Let's Start at the Beginning

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks (2021)
Week 1 | Beginnings

The 'Rothesay Bay'

As an Australian of European descent, all the branches of my family tree have their roots in faraway lands and were transplanted here with the hope of new beginnings.   The desire to know who my immigrant ancestors were, where they came from, when and where they arrived, and under what circumstances was the spark that ignited my family history adventures several decades ago.   This week’s theme has challenged me to collate these details into one concise(ish) summary, something I’d not yet done.  The end result is a group of 33 direct ancestor immigrants;  – from gr-grandparents to 4xgr-grandparents; the earliest in 1840, the most “recent” in 1886.   Some who came as single young adults, some as children with their parents, and some as older couples following their adult children.   From England, Scotland, Ireland, France and Germany.  To South Australia, Victoria, Queensland and just one to Tasmania (and this one not by choice).

So, let’s kick off the new year by meeting these brave and resilient folks who gave my family their beginnings in Australia.

In clockwise order around my Fan Chart (and, please note, this is a very ‘names and dates only’ post – their stories will be the fodder of future posts).

MATERNAL

Catherine Elizabeth Simpson and her sisters

Catherine Elizabeth Simpson (2xgr-grandma) and her parents John and Ellen (nee Hodgson) Simpson (3x gr-grandparents) who came from Rawcliffe, Yorkshire in 1864 along with five of her ten siblings and settled in Maryborough (Queensland).

Louis Henry Dow (gr-gr-grandpa):  Finding himself an orphan at the age of 19 years, Louis left Lockwood, Yorkshire and arrived in Maryborough (Queensland) in 1879, where he married Catherine Elizabeth Simpson in 1881.

Margaret Ann Stewart (gr-gr-grandma), an Irish servant girl from Co Antrim, Ireland who sailed alone to Australia in 1876, settling in Rockhampton (Queensland) where she married Scotsman John McKinlay in 1878.  The couple and their four children moved between homes in Rockhampton and Emu Park.

John McKinlay (gr-gr-grandpa), of Ayrshire, Scotland arrived in Rockhampton in 1876 where he had a long career as an engineer and raised his four children with Margaret Ann Stewart.  Two of his brothers and one sister also emigrated to Australia and a third brother to New Zealand.

Elizabeth Betts (gr-grandma), one of eight children of Richard John DeVere and Tracey (nee Goodgame) Betts of Oxfordshire, arrived in Australia in 1886, settling in Queensland. She married Henry Davey in 1889.  Several of her siblings also emigrated to Australia. 

Henry Davey (gr-grandpa) purportedly born in Wedmore, Somerset, arrived in Queensland in 1884, settling in the Lutwyche (Brisbane) area where he forged a career as a painter and decorator.  He married Elizabeth Betts in 1889 and the couple had two children.

PATERNAL

Ellen Boyne (3x gr-grandma) was born circa 1835 in Scotland (most likely in Invernesshire). She began her life in Australia in 1852 as a 27 year old domestic servant. A few months after her arrival in Melbourne, she married former convict Charles Plant in Scots Church.  Ellen featured in a blog post in March 2018.

Charles Plant (3 x gr-grandpa) is the only one of my ancestors whose ‘beginning =’ in Australia was imposed upon him by the British courts, having been convicted in the Cheshire Court of Petty Sessions in 1842 of stealing 7 pairs of stockings.  He served time  in Van Diemen’s land, making his way to Melbourne following the issue of his Ticket of Leave. Ellen and Charles had seven children, three of whom lived to adulthood, and lived a hard life in and around the goldfields of central Victoria.

Wilhelmine Jackel (3x gr-grandma) was born circa 1831 in Germany and married Johan Christian Westendorf in 1856 at St George’s Church, Gawler, South Australia. Her arrival in Australia is subject to further research but was possibly on the Adele  which arrived in Port Adelaide from Hamburg on 14 September 1856.  If this is the correct shipping record, she was 24 years of age and travelled as a single woman.

Joachim Heinrich Westendorf (4x gr-grandpa) and Luise Schonfeld (4 x gr-grandma) and their six children, including son Johan Christian Westendorf (3 x gr-grandpa) arrived in South Australia aboard the Suzanne in 1851.  Within a few years, they had moved to the Western district of Victoria.

Jesse and Harriet (nee Stone) Heal (3x gr-grandparents) (pictured at left) were born and married in Somerset, where Jesse worked as a gardener.  They arrived in Victoria in January 1857 aboard the William, along with three of their children, including daughter Rosina Heal (2 x gr-grandmother). A fourth child was born after their arrival and the family lived the Stawell district of Victoria.

Edward Jory (2x gr-grandfather) was born in Cornwall in 1839 and arrived in Victoria as a 24 year old single man aboard the Result in 1863.  He travelled around the goldfields working as a lay preacher before marrying Rosina Heal in 1870 and settling in Natimuk where the couple had a general store.

Robert and Jane (nee Moon) Lucas (4xgr-grandparents) arrived in Adelaide from Wiltshire aboard the Fairfield in December 1840 along with a number of their children, including daughter Jane Lucas.

Charles Mathurin Leon DeLaine was born as Charles Mathurin Leon Laine in Etretat, Le Havre, France on 7 February 1818.  His arrival in Australia is cloaked in folklore but the latest research indicates he walked off a whaling ship in New Zealand in 1836.  The details of his arrival in South Australia are still to be determined. He married Jane Lucas in 1843. (More of his story in blog post dated 8 February 2018)

David and Emma (nee Hill) Mills (3xgr-grandparents) were born and married in Wiltshire and arrived in South Australia aboard the Sibella in July 1848 along with several of their children, including son George Mills (2xgr-grandfather).

Emma’s parents Thomas and Rachel Hill (4xgr-grandparents) arrived in Australia the following year aboard the Ramilles  along with several of their children.

David’s parents John and Mary (nee Ingram) Mills (4xgr-grandparents) arrived aboard the Oriental in November 1855 with their son Job and daughter MaryAnn.

Anthony Nicholson (Ruddick) Teasdale (2xgr-grandfather) remains somewhat of a mystery man, not the least of which is his change of last name from Ruddick to Teasdale.  He was in South Australia by the time he married Agnes Sprott Wilson (2xg-grandmother) in 1869.

Hugh and Margaret (nee Grant) Wilson (3x gr-grandparents ) arrived from Scotland in South Australia from Scotland in 1862 aboard the Castle Eden along with their children, including daughter Agnes Sprott Wilson (2x gr-grandmother).

A life lived in 5km

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks (2020)

Week 4 | Close to Home

A short and poignant response to this week’s theme that tells the story of Annie Davey, sister of my maternal grandfather and niece of Susan Betts, the subject of last week’s post. 

The only surviving photo of Annie Davey, circa 1960

As a toddler, Annie lived with her parents Henry and Elizabeth (nee Betts) and older brother, Ernest Frank, on Ada Street, in the Stoneleigh Estate in Lutwyche where Henry had purchased two lots in 1891.  As she neared the end of her school days, the family moved to King Street, Lutwyche (now Maygar Street, Windsor), a distance of only about 500 metres from the home on Ada Street.  Annie and her parents lived in this home until the end of World War I, when they moved to Union Street, Nundah, about 5km away.

It is likely that Annie attended Bowen Bridge school, but this has not been confirmed.  Social life for the family appear to have centred on the activities of the Independent Order of Rechabites, a temperance organisation of which Henry was a member and which had a junior group and possibly the Salvation Army.

Annie came of age during the turbulent years of the First World War.  At a time when her thoughts would likely have been turning to courtship and marriage, life would instead have been a series of farewells as her brother and other young men in her social circle enlisted in the AIF and left Australia to fight in the Middle East and Europe; her daily routine punctuated with the appearance of familiar names in casualty lists in the daily newspapers.

As for numerous women of this generation, Annie did not marry.  For many it was because they lost a beau in the war; for others it was the simple (and sad) fact that the war significantly reduced the number of eligible men.   There is family folklore that Annie lost a beau, however, no evidence has been found (yet) to confirm that this is the reason she didn’t marry or who the young man might have been.

Instead, continued to live at home with her parents, Henry and Elizabeth (nee Betts) Davey.  After her mother passed away in 1926, she continued to care for her father until his death in 1945.   A few years before Henry’s death, Henry and Annie made one last move, to 52 Buckland Road, Nundah, again a move of less than 500 metres (and still within 5km of her first home on Ada Street).

Upon Henry’s death, Annie inherited the home and lived there for almost another 40 years.  In her last few years, she moved into a nursing home, across the river in the Redland Shire, the biggest move she had made in the 90 odd years of her life.  She died in the Princess Alexandra Hospital in July 1985, aged 92 years and was cremated at Mt Thompson. 

The Davey home at 52 Buckland Road, Nundah, Qld

Although she remained physically close to home (in fact, in a series of family homes within a 5km circle) for the majority of her life, she unfortunately did not remain emotionally close to home. A connection to her surviving family members, the children of her brother, was largely lost and her nieces and nephews did not become aware of her passing until well after the funeral and were unable to mark the occasion.  As a consequence, she bequeathed her home (and estate) to Annie’s “dear friend Edna Irene Brumpton … in appreciation and grateful thanks for all the kindness and help she has bestowed on me during our years of Happy Friendship”.  Edna sold the home to developers and it has long since been replaced by a ubiquitous brick ‘six-pack’ unit block.  A sad ending both for this home and for my great-aunt Annie, whose life had stayed close to it (and its predecessors) for so many years.

Who was Great Aunt Susan?

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks (2020)

Week 3 | Long Line

In reflecting on this topic in its most literal sense (as in ‘a long line of butchers’), I was a bit stuck for options. We have a tradition of teaching going back four generations from my generation.  And there’s at least a few generations of cordwainers on another branch but I haven’t done enough research to write about those ancestors yet.  So I’m going to take an alternate interpretation of the topic and write about a long line of inquiry I undertook that ultimately paid dividends in identifying a mystery photo brickwall.

Some years ago (probably around 2003), my mother entrusted me with my maternal Granny’s photo album. Most of the photos were no longer in their mounts and there was no apparent order to where they nestled in between the leaves of the album.  I began a process of sorting, scanning and identifying.  The majority could be linked to my Granny’s family.  There were only two clearly linked to her husband (my Pop).  And there was this one that was a complete mystery.

The photo was badly deteriorated and I really wanted to know who this lady was and if she was significant enough in our family tree for me to invest in having the image restored.  The only clue on the photograph was the name and location of the photographer – H. W. Pell, Kadina.  Kadina is on the Yorke Peninsula in South Australia, originally a mining settlement of mainly Cornish immigrants employed in the copper mines.  My maternal line is almost exclusively Queensland-based (back to the point of immigration to Australia) so this posed an immediate conundrum. 

I was able to establish that H.W. Pell had a studio in Kadina between 1906-1915, giving me a date range for the photo.  At the time I started this inquiry, the Pells still operated a studio in Kadina but they indicated that they did not have any records old enough to assist with this query.  Mum thought the image was related to her father (my Pop) but had no basis for this ‘feeling’.

I started by sending a copy of the photo to all of Mum’s siblings and cousins which failed to net any information.

From that point, each time I made contact with a newly discovered cousin in any maternal branch of my family, I would send them a copy of the photo and ask if they recognized the subject.  Each time the response was an apologetic ‘no’.  Continued research connected me with a cousin on the Betts line in 2009 and together we found a connection in our Betts family line to Wallaroo, South Australia, which is very close to Kadina.   It was a clue.

Three years later, in 2012, I made contact with additional Betts family members in South Australia and duly emailed a scanned copy of the photo.  Within a day and a half I had a reply back to say ‘yes, that photo was in his collection of Betts image’.  Notations in his mother’s hand on the back indicated that it was “Great Aunt Susan, spinster sister of Thomas Betts—lived in Queensland”.  Hallelujah!  This mystery lady now had a name. And, not only that, I knew exactly who she was.  And included a digital copy of his version of the photo, which was in much better condition than the one in my possession.

Susan Betts was my Pop’s mother, Annie Davey’s, sister and, as noted by my contact’s mother, was a spinster.  As an unmarried woman it has been challenging to find sufficient information to build her story.  

Susan was born in 1849 in Brill, Buckinghamshire to parents Richard John DeVere and Tracey (nee Goodgame) Betts.  By the age of 12 years, in 1861, she was working as a nursemaid for her uncle and aunt Edward and Susan Hyde (nee Betts).  Edward was a cordwainer and the couple had three daughters ages 5, 4, and 1 year.

Like many of her seven siblings, she immigrated to Australia although. Based on her death certificate this was round 1891 but identifying when and where she arrived has not been established. She settled in Queensland and from 1903 she appears in electoral rolls living in the Lutwyche and Nundah areas, which was close to her sister Elizabeth, and the Beaudesert area, which was close to her brother John.  Her brother Mark was also living in Brisbane, while other siblings had settled in South Australia.  The portrait of her taken in Kadina suggests that she visited family in South Australia at least once. For a few years, she worked as a nurse.

In her later years, Susan was living at the Aged Christian Women’s Home in New Farm.  Susan died in the Salvation Army Home on Morgan Street, in May 1933 from heart disease and a throat infection at the age of 83 years.

Susan is buried in Lutwyche Cemetery (Brisbane, Queensland) in a grave shared with her sister Elizabeth.