smattering of Sheehan, Murphy and McCarthy.  This is very interesting since those ancestor names pop up often in the DNA matches with common ancestors in the Athea region, although they never have Dillane in their tree.  The connection is here somewhere.

For my friends who are doing the same as me just now, don’t forget to check neighbouring parishes too.

A quick note as to the language:

Yes, it’s all in Latin.  The priest in Athea had very little notion of conjugation and that might be common elsewhere, but the base word is the same.  Our guy in Athea phrased a marriage in this way:

MARRIAGE

die 6 Novembris matrimonis juncti sunt Thomas Kelleher et Anna Ahern, habita super bannis dispensationis testis Thomas Ahern Maria Ryan cum alia

die 8 Novembris – Day 8 November

matrimonis juncti – (con)juncti   – joined in matrimony – Our priest has abbreviated this in an uncommon way

Thomas Kelleher et Anna Ahern – Thomas Relliher and Anna Ahern.  For this entry the names are in their original form but this is not always the case.

habita super – living here – I presume this means ‘of this parish’ as shows in English registers

bannis dispensationis – by the publishing of banns

testis – witnessed by

Thomas Ahern Maria Ryan – The names of the witnesses

cum alia – apparently means ‘with the other’. It’s written at the end of all Athea marriage registrations.

BAPTISM

26 Gulielmus filius legitimus Gulielmus Ahern et Brigida Hays patroni exant David Ahern et Margarita Ahern

26 date.  This register has the month at the top and all entries just with their date shown.

Gulielmus – William written in Latin

filius – son of.  A daughter is ‘filia’

legitimus – legitimate, meaning the parents are married. A boy born to an unmarried mother is ‘illegitimus’  Note the suffix matches that of the previous word.  A daughter would be ‘filia legitima’ or ‘filia illegitima’.

Gulielmus Ahern et Brigida Hays – William Ahern and Bridget Hays.  Names of the parents.

patroni exant – sponsors/godparents in multitude – as in more than one.

David Ahern et Margarita Ahern – David Ahern and Margaret Ahern.  The sponsor’s names.

It has been years since I looked at any Latin.  I’d forgotten how much fun that language is. I might be busy for a few days now, finding Dillane records in Athea and running the names against my DNA match’s family trees.

This post follows from Part One, which summarized my research into Hester Wright up till her arrival in Van Diemen’s Land in February 1818.  She was then aged about seventeen, single and six months pregnant.

As a convict, she probably had no minute to call her own.  She would have been shepherded to her quarters, to meals, to daily tasks.  The convicts’ health had been assessed in Sydney before transfer to the Duke of Wellington, but no doubt there was another assessment made on arrival in Hobart Town. She would be looked after, if harshly, in her last months of pregnancy.

One week after Hester’s arrival the main communication to colonists was regarding provision of stores and the “Scarcity of Grain in the Colony” (Hobart Town Gazette 28 Feb 1818).  This kind of sets the scene for Hobart Town in these early days. Whenever the residents began to combat their food problems, more mouths would arrive needing to be fed.  Those new mouths might be convicts or soldiers.  In 1828 a letter of recommendation was required by free settlers.  The colony was still closed to general immigration.

The ship ‘Duke of Wellington’, however, was bringing the sort of convicts that Hobart Town could use – tradesmen and women.  Both were in short supply, both categories had excellent prospects in the colony but would have had no idea of this. Hester was no doubt occupied with her own needs.

Advertisements such as this often preceded the arrival of female convict ships:

SETTLERS and Inhabitants who may wish to have assigned Female Servants upon the Arrival of a Vessel with Female Prisoners, are desired to send in their Applications to the Secretary’s Office next Week.

“GOVERNMENT PUBLIC NOTICE.” The Hobart Town Gazette and Southern Reporter (Tas. : 1816 – 1821) 28 Aug 1819: 1. Web. 5 Jul 2015 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article656503>

As well as people, ships brought a variety of goods in hopes of making a profit by the journey.  Incoming ships would set up shop in a room near the wharf and displayed their goods for sale. Examining the new offerings was probably a popular pastime.  Advertisements in the Hobart Town Gazette list everything from barrels of rum to ladies’ petticoats.

Hester’s child was born on 10th May 1818 and was given the name Eliza.  My guess is that she was named after Hester’s friend Eliza Patrick.  The baby was baptised in October of the same year in the Parish of Hobart Town.

By 1818, Hobart Town was only fifteen years old so the population was small. Hester can be found in the early musters but I have not had a chance to view this. She was apparently living with Joseph Eastwood who was originally a convict transported to New South Wales in 1810 then shifted on to Van Diemen’s Land in 1816.

On 10th September 1819, a daughter Mary was born to Hester Wright, once again baptised by Robert Knopwood to whom we are indebted for so many early records.  Hester was still unmarried and no father’s name is mentioned in the record.

On 20th June 1821, a daughter Ann was born to Hester Wright, baptised by Robert Knopwood.  Hester once again is unmarried.

Then, on 27th August 1821, Hester married William Watts, a fellow convict.  From this date, her children were known by the surname Watts.  Ann is generally considered to be Joseph Eastwood’s daughter, but it seems to me that she could equally be William Watts’ child.

William Watts was a fellow Bristol exile, about twelve years older than Hester. He was a horsebreaker by trade. Height 5 foot 3 1/2 inches, brown hair, grey eyes. I don’t know much about him or his time in Hobart Town.  By later records we can extrapolate possibly another child born  to William and Hester –  Fanny born between 1826 and 1831 (unless Fanny is the same as Ann or Mary?). Or should I say, we can extrapolate at least another child born to Hester and attributed to William?  One cannot be sure.

William never did settle down.  His convict record is full of absconsions and receiving of stolen property.  He received at different times 25 lashes, 50 lashes, even 100 lashes.  The man had a will to live for a long time there, but in the end his sentence was converted to ‘life’ (1828) and he absconded for good – he was executed in England in 1830.

In 1828, presumably coinciding with William Watts’ absconsion, Eliza Watts and Mary Watts were placed in the Orphan School in Hobart Town. Both girls were admitted on 9th September 1828.  Eliza was aged 10 and Mary was aged 8.  On each of their records is a note ‘Joseph Eastwood’.  This note is not explicit but seems to indicate that he was considered the father.

Both Eliza and Mary were there for several years. Mary was discharged to her mother in 1832 with a note ‘has been with Whiteburn’.  This presumably referred to a domestic apprenticeship but I have not yet located anyone surnamed Whiteburn in Hobart Town.

Eliza was discharged twice – once in 1832 with Mary, once in 1836.  The ‘Discharged To’ entry reads ‘Thomas Forster, mother’.   Does this mean she was discharged into service to Thomas Forster and only returned to her mother in 1836?  By 1836 she was eighteen years old, unusually old for the orphan school unless she was undertaking work duties there.

In the meantime, Hester was somewhere presumably with Ann and Fanny, if they were different children. Otherwise, she was somewhere with one of them only.

From this point, the story is very hazy indeed.  The final entry on Hester’s conduct record (CON40-1-9,374,227 at Tasmania’s state archives) is dated  January 24th 1837, when Hester was charged with:

‘Stealing part of the carcase of a sheep the property of Robt Patterson otherwise receiving the same well knowing’

She was held pending trial but no record of a court case has been found involving Hester. Maybe there was not enough evidence to proceed?

This newspaper report may have referred to the same incident although Hester is not mentioned:

“SUPREME COURT—CRIMINAL SIDE.” Colonial Times (Hobart, Tas. : 1828 – 1857) 21 Mar 1837: 9. Web. 11 Jan 2016 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8649882>.

If this was the same incident then Hester was in Hamilton in 1837, but no confirmation of her presence has been found.

This is all I have learned so far about Hester, posted here in the hope that other researchers will help me out and correct any misconceptions.

Hester’s family as I have it:

I once believed I had found Hester ending her days in Wellington Street, Launceston in northern Tasmania.  However, that woman appears to be quite a different Hester Wright.  Where our own ancestor spent her final years is still a mystery.

I also wonder where Hester’s other children went.  Fanny died following childbirth with twins(?) in 1858 at age 27, suggesting she was born in 1831 which would mean she, also, was not William Watts’ child.  Eliza was living at Hollow Tree near Hamilton with her own very large family. Mary and Ann … I have no clues. Mary lived long enough to leave the Orphan School in 1832, of Ann I know nothing since her baptism unless she and Fanny are one and the same.

Research continues.

Once upon a time probably in England, in about 1802, one particular baby girl was born. Her name was Hester.

We can’t really be sure of anything to do with Hester’s origins.  She might have been born in Ireland or Wales or somewhere else in Europe, but most likely she was born in England because that’s where she is first identified in the records.  She was probably born with the surname Wright, but she might have been married, or she might have taken a stepfather’s name.  She has only recently entered my ancestor radar but known descendants have spent years piecing her life together.  It’s vaguely possible that even now after so much effort, I have something to add to her life story, but I’m having trouble following the trail the previous researchers forged. It takes time and a lot of sifting through details.

Hester is a beautiful name, I think, with a timeless feel.  It’s easy for me to conceive of Hester Wright as my ancestress because of her name.  My own great grandmother was Esther (Hester) Brown born 1883 in Apsley, Tasmania, Australia so the name is already in my family.  If I am on the right trail, this Hester/Esther Wright was my Hester/Esther Brown’s great great grandmother.

It is always hard to trace women in that pre-UK census era in England, especially single poor women and I’m guessing Hester was poor and single.  We first find her at her trial in Bristol, but that’s no indication that she came from the region. Those down on their luck and surviving by their wits tended to travel widely.  If the living patterns of other ancestors are a guide, I’d guess that she came from that general area – Somerset, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Northamptonshire .. there was a lot of movement through those regions, you can tell by the convict records.  A whole lot of arrests in one county with a prior arrest in the next county and the family living at a native place three counties away.

If she was born around 1802, which is an extrapolation based on later records, then she was only around fifteen when arrested in Gloucestershire for stealing five yards of lace.  The arrest probably took place in late 1816, sometimes the accused languished in jail for many weeks waiting for the next quarter sessions.

In January 1817 she was brought to trial in Bristol, found guilty and sentenced to seven years transportation.

It took me some time to find corroborating evidence, but the earlier researchers were right on the money.  Here she is at the Bristol Quarter sessions:

14 Years Transportation: Elizabeth Patrick and Hester Wright for stealing 5 yards of lace. (Bristol Mirror 18 Jan 1817 At the General Quarter Sessions)

There’ll be a nice story there but I might have to go to Bristol to get it.  The two women (girls?) were placed together in Bristol’s old Newgate Prison to await action.  The new Newgate Prison opened its doors in 1820.  The old one by all reports was dark, airless, damp and infested with vermin. At some point maybe, their sentence was reduced from fourteen to seven years. This was a common practice after sentencing, probably to encourage compliance as well as to maintain a threat to the general populace.

I have also found a report in an online newspaper repository of one Hester Wright in March 1817, appearing at Guildhall in Bristol on a charge of assaulting an Overseer of the Parish of Bishopsgate and being assigned one month solitary confinement.  This may or may not be our girl, the Parish of Bishopsgate looks to be in London not Bristol, although the girl appeared in court in Bristol for this offence. It looks also as if transcribing here would break my terms of service so I have not done so.

This one, however, can be transcribed:

On Friday, the under-mentioned female convicts were removed from Newgate in this city, to the transport ship ‘Friendship’, lying at Debtford; … Elizabeth Perkins, Sarah North, Eliza Patrick, Harriot Neat, Hester Wright, Sarah Ann Cox, Ann Kennicott, Lucy Meares, Sophia Richards and Sarah Hopkins.  (Bristol Sentinel 17 June 1817 Varieties)

Reports of the Friendship leaving England are thin on the ground and we’d have nothing to go by were it not for unsavoury practices on board ship during the journey.  The ‘Friendship’, captained by Andrew Armet on this journey 1817-1818, was one of the “prostitution ships”.  This was one of those journeys which led to the legend of open prostitution on board female convict ships, and this is one time when the tales are clearly correct. An inquiry into affairs on board the ship was conducted after its arrival and were proven beyond doubt.

It is important to Hester’s story to pinpoint events with accuracy. The Colonial Secretary’s Papers in the New South Wales Archive are a wonderful source of information about this journey, albeit carefully phrased.  Details given in these papers by Andrew Armet (Reel 6047; 4/1740 pp.55-67) say that the Friendship left port in London on 3rd July 1817.

We need to pinpoint the date because Hester, upon her arrival in Australia, was heavily pregnant – with MY ancestress. Figuring out when the event occurred is crucial in determining the father.  Early researchers believed at first that she met the father in New South Wales.  Then researchers learned that the baby was born on 10th May 1818.  A baby born in May was not conceived before 3rd July, not by any stretch of the imagination.  Maybe by the end of July and then a few weeks overdue?

It’s pretty clear that Hester Wright, aged by now about sixteen years, sailed from England on the convict ship ‘Friendship’ and became pregnant while on board.

We don’t hear much about these journeys, but any journal or ship’s log that I have seen is full of interesting detail.  There was also heat, thirst and claustrophobia, but a lot went on at sea.  Other ships passed, they saw whales and sharks and land masses, there were storms, they stopped at ports for water and supplies. Sometimes there was sickness on board, sometimes even crew members and officers suffered mental complaints.  Allegations were made that prostitution began on board the Friendship even before it left Debtford, between soldiers and the convict women. It was stated that Armet and other officers attempted to stop it but were unable.

As well as the prostitution, this trip had pirates!  They left England and as usual for convict transports, headed for the Cape of Good Hope.

Here’s a rough map:

Approximately marked in are Debtford in England, Madeira, St Helena, Capetown and Sydney.  Lots of ships went this way. I’ve been a bit vague around Australia because usually they passed south of Van Diemen’s Land and came up the east coast, but some went through the Strait and some came round the north.  I’m not sure which way the Friendship went.

What we do know is that the Friendship left Debtford, sailed down the Thames and headed south.  Before terribly long it was in the proximity of Madeira where it collected some pirates – six Spaniards and an American!

Why am I making a big deal about this?  Well, it’s a flight of fancy but I’m looking for a Spaniard in the tree and have been for at least a year now, because of our DNA ethnicity report.

I’m very aware that these things vary, but this reading has held true across both FtDNA and several different models via Gedmatch.  ‘Southern Europe’ does not necessarily equate to Spanish but we have both Mexican and Spanish distant cousin matches – purely Hispanic without any English people in their tree. One of my Spanish-speaking cousins doesn’t even speak English, I use Google Translate to communicate by email with him.  His kit was purchased for him by a relative in the United States. We haven’t found the connection but it’s on my paternal side and that’s the Hester Wright side.  Very vague but I have to keep this in mind. One follows all the leads and the red herrings and the red herrings are eventually proven incorrect, but you don’t know until you put in the time.

So since I’m looking for a father for Hester Wright’s child, and I know the month in which that child was conceived, and I know that in that month she was incarcerated on a ship out at sea … and now I know that in that very window of opportunity six Spanish pirates were picked up by the ship … well, it’s a delightfully romantic tale from this distance.  Who wouldn’t want a Spanish pirate in their tree?

I’m working with my DNA matches to see if we can find their common ancestor.  It might lead somewhere, it might not.

From The Sydney Gazette 18 January 1818

… South-west of Madeira 50 leagues, Capt. A. fell in at sea with an open boat, wretchedly unequipped, and traversing under a sail fabricated of the shirts of her exhausted crew, six Spaniards and one American, who had for six days subsisted on a little turtle with which accident threw in their way, and which they were compelled to eat raw, and without a drop of water but – here must we let fall the curtain ! Humanity dictated to the feeling which saved these people from a miserable destiny, and they were cherished and  restored. They were kept on board seven days, and on the 4th of August turned over to an American ship,whose Commander charitably undertook to set them down at Bonavista, in Newfoundland, where they hoped to find employment on board other vessels.

“Sydney.” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 – 1842) 17 Jan 1818: 3. Web. 3 Jul 2015 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2177699>.

Unfortunately I have so far failed to find names for the Spanish pirates, other than their apparent origin being Buenos Aires, but this coming from a British editor who heard it from a sea captain who heard it from an American prisoner of said pirates … who knows?

So back to the facts:

After this encounter, the Friendship sailed on to St Helena where they were reportedly sighted and briefly mentioned in the shipping report of the Bombay Merchant (via the Public Ledger 17 December 1817 via Google Books).

The Friendship, convict ship, arrived at St Helena and sailed for New South Wales about the 18th of October;

This is corroborated by Armet’s account to the Sydney Gazette:

The Friendship passed the Gold Coast, and afterwards touched at St. Helena … 

That’s all there is, but it adds a further detail. Hester would have been just beginning to suspect that she was pregnant, if she knew enough about it.  She might have been unaware for a further few months.

Near Cape Town came the other well known event of this journey, the suicide of convict Jane Brown after being forced to wear a collar in public as an arbitrary and perhaps unjust punishment.  The close confines were probably getting to them all.  Jane and another convict had had a fight, tensions were high. Rather than face a second day of the collar, Jane threw herself overboard and was drowned.

Hester may have witnessed the event. If not, she would have heard about it. There seem to have been plenty of witnesses. By the time this occurred her pregnancy would be well into the morning sickness stage, maybe heading through it.

There is not much detail about the Capetown to New South Wales stage, and the Sydney Gazette announced on 17th January 1818:

On Tuesday arrived the ship Friendship from England, Capt. Armet, with 97 female prisoners, under the medical superintendence of Dr. Cosgreave, of the R. N. Three women died on the passage, which was unfortunately very long, being from the 3d of July, the day of her quitting England, to the 13th of January, the day of her arrival here. The name of the women who died were Ann Beal, Sarah Blower, and Martha Thatcher. To this number we are sorry to add Jane Brown, who from a sudden irritability of temper threw herself overboard and was drowned.

“Ship News.” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 – 1842) 17 Jan 1818: 3. Web. 3 Jul 2015 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2177693>.

A sudden irritability of temper.  That was an interesting description.

They sat off shore for weeks, pending quarantine clearance and going through the paperwork.  This was not uncommon but no doubt the convicts themselves were not informed of the reasons for the delay. Finally they could see land, but still they remained on the ship. Finally on the 30th January came disembarkation:

Yesterday morning, 28 of the female prisoners arrived in the Friendship were landed; 16 of whom having husbands in the colony were allowed to join them, and the remaining 12 went as servants into various families.

Thirteen others who were afflicted with scorbutic diseases, were sent to the General Hospital; and 56 were transhipped from the Friendship to the Duke of Wellington, to be conveyed to Hobart Town, together with 28 artificers and mechanics, sent from this settlement to be employed on the Government works there.

“Sydney.” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 – 1842) 31 Jan 1818: 2. Web. 3 Jul 2015 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2177726>.

On this day, 30th January, it seems that Hester Wright and her friend Eliza Patrick were separated.  Elizabeth Patrick remained in New South Wales and married Charles Ellis.  By 1824 she was in the Female Factory in Parramatta, for reasons I have not yet learned.

Hester, however, was one of those 56 women trans-shipped to the Duke of Wellington to be sent on to Van Diemen’s Land. This is lucky for us, since she came to the land of good convict records.

Their arrival is mentioned by the Hobart Town Gazette:

SHIP NEWS. – Yesterday arrived from Port Jackson, the ship Duke of Wellington, Captain JOHN HOWARD, with 30 male and 60 female prisoners; a part of the latter we understand are destined for Port Dalrymple. –

“SITTING MAGISIRATE—, Esq.” The Hobart Town Gazette and Southern Reporter (Tas. : 1816 – 1821) 21 Feb 1818: 2 Supplement: Supplement to the Hobart Town Gazette. Web. 3 Jul 2015 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article653967>.

So finally, aged maybe seventeen years old, single and six months pregnant, Hester Wright arrived in the colony where she would live the rest of her life, and contribute substantially to the future population of that land.

The land beyond Lower Clyde in the 1820’s was an untamed but beautiful and lush wilderness, not an easy place to live but a region of great promise. However with public resources thrown into its development the 1830s saw great change.

BRIEF VIEW OF THE ROADS, BRIDGES, AND OTHER PUBLIC BUILDINGS 1831 Launceston Advertiser

… The new line of road to the Lower Clyde at the ‘Deep Gully’ is completed as to the cutting down, and will be metaled before the ensuing winter. This road is of the highest important to a great extent of fine country, and when the traveller hears that such a work was performed by a ‘chain gang’ well may he exclaim ‘out of evil comes good’. — It was a gigantic undertaking, and for so young a colony, altogether astonishing …

“BRIEF VIEW OF THE ROADS, BRIDGES, AND OTHER PUBLIC BUILDINGS.” Launceston Advertiser (Tas. : 1829 – 1846) 17 Jan 1831: 24. Web. 28 Jun 2015 nla.gov.au/nla.news-article84775556.

Civilisation was beginning to come to this region.

THE GAZETTE April 1831

WHEREAS, by the Act or Ordinance, instituted ” An Act to regulate the impounding of Animals for trespass, and for other  purposes relating thereto,” .. it shall be lawful for the Lieutenant Governor to erect and establish public pounds for the impounding of animals therein for trespass .. the persons respectively hereinafter mentioned .. are hereby appointed keepers of such pounds .. 

The River Ouse: Police District. Bothwell, Thomas Triffitt.

“Classified Advertising.” The Hobart Town Courier (Tas. : 1827 – 1839) 30 Apr 1831: 2. Web. 28 Jun 2015 nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4203820

Thomas Triffitt must be the best known Poundkeeper in Tasmania.  I have no idea why, but anyone who researches him learns this fact first.  The man was very diligent.

Local produce in 1832

We have been favoured with the sight of a pair of mittens, spun and knit by Mrs. M’Kenzie, of the Lower Clyde, from the fur of the Opossum- In texture and appearance they very much resemble the best sort of Angola mittens, but to us they appeared of superior quality.

“HOBART TOWN EXTRACTS.” The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 – 1842) 3 Nov 1832: 3. Web. 28 Jun 2015 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2209260.

All eyes were on the Hamilton region in the 1830s as an investment and place of settlement. After the success of Richmond, Oatlands and New Norfolk, not to mention Launceston and Longford in the north of the state, a settler might do very well if he bought early and established crops and houses before the prospective rush.

Here’s the map, just to get it all clear.  The River Clyde, the River Ouse, the River Dee and the River Nive are almost parallel in Region 12. Expansion was heading west. By 1830 settlement was all near the Clyde. Into 1835 the River Ouse was the target.  By the end of this decade the River Dee became the new frontier and newly-surveyed land was about to become available towards the River Nive.

The letter below explains a matter under discussion at the time very nicely.  There was talk of making Hamilton the new capital due to its central position.  As this writer says, roads could be made from Hamilton going north to Circular Head (Stanley), south to Macquarie Harbour, west to Port Sorell and east to Hobart. This would make the town a centre for trade and egress.  It was a very nice idea, but in the end the need for a seaport won out.

The other sentiment expressed in the letter is also worthy of note – while we create the new trade capital, we can keep those disreputable convicts usefully employed and out of sight and mind.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR. 1834 (Edited to remove repetitions and double/triple/quadruple negatives)

The probability exists, that at no distant day some new and considerable portion of this territory may be thrown open to fresh settlers, and I will suppose this new country beyond the river Dee to be the portion selected for the purpose. 

 .. what course of measures would best advance the true interests of the colony on such an occasion, it may be asked? Can anyone doubt that a considerable increase in the quantity of our staple export -wool – would add to the stability of this colony?

Can anyone doubt that fixing a hardy, laborious, honest race of mountaineer yeomanry and peasantry, in the heart of the island would have these effects ? Can any one doubt that a communication open from the Dee to Circular Head, from the Dee to Macquarie Harbour, from the Dee to the coast westward of Port Sorell, would have these blessed effects?

Lastly, can any one doubt that the worst or,worst but one class of offenders transported here would be more advantageously placed than by being apart from the more settled districts, and employed at the same time in opening out the beginnings of those effects? ..

“SITUATIONS FOR UNEMPLOYED MECHANICS.” The Hobart Town Courier (Tas. : 1827 – 1839) 28 Mar 1834: 4. Web. 28 Jun 2015 //nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4185890.

The colony’s administration was certainly in favour of further settlement. Van Diemen’s Land was beginning to show signs of civilisation and even comfortable living. It also contained a whole lot of troubled and unsocialised convicts who had no good reason to trust authority or to behave themselves.  As more and more of those convicts were freed and failed to become the exemplary servants that England had hoped they would be, other options were considered. Basically, push the recalcitrant freed convicts to the country and bring in more civilised and respectable people.

Respectable people like to live somewhere respectable.  Hobart had to be made respectable in order to encourage them out.  A difference of opinion between moneyed residents and the administration was making itself known.

In the meantime, life near Ouse went on as usual:

1836 “George lves, Darby Burns and John Gain stood charged with feloniously receiving three cows, the property of Richard Chilton, of the High Plains” .. and just about every resident of the area was called in to the trial. Cattle theft was far more serious than manslaughter or concealing the birth of a child.

1836 The beautiful splendid Entire Horse ‘Black Rover’, was got by Atlas, out of one of the best draught Mares in Van Diemen’s Land .. Persons desirous of obtaining his services will please to send their Mares to the Green hills, where there are good paddocks of great extent .. 

1837 We are informed that Captain Langdon, of the Lower Clyde, has let his Estates for £1,300 per annum. ‘ .. A very decent sum and one guaranteed to stimulate interest in the area.

1838 We learn from private sources, that the late wet and stormy weather has been productive of some heavy floods in the interior. In the district of New Norfolk, and the country beyond, the flood is stated to have been higher than ever before remembered; and the rivers Ouse, Styx, Derwent, Plenty, and Jones’s River, have been swelled to a most unusual extent.  All the punts have been carried away,and.bridges, haystacks, fences, and considerable quantities of timber floated down. The bridge over the Plenty has been swept away, and the water rose twelve feet above the bridge over the Ouse.

Finally the land was surveyed, sectioned and identified.  This included the land around River Dee. The colony administration were very well practiced at land distribution by now.  They moved quickly.

COMMISSIONERS’ OFFICE, Autumn 1838

Notice is hereby given, that the following claims for Grants, will be ready for examination by the Commissioners appointed for that purpose, upon, or immediately after the 4th October next, on or before which day any caveat or counter claim must be entered  …   Mr Jamieson was the only recipient near Ouse

SALE OF CROWN LANDS By His Excellency, Sir JOHN FRANKLIN  1839

A PROCLAMATION.  

WHEREAS certain regulations were published in the Hobart Town Gazette, bearing date the 16th day of February,1832, relative to the sale of Crown Lands: And whereas the necessary arrangements therein referred to have been completed, and plans of the parishes hereunder mentioned are now ready for inspection at the Office of the Surveyor General. I do therefore .. notify and proclaim, that the several lots of landhereinafter described will, after the expiration of three calendar months, become disposable.

County of Cumberland, Christian Marshes, River Shannon, lot 461, 640 acres.- This lot comprises one mile frontage on the River Shannon ; price 5s. per acre.

River Dee, lot 482, 610 acres.- price 5s. per acre.

County of Lincoln, River Nive, lot 385, 936 acres-bounded on the west by a north line of 80 chains commencing at the north west angle of the reservation forthe Township of Marlborough

County of Lincoln, River Nive, Lot 386, 640 acres-bounded on the east by the west boundary of lot 385 ..

“SALE OF CROWN LANDS.” The Hobart Town Courier and Van Diemen’s Land Gazette (Tas. : 1839 – 1840) 22 Nov 1839: 1 Supplement: Supplement to the Hobart Town Courier.Web. 28 Jun 2015 nla.gov.au/nla.news-article8748010.

This is just a sample of the offerings. Lots of land from the River Dee to the River Nive, a matter of great interest to those at the current edge of the ‘new country’.

The neighbourhood was expected to change.