Showing posts with label immigration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label immigration. Show all posts

Sunday, 23 July 2017

Greg's English roots

The subject of yesterday's post was the information about ethnicity said to be derivable from a person's DNA, mine in this case.

Today I thought I would look at the ethnicity conclusions extracted from my husband Greg's DNA data to see whether these are consistent with what we know independently about his family tree: to see how Greg's DNA ethnicity compares with his documented descent. I have enough tested matches between his known cousins and people with whom Greg shares DNA to be reasonably sure his paper-trail tree matches his genetic tree for several generations back.

I know the birthplaces of all of Greg’s great-great grandparents. Twelve were born in England, two in Ireland, one in New Zealand of English parents, and the other in Australia of English parents. Most of his English forebears were from the south of England. There is no hint in what we know of their surnames, religion, or occupations to suggest that Greg's great-great grandparents were recent migrants from outside the region.

AncestryDNA reports Greg’s genetic ancestry as 100% European:
  •  78% Great Britain 
  •  11% Ireland 
  •  7% Europe West 
  •  3% Iberian Peninsula 
  •  1% Europe East
Greg's ethnicity estimate as predicted by AncestryDNA 22 July 2017 (click to enlarge)


Greg’s mother, who believed that some of her Cornish ancestors had come from Spain, would have been very interested in this. The ethnicity results seem to suggest that there was indeed an Iberian connection of some sort (though not necessarily through Cornwall).

MyHeritage also reports Greg’s ethnicity as 100% European:
  •  North and West Europe 96.4% 
    •  Irish, Scottish, and Welsh 46.0% 
    •  North and West European 29.5% 
    •  English 16.5% 
    •  Scandinavian 4.4% 
  •  South Europe 2.6% 
    •  Iberian 2.6% 
  •  Ashkenazi Jewish 1.0%
Greg's ethnicity estimate from MyHeritage as at 23 July 2017


AncestryDNA has recently added a new feature, which it calls 'Genetic Communities'. Ancestry predicts at the 95% confidence level that Greg belongs to the 'Southern English Genetic Community'. This certainly matches his family tree. 71 people with whom Greg shares DNA, including Greg’s first cousin, several second cousins, and known third cousins, have also been linked to the Southern English Genetic Community.

Greg's connection to the Southern English Genetic Community


AncestryDNA attempts to provide support for its notion of a 'Southern English Genetic Community' with a brief history of the region, noting that in the early nineteenth century London was the largest city in the world, that many people emigrated from London and southern England to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the U.S.A.

The Ancestry website links people in Greg’s pedigree to the 'Southern English Genetic Community' through their birthplaces, broadly indicated on a large-scale map.

screenshot showing Greg's pedigree and associated birthplaces overlaid with the Southern English community data for the early 19th century
screenshot showing Greg's family tree data combined with the Southern English genetic community pedigree. Many of Greg's forebears from Southern England did indeed migrate to Australia in the 1850s and siblings or cousins migrated to America and Canada (Immigration in the 1850s was by sea).


I think that when it is placed in context with genetic relatives and historical events, the 'Genetic Community' interpretation of family history specific to our family tree is impressive and convincing. It agrees with what I have found in my own family history research.

Greg, however, is being difficult. He says his ethnicity is dinky-di Aussie, and the best thing you could say about all these Southern Poms is that they were (unwittingly) proto-Australians.

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Further reading
  • AncestryDNA have provided a white paper on ethnicity testing. It is dated October 2013. It talks about reference panels based on 3,000 samples from "individuals alive today who can trace their ancestry to a single geographic location." https://www.ancestry.com.au/cs/dna-help/ethnicity/whitepaper
  • MyHeritage also provide information about how they calculate the ethnicity estimate: http://helpcenter.myheritage.com/DNA/Ethnicity-Estimate/. MyHeritage compares my DNA with the DNA of living people around the globe whose genetic ethnicity is known and refers to these people as the Founder Populations. MyHeritage claims that they have sampled the DNA of thousands of people and have a data set of more than 100 ethnicities and the ability to show ancestral roots with far greater resolution than any other DNA service.
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Tuesday, 4 July 2017

Trove Tuesday: Flying the Kangaroo route in 1949

Qantas Kangaroo Route Advertisement 1948 retrieved from Pinterest


Most migrants to Australia, including immigrants in my family, came here by sea. My grandfather is an exception. He arrived by air.

Hans Boltz was born on 4 July 1910 in Berlin, where he trained at the State Institute for map drawing as a cartographer. From 1930 to the beginning of World War II he worked for the Prussian Geological State Institute (Geological Survey of Prussia or Preußischen Geologischen Landesanstalt). After the war, when he found his way back to Berlin, he discovered that this building, in Invalidenstraße 44, was situated in the Russian zone. Hans lived in the American zone and, reluctant to travel every day into the Russian-occupied part of the city or move there, he resigned. In 1948 he applied for work with the Australian government, which at the time was recruiting Germans with qualifications and skills in short supply in Australia. He got a job as a cartographer with the Australian Bureau of Mineral Resources.

Berlin, Mitte, Invalidenstraße 44, Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Bau und Stadtentwicklung
Invalidenstraße 44 in Berlin-Mitte, the building of the former Geological Survey of Prussia. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Hans Boltz's file created by the Department of Post War Reconstruction includes the dates of his journey from Berlin to Canberra:
  • Wednesday 13 July 1949 left Germany for London
  • Sunday 7 August 1949 left London
  • Thursday 11 August 1949 arrived Canberra via Sydney
  • Friday 12 August 1949 commenced working for the Bureau of Mineral Resources.


NAA: MT105/8, 1/6/4531 Page 2 of 143 (click to enlarge image)

In the late 1980s with the help of my grandfather Hans I spent some time compiling my family tree on my mother's side. I had bought a book in 1978 called The History of our Family, published by Poplar Books of New Jersey. This had a series of templates for recording family history. One of these was for immigration.

Decades afterwards, my grandfather remembered very clearly his trip from Berlin and his arrival, on 11 August 1949.







I summarised my grandfather's recollections as follows:
Hans Fritz Boltz emigrated from Berlin to Canberra 11 . 8 . 1949
Aeroplane - Berlin - Hamburg - London 4 weeks London
museums / concerts ... wandering around sightseeing
London - Cairo - Karachi - Singapore - Darwin - Sydney -
Helopolis Hotel Cairo  Raffles Hotel Singapore  Qantas flight
In London my grandfather was given English lessons. He was not just a tourist.

Qantas Sydney-London Constellation route map retrieved from Pinterest


On Trove I have found an advertisement for the route in August 1949.

AUSTRALIA-ENGLAND CONSTELLATION SERVICE (1949, August 4). Daily Commercial News and Shipping List (Sydney, NSW : 1891 - 1954), p. 4. Retrieved July 4, 2017, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article163836624

A Qantas Empire Airways Constellation airliner, photographed by Frank Hurley retrieved from http://trove.nla.gov.au/version/40487425


In 2007 Qantas celebrated the 60th anniversary of the Kangaroo route. This video includes footage of the journey on the Lockheed Constellation aeroplanes. The first flight on the route had departed 1 December 1947.





The journey took four days, 55 hours of flying time. There were two overnight stops, one in Cairo and the other in Singapore. In Cairo my grandfather stayed at the Heliopolis Palace Hotel. In Singapore at the Raffles. There were 29 passengers and 11 crew.

Poster for the Heliopolis Palace Hotel retrieved from Palace intrigue: Egypt in the Golden Age of Travel

COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Entree van het Raffles Hotel Singapore TMnr 60018239
Raffles Hotel in 1932. Image from Wikimedia Commons


The airfare in 1949 was £260 sterling. By way of comparison my grandfather's salary on starting with the Australian Public Service as an experienced cartographer was £222 a year and the average earnings for men in Australia was about £220 a year. The Australian government paid my grandfather's fare.






Sources
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Wednesday, 26 April 2017

V is for Valleyfield in Van Diemen's Land

The first of my forebears to migrate to Australia was my fifth  great grandfather George Taylor (1758 - 1828), who arrived in Tasmania, then known as Van Diemen's Land, in 1823. With him was his wife Mary née Low (1765 -1850) and some of his family. My fourth great grandmother, his daughter, Isabella Hutcheson née Taylor (1794-1876), followed ten years later, arriving about 1833.


"Valleyfield" Epping Tas. The "Taylors" have lived here for over 100 years. , about 1914 - about 1941 Photograph in the collection of the State Library of Victoria. Accession number H22546. A.C. Dreier postcard collection. Retrieved from 
https://www.slv.vic.gov.au/pictoria/gid/slv-pic-aab47005

The Taylor family's arrival in Hobart on the Princess Charlotte on 10 January 1823 was reported in the Sydney Gazette. George Taylor's son, Robert, wrote a diary about their four-month voyage, mostly concerned with the weather. (Helen Hudson, a Taylor family descendant, covers the Taylor's voyage in her family history book Cherry Stones, basing her account on Robert's diary.)

MAGISTRATE FOR THE WEEK—JOHN PIPER, Esq. (1823, February 13). The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 - 1842), p. 3. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2181641


George Taylor received a grant of land about 30 miles south of Launceston on the Macquarie River. He named his property 'Valley-Field'. Three of his sons, George, David, and Robert, received grants of land nearby.



The land grant to George Taylor senior signed 30 June 1823 by Governor Brisbane. Image retrieved from ancestry.com (Copies of land grants issued 1804-1823. LSD354. Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office, Tasmania, Australia.)



In January 1923 and January 1973 there were large family reunions to celebrate the anniversary of the arrival of the Taylor family in Australia.

After 182 years in the Taylor family the Valleyfield property was sold in 2005.

Further reading


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Sunday, 16 April 2017

M is for Arrival in Melbourne of the Persian in 1854

Western End of Queens Wharf Melbourne 1854 by S.T. Gill retrieved from MossGreen auctioneers



Ellen Murray (1837 - 1901) and Margaret Smyth (1834 - 1897), two of my husband's great grandmothers, sailed from England to Melbourne, Victoria, on the Persian, arriving on 9 April 1854. Ellen's sister Bridget and an infant surnamed Smyth traveled with them.

The Persian left Southampton on 2 January 1854 with 448 government immigrants, of whom 200 were single women. Eight people died on the 97 day voyage and five babies were born. The Croesus, which sailed from Southampton more than a week after the Persian, arrived the same day.



PORT PHILLIP HEADS. (1854, April 11). Geelong Advertiser and Intelligencer (Vic. : 1851 - 1856), p. 4 Edition: DAILY. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article91932661


The Persian collided with another ship, the Cheshire Witch, in Port Phillip.

SHIPPING INTELLIGENCE. (1854, April 11). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), p. 4. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4805696




From the passenger list of the Persian, Margaret Smyth and infant are at the bottom of the screenshot , record retrieved through ancestry.com (click to enlarge)


Margaret Smyth was recorded as having given birth on board. She was from Cavan; her religion was Church of England; she could read and write; and she was 20 years old. She did not find a job immediately on landing, but went to stay with her cousin. His name on the record appears to be 'John Hunter', though the surname is not clearly legible.

I know nothing more about this cousin, nor have I have discovered anything more about Margaret's baby. There seems to be no death certificate, but the baby may have died without its death registered, for in 1854 civil registration of deaths was not yet in force in Victoria.
From the passenger list disposal summary Margaret Smyth and infant went to her cousin.



On 19 November 1855 Margaret Smyth, dressmaker from Cavan, aged 22, married John Plowright, also 22, a gold digger. Their wedding was held at the residence of John Plowright, Magpie, Ballarat. On the certificate Margaret's parents are given as William Smyth, farmer, and Mary nee Cox.


1855 marriage certificate of John Plowright and Margaret Smyth (click to enlarge)




Passenger list from the Persian showing Bridget and Ellen Murray at the bottom of the image. Retrieved through ancestry.com (click to enlarge).

Bridget and Ellen Murray were both from Dublin. Their religion was Catholic; both could read and Ellen could also write; Bridget was 24 and Ellen 18. Both found jobs on 15 April, within a week of their arrival. Bridget was engaged by S. Marcus of Prahran for a term of 1 month with a wage of 28 shillings and rations. Ellen was similarly employed by Mrs Ireland of St Kilda, with a wage of 30 shillings.

I have not been able to find anything more about Bridget Murray.

On 28 March 1856, two years after her arrival in the colony, Ellen Murray married James Cross, a gold digger, at Buninyong . Their wedding was at the residence of John Plowright, Black Lead Buninyong, in the presence of John and Margaret Plowright. Ellen gave her residence as Buninyong and her occupation as dressmaker. She was born in Dublin, aged 21, and her parents were George Murray, glass blower, and Ellen nee Dory.


1856 marriage certificate for James Cross and Ellen Murray (click to enlarge)



It seems that Margaret Smyth and Ellen Murray, who had emigrated to Victoria on the same ship, remained friends. Later the son of Ellen Cross nee Murray, Frederick James Cross, married Ann Jane Plowright, the daughter of Margaret Plowright nee Smyth.

Hunter Smyth connection?

 I think I have found a connection between the Hunter and Smyth families but I can't link Margaret Smyth to it, at least not yet.

On other certificates Margaret Smyth states she was born in Bailieborough, County Cavan. I found a John Hunter associated with Bailieborough.

I have not been able to find a death of this John Hunter.

Family Notices (1866, December 27). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), p. 4. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article5782047

I ordered the marriage certificate and discovered Elizabeth Grace Hunter, age 27 had been born in Bailieborough. Her parents were John Hunter and Eliza Hunter nee Carmichael.

I ordered her 1897 death certificate and found Elizabeth had been in the colony 34 years. The informant on her death certificate was Charles Smyth, nephew, of Albury, New South Wales.

I found H. Hunter on the death indexes. He was Henry Hunter who died 1875. Henry was Elizabeth's brother, also the son of John Hunter and Eliza Carmichael.

I hope further research will uncover the connection and I can learn more about Margaret Smyth's family.








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Monday, 10 April 2017

H is for the Cudmore family arrival in Hobart in 1835


Engraving of Hobarttown, Vandiemensland in the 1830s from the Rex Nan Kivell collection held by the National Library of Australia image reference PIC Drawer 3080 #S3410

Daniel Michael Paul Cudmore (1811 - 1891) and his wife Mary Nihill (1811-1893) were my great great great grandparents. Daniel and Mary married on 15 January 1835 in County Limerick, not long before embarking on the John Denniston which left Liverpool on 11 February. They arrived in Van Diemen's Land on 7 June, after a voyage of more than four months.


Van Diemen's Land. (1835, June 22). The Sydney Herald (NSW : 1831 - 1842), p. 4. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12852462



Daniel Michael Paul Cudmore and his wife Mary probably taken in the 1850s.  Image from the Cudmore History For the Love of the Land page 59


Besides Mary, other members of the Nihill family sailed with the newly-married couple on the John Denniston: Mary's mother Dymphna Nihill née Gardiner (1790-1866), two of Mary's six sisters, Rebecca (1817-1901) and Sarah (1826-1915), and Mary's brother James Nihill later Niall (1823-1877). Mary's father Daniel (1761-1846) and Mary's other four sisters arrived in Hobart separately six months later.

Classified Advertising. (1835, June 12). The Hobart Town Courier (Tas. : 1827 - 1839), p. 3. Retrieved December 21, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4180594


Hobart was first settled by Europeans in 1804. By the 1830s the town had 29 Government primary schools, a Supreme Court Building, Government House, and the Botanical Gardens had been laid out. In 1835 John Lee Archer designed and oversaw the construction of the sandstone Customs House facing Sullivans Cove, with construction completed in 1840. The building was later used as Tasmania's parliament house. The economy depended on primary industries, including wheat farming, apple growing, sheep for wool and meat, and whaling, sealing, brewing, and wattle oil extraction.


Not long after the Cudmore and Nihill families arrived, Charles Darwin visited Hobart Town arriving there on 5 February 1836 as part of the HMS Beagle expedition. He wrote about Hobart Town and the Derwent estuary in his Voyage of the Beagle:
...The lower parts of the hills which skirt the bay are cleared; and the bright yellow fields of corn, and dark green ones of potatoes, appear very luxuriant... I was chiefly struck with the comparative fewness of the large houses, either built or building. Hobart Town, from the census of 1835, contained 13,826 inhabitants, and the whole of Tasmania 36,505. If I was obliged to emigrate I certainly should prefer this place: the climate & aspect of the country almost alone would determine me.
Pages 470-1 of The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin published about 1909 retrieved through archive.org (click on image to enlarge)

On several occasions both the Cudmores and Nihills applied for government positions. Not all the applications survive, but the following letter to the rural Dean, the Reverend Philip Palmer, has been transcribed:

30 Murray St. 28th July 1835, 
Revd. Sir, In respectfully applying for the appointment of Schoolmaster at Ross I beg to assure you that shall you have the goodness to recommend me my conduct shall ever be such as will give you no reason to regret your having done so. 
I am married and am twenty four years of age. I was for some time receiving instruction at the Academy of the Reverend Mr. Phillips at Chelsea and others and trust my education has been such as to under me perfectly competent to the proper discharge of the duties of that situation. As to the responsibilities and moral character I can produce testimonials which I hope will induce you to feel sufficient degree of confidence in me.
My wife (who is twenty three years of age) possesses every necessary qualification for instructing children in the rudiments of English and needlework of all descriptions.
I have the honour to be Revd. Sir your most obedient humble Servant (sign) Daniel Cudmore.

On the Reverend Palmer's recommendation William Bedford, superintendent of schools, interviewed Daniel Cudmore. Bedford wrote to Palmer:
Reverend Sir With reference to your letter of the 3rd instant recommending Mr. Cudmore for the situation of Clerk and schoolmaster at Ross, I have the honour to inform you that on proceeding to examine him in the usual way, I was surprised to find that his application which I forwarded to you on the 28th ultimo was not written by himself. I therefore requested him to write a letter on the same subject in this office, which I herewith transmit to you for your information. He appears to be sufficiently conversant with arithmetic to answer the purposes the appointment for which he is proposed, nut under such circumstances I think it advisable to communicate with you before any decisive step is taken; if you approve I will recommend his appointment on three mont probation.
After more letters, including confirmation of the appointment by the Colonial Secretary's office, Cudmore was appointed as schoolmaster at Ross,  118 kilometres north of Hobart, at £55 per annum and clerk at £25 per annum.

About the same time, James Nihill was confirmed as the post master at George Town, 128 kilometres north from Ross, at £25 per annum, and Mr and Mrs Nihill were Master and Mistress of the public school at George Town at salaries of £50 and £25 per annum.

In 1836, Daniel Cudmore left his position at Ross and moved back to Hobart, where he became Assistant Brewer at De Graves Brewery, now known as the Cascade Brewery. Daniel Cudmore was a Quaker and attended monthly meetings of the Friends at Hobart. Although many Quakers abstain from drinking alcohol, he seems to have had no objection to working in a brewery.



The first Quaker Meeting House in Hobart. A cottage at 39 Murray Street which was bought by James Backhouse in 1837 with a loan from Meeting for Sufferings, London. Image retrieved from Quaker life in Tasmania webpage by the University of Tasmania

In 1837, shortly after the colony of South Australia was founded, Daniel Cudmore moved to Adelaide, South Australia, where he became a house builder (many of these he built in pise). He also established several breweries, and later became a pastoralist. Mary joined Daniel in Adelaide six months after his arrival; her son James Francis Cudmore was born on the voyage from Tasmania to Adelaide.
Daniel Cudmore's obituary in the Adelaide Observer of 7 November 1891:

Cudmore, Daniel Michael (1811–1891)

We regret to have to record the death of Mr. Daniel Cudmore, of Claremont, Glen Osmond, who passed away at the ripe old age of eighty years. Mr. Cudmore was one of South Australia's pioneers. He arrived with his wife at Hobart in the merchant ship John Denison, Captain Mackie, in 1835, en route to Sydney, but was persuaded by his cousin, Surgeon Russell, of the 63rd Regiment, to try his fortune in Tasmania. When the province of South Australia was proclaimed Mr. Cudmore left for the new country early in 1837. Possessed of indomitable energy and pluck, and gifted with physical strength above the average, Mr. Cudmore was enabled to endure the many rough experiences which were the lot of the first settlers. Soon after coming to the colony he engaged in the pursuit of sheep-farming in the North, being the first to take up the now valuable Yongala Estate. He afterwards acquired large squatting properties in Queensland and New South Wales. He took an active interest in exploring works. About the year 1863 he made a five months' trip into the interior of Northern Queensland, afterwards publishing a narrative of his experiences, and on other occassions he did no inconsiderable service to the cause of setttlement. In 1864 he went to live at Claremont. He leaves a widow, four sons, and three daughters. The remains of the late Mr. Cudmore were buried on Wednesday afternoon in the Anglican Church Cemetery at Mitcham. Service was first conducted in St. Michael's Church by the Revs. W. H. Mudie, of Glen Osmond, and F. W. Samwell, of Mitcham, the organist playing the "Dead March in Saul" and other appropriate music. The chief mourners were:– Messrs. Milo and Arthur Cudmore (sons), Dr. Sprod (son-in-law), and Messrs. A. M. Cudmore, H. C. Cudmore, and John Sprod (grandsons of the deceased). At the grave amongst many others who had come to pay their last tribute of respect were Messrs. R. Barr Smith, P. B. Coglin, A. S. Chapman, Peter Waite, George Boothby, J. S. Lloyd, J. Howard, C. Smedley, B. Moulden, J. J. Watson, H. H. Mudie, and R. J. Rigaud. The funeral arrangements were in the hands of Mr. P.Gay.

'Cudmore, Daniel Michael (1811–1891)', Obituaries Australia, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/cudmore-daniel-michael-6335/text28381.


Sources
  • In the 1990s James Kenneth Cudmore (1926 - 2013), my second cousin once removed, of Quirindi New South Wales, commissioned Elsie Ritchie to write the Cudmore family history. The work built on the family history efforts of many family members. It was published in 2000. It is a very large and comprehensive work and includes many many Cudmore family stories. (Ritchie, Elsie B. (Elsie Barbara) For the love of the land: the history of the Cudmore family. E. Ritchie, [Ermington, N.S.W.], 2000.) Chapter 4, written by Peter A. Cudmore (1929-1996) my second cousin twice removed, contains an account of the voyage and arrival of the Cudmore and Nihill family.
  • P. A. Howell, 'Cudmore, Daniel Michael (1811–1891)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/cudmore-daniel-michael-6335/text9913, published first in hardcopy 1981.


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Thursday, 14 April 2016

L is for leaving Liverpool

My husband's great great grandfather George Young (1826-1890) was from Liverpool.  Unfortunately we don't know any more than this about him until he arrived on the Victorian goldfields at Beechworth.

George seems never to have left a document stating who his parents were. We have not been able to find a shipping record that gives this information.

The informant on his death certificate was his sson-in-law John L. Tunks, and John Tunks did not even know how long George Young had been in the colonies, let alone who his parents were.

The surname Young makes it difficult to trace him. There were at least half a dozen boys born in Liverpool and called George Young in the estimated year of birth of our George Young. It was before civil registration so that is not an exhaustive list.

George most likely left for Australia from Liverpool. He would have been 26 years old in 1852.

In the Index to Unassisted Inward Passenger Lists to Victoria 1852-1953 available through the Public Record Office the only likely passenger based on age, is a George Young, adult with age not listed, who arrived on the Kalmia in 1852. I checked and the Kalmia did indeed sail from Liverpool: the Kalmia is listed in From Liverpool. (1852, October 9). Empire (Sydney, NSW : 1850 - 1875),  p. 2. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article60136652 . Unfortunately there are no shipping records available for unassisted passengers earlier than 1852.

The shipping list for the Kalmia, viewable through ancestry.com or available on microfiche shows that George Young was Irish. On the slight information we have, he doesn't seem to be our man.

The following records from the Assisted Immigrants index from 1839 to 1853 are possible matches for our George based on his age.

Family Name Given Name Age Month Year Ship Book Page

YOUNG GEO age 20 month and year of arrival MAY 1847 ship SIR THOMAS ARBUTHNOT book and page 2/3 262

YOUNG GEORGE age 27 month and year of arrival DEC 1852 ship THEODORE book and page 7 78

The ship Theodore sailed from Liverpool. VICTORIA. (1852, December 20). The Shipping Gazette and Sydney General Trade List (NSW : 1844 - 1860), , p. 351. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article161036112

The George Young who arrived on the Theodore appears to be accompanied by a wife and child. This does not appear to match our George Young as he seems to have acquired a wife and family only after his arrival in Australia.

The Sir Thomas Arbuthnot was a convict ship that sailed from Spithead. One of the convicts was a George Young whose crime had been sheep stealing. He was from Wells which does not match what we know about George Young's origins.

All in all it seems that our George Young is not listed in the shipping records that survive from the period.

Shipping records other than the indexes of passengers include letters of thanks from passengers to their ship's captain that were sometimes  published in the newspapers. Some hospital records include the ship of arrival. Unfortunately I have not been able to trace George's arrival through records of this type..

Other members of our family who arrived by ship sailing from Liverpool include:
  • My third great grandparents, Daniel and  Mary Cudmore née Nihill, sailed from Liverpool in 1835 on the John Dennison
  • Margaret Rankin née Gunn, my third great grandmother, who sailed with her children and second husband from Liverpool aboard the Dirigo in 1854
  • The Ralph family, my husband's third great grandparents and children, arrived from Liverpool in 1854 on the Bloomer
Sir Claude de Crespigny, the fourth baronet, visited Florida sailing from Liverpool in 1887.

I have no record of the arrival of another of my husband's great great grandfathers, James Cross, who was born near Liverpool and arrived in Victoria about 1853.

SS Great Britain leaving Prince’s Pier, Liverpool, for Australia, 1852. ANMM Collection retrieved from http://waves.anmm.gov.au/Immigration-Stories/Immigration-history.aspx


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Friday, 8 April 2016

G is for great grandmother from Germany

My great grandmother, the mother of my maternal grandfather, was Hedwig Anna Bertha (known as Anna) Boltz née Bertz (1885 - 1961).

Anna was born at Trechwitz near Götz fifty-five kilometers east of Berlin and about seventeen kilometers west of Brandenburg an der Havel. Her father Karl Bertz (1854-1932) was a bricklayer. Her mother was Henrietta Bertz née Ritter (1862-1942).

Anna had one brother, Paul, born in 1888.

In 1909 she married a soldier, Fritz Herman Boltz (1879-1954), at Brandenburg an der Havel. They had one son, my grandfather, Hans (1910-1992), who was born at Brandenburg.

Anna Boltz née Bertz, Hans Boltz, Fritz Boltz in 1911. Fritz Boltz is in the dress uniform of an Unteroffizier (NCO) [lace at collar, single cuff stripe] of the 35th Prinz Heinrich von Preussen Fusilier Regiment.


When Fritz left the army in 1912, Fritz and Anna lived in an apartment in Florastrasse, Berlin Steglitz, attached to a public school, where he worked as a caretaker. This was his address when he was called up in 1914. He returned to the same address after the war and Fritz and Anna were still living there in the 1940s [as recalled by their grand-daughter, my mother]. Fritz retired about 1949, aged 70. He died 6 April 1954 at Berlin Zehlendorf.

Easter 1941: My mother sitting on the knee of her great grandmother Henrietta Bertz née Ritter. and with her mother and her Boltz grandparents.

My mother with her grandmother outside the Sommerfeld bakery shop in Berlin in November 1943.


In 1949 Hans, the only child of Fritz and Anna, emigrated to Australia. His wife and daughter followed him a year later.

In 1960 my great grandmother emigrated. Anna Boltz came on the Australia probably embarking at Genoa and arriving on 29 February 1960. The MS Australia belonged to the Lloyd Triestino line..


National Archives of Australia: Incoming passenger list to Fremantle "Australia" arrived 29 February 1960 (K269, 29 FEB 1960 AUSTRALIA Page 3 of 33). Anna is passenger 49 on the list.

The shipping list records Anna as German, travelling tourist class . Her port of landing was Sydney, and her address in Australia was 19 Ridley Street, Turner, Canberra, A.C.T. This was the address of my grandparents.

Anna was 75 when she made this journey to the other side of the world. After she had sold and packed all her possessions in Berlin, she made her way from Berlin to Genoa at a time when Berlin was isolated in East Germany (although the Berlin Wall had not yet been built). This was quite an undertaking for an elderly woman travelling by herself. She had little English or Italian.

I looked at the other passengers on the "Australia" and found that Frieda Gunther, passenger 269 on page 9, also disembarked at Sydney. Her address in Australia was 3 Myall Street, O'Connor, Canberra, ACT. I recognised both the surname and address. Hans Gunther, like my grandfather, was a cartographer from Germany, and in fact I think from Berlin. My grandparents were good friends with the Gunthers. We often visited them at their house and they came to the Boltz's.

Frieda died in 1982 aged 87 years. (Family Notices. (1982, November 16). The Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995), p. 15. Retrieved from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article130829619) This means she was born about 1895 and ten years younger than Anna. It seems likely that Hans Boltz and Hans Gunther made plans for their mothers to travel together from Berlin to Australia.

My mother remembers that Anna brought a tea chest of possessions. They included:
  • a tea set with a rose design and also a white china dinner set;  I can remember my grandparents using these in later years
  • an ashtray with the shoulder strap of the 35th Prinz Heinrich von Preussen Fusilier Regiment, the regiment of my great grandfather
  • a device in the shape of an owl which was meant to remove the smell of cigar smoke from a room. My great grandfather had liked to smoke cigars. My grandparents however did not smoke so I think it did not get much use in Canberra.
The ashtray with the shoulder strap of the 35th Prinz Heinrich von Preussen Fusilier Regiment

Anna died on 29 April 1961, a year after arriving in Canberra to be with her son. She is buried at Woden Cemetery, Canberra.

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Thursday, 7 April 2016

F is for fleeing from France

Claude Champion Crespigny (1620-1695) and his wife Marie née de Vierville (1628-1708), my eighth great grandparents, were Huguenots, French Calvinists. After the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, the family fled France leaving virtually all their property behind.

Claudius Champion de Crespigny (1620–1695) in the collection of Kelmarsh Hall
Marie, Comtesse de Vierville (1628–1708), Wife of Claudius Champion de Crespigny in the collection of Kelmarsh Hall


In the 1670s Claude Champion Crespigny had income from two estates: Crépigny, 40 kilometres south of Bayeux near Saint-Jean-le-Blanc, the other at Vierville, 20 kilometers north-west of Bayeux, near what is now known as Omaha Beach, one site of the landings by American Allied forces on D-Day.

Claude and Marie had eight children:
  • Pierre1652–1739 
  • Margaret 1654–1741 
  • Mary 1655–1736 
  • Suzanne-Reně 1656–1736 
  • Renee 1661–1744 
  • Thomas 1664–1716 
  • Gabriel 1666–1722 
  • Jeanne 1668– 
The oldest son, Pierre, a lawyer, became involved in a dispute on behalf of the congregation at Trévières, nine kilometers south of Viervillesur-Mer, and west of Bayeaux. As part of the harassment of Huguenots, it had been decided that one of the two churches at either Trévières or Bayeux was in excess of the provisions of the Edict of Nantes, which formally granted Huguenots a degree of religious tolerance. One was to be disestablished. The congregation at Trévières claimed to have been established before the one at Bayeux; Bayeux, however, was a much larger community. The case was initiated in 1673 and resolved only in 1681, in favour of the congregation at Trévières. The legal battle would have been costly; perhaps it was an incidental part of the royal policy in fostering such disputes to make it inconvenient and expensive to be a Huguenot.

From 1681 the persecution of the Huguenots entered a new phase. Louis XIV instituted a policy of "Dragonnades" meant to intimidate Huguenot families into either leaving France or returning to Catholicism. The policy, in part, instructed officers in charge of travelling troops to select Huguenot households to billet them and to order the soldiers to behave as badly as they could. Soldiers damaged the houses, ruined furniture and personal possessions, attacked the men and abused the women. One could escape this persecution only by conversion or by fleeing France.

When Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685 he claimed to be entitled to do so because there were no more Huguenots in his kingdom and their special privileges were no longer needed.

It is estimated that 40-50,000 Huguenots fled France to England. Others fled to the Netherlands, Switzerland, Brandenburg-Prussia, Ireland and America. It was illegal for Protestants to leave France, and disguise and smuggling were necessary to get across the borders, which were guarded.

There is no record of the de Crespigny family's emigration or flight apart from a tale of two children being concealed in baskets, but that story seems to have no basis.

Témoignages were documents from a previous congregation endorsing a holder as a member of the Reformed Religion so that they could be received into a new congregation.The document gives an indication of when the family arrived and from where.The de Crespigny family presented their témoignages credentials at various times. Claude, his wife and four children: Pierre, Suzanne, Renee and Jeanne, registered their témoignages on 30 June 1687 at the Savoy Church in the West End of London. The two elder daughters Marguerite/ Margaret and Marie/Mary were already married and travelled separately.

Thomas and Gabriel had travelled to England earlier aged 12; Thomas arrived in London in 1676 and  Gabriel arrived in London in 1678. The two boys were probably sent to England for their education: although Protestant schools were guaranteed under the Edict of Nantes there were moves to forbid certain subjects from being taught in those schools.

Marie had a sister Judith who married Antoine de Pierrepont. It seems likely that the Pierrepont family who migrated successfully to London helped the de Crespigny family.

Claude and Marie died in London and are buried at Marylebone. Their gravestone indicates that they were refugees from France.

Claude died on 10 April 1695. His eldest son Pierre, then 42, held a position of respect among the French Protestant community in London; he never married. Thomas and Gabriel were both army officers in the English army on service in the Netherlands. Thomas was a Captain-Lieutenant in Colonel Cunningham's Regiment of Scots Dragoons and Gabriel was a Lieutenant in the First Foot Guards.

In the first years of the eighteenth century Marie and her daughter Renee were listed as gentlefolk in receipt of pensions from the Queen's Bounty for French Protestants. In 1708, the year Marie died, they were living at 37 Wardour Street, and the amount of the pension was £18.

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