My DNA match - Corporal Michael Griffith

Sir Thomas Buildings (now Sir Thomas Street). Shows Sir Thomas Street and building of Municipal Buildings, 1858. Painting by W G Herdman, from liverpoolpicturebook.com

We have found the marriage record of Michael Griffith and Mary Taylor at the St Nicholas church  in Liverpool in 1856.  Michael's father was another Michael Griffith, and his occupation was bootmaker.    Mary's father was William Taylor, a watchmaker.   The Griffiths resided at Gay St at this time, and the Taylors in Lionel St. The marriage occurred on 11th August 1856. The bride and groom were minors. Mary signed with her mark, but Michael signed his name.  His occupation at that time was book keeper, and Mary recorded none.

From my previously constructed Excel spreadsheet I knew that Michael Griffith senior had a child called George, born in 1824, but I went back to the records to confirm it.

The above extract was taken from the Bishop's Transcripts showing the baptism took place at St Peter's Church, Liverpool on 5 September 1824. ( Reference Number: Drl 2/284).   It lists George, son of Michael and Catherine Griffith, of Sir Thomas' Buildings, cordwainer.

Cordwainer refers to Michael's occupation, and is an an old term for shoemaker.  Sir Thomas's Buildings was later renamed Sir Thomas Street.

Looking carefully through Liverpool church records for the children of Michael and Catherine, the following family emerged:  Mary, bap 1822, George  bap 1824, Michael bap 1828 (buried at the Non Conformist Church in 1835 aged 7, of consumption), Catherine bap 1829, Richard James, bap 1831, Thomas bap 1835 and Michael bap 1837.  Mary, George, Richard and Thomas were all baptised at St Peters, Liverpool.  Catherine was baptised  at St Martins in the Field, Liverpool, and the youngest  Michael turns up in the Bishops Transcripts for Liverpool.  In each case Michael senior's occupation is given as some variation of shoemaker.


I did not locate the family in the 1841 Census at all.  Michael senior died in Liverpool in 1841 a few weeks after the census, but even he is not around in a hospital somewhere. Of course they could be lurking somewhere with a badly misspelt surname. But the remaining family reappears in Liverpool in the 1851 Census. 

The paper trail for George as a member of that family tenuous, but the paper trail for Michael, son of Michael and husband of Mary Taylor is strong.  What links them is the dna trail.

George and Michael junior were brothers.  Their daughters Mary Jane and Alice were first cousins.   My dna match had dna in the right range for a third cousin once removed - at the top of the range, really, which made him more noticeable in the results list.    A chart showing the expected shared centimorgans from specific degrees of relationships showed that the range for a third cousin once removed is 0-156, with the average being 56 cMs.   My dna match shared 113 cMs, twice the average,  with the longest shared block at 45.

The known facts about George (born in Liverpool in 1824, father was a bootmaker) fits the son of Michael and Catherine.  Knowing George went to sea in 1841 explains why I could not find the usual genealogical records for my George - no 1841 ad 1851 censuses, no passenger records to Victoria and New Zealand.  I hesitate to mention spelling, which is so often an unreliable indicator, but George Griffith was very consistent with his own spelling of his name without the s at the end, and the family of Michael Griffith seems to be the only family in Liverpool using that spelling.  It is suggestive rather than proof.


The paper record has failed, but all the known facts are corroborated.  What connects the dots is that the descendants of George Griffith, musician,  of Liverpool and Michael Griffith, soldier, of Liverpool share dna at a higher than average level that is expected for the degree of relationship described of third cousins once removed.

I think we are good here.

And of course there is more to come!

Susan gets her man

[Brighton Beach] [art original] / Henry Burn, circa 1862.  Courtesy of the State Library of Victoria Collection, H301.

Dr Alexander Hunter was a fairly complex character whose private life was picked over in the Melbourne newspapers of the day.   A Scot, he had studied in Edinburgh and arrived in Port Phillip on 19 July 1849 as a Surgeon Superintendent on the "Victory" from Glasgow. He had left behind a wife and son who claimed he had deserted them.  They arrived in Melbourne in 1852 where they found him in practice as a surgeon in Great Collins Street.  Two advertisements in The Argus reveal the nature of his practice, and his inclination to help the poor:

A CARD

DR HUNTER, Consulting and Operating Surgeon - Begs leave to say, that owing to the misconceptions which have repeatedly come to his ear, in reference to his Professional Fees, he feels it his duty, to take this the only means of correcting the error by stating, that according to the rank or position of the patient, the fee of one guinea, entitles to two, three or four consultations, or visits Melbourne, Great Collins-street, East, 5th October, 1850.

Friday 11 October 1850  http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4765064

NOTICE.

To the Poorer Classes of Melbourne and its vicinity.

DR HUNTER, Consulting and Operating Surgeon, has made arrangements to devote from 9 to 10 o'clock, every morning, to giving advice free, to all those classes who are anxious to consult him, but who, from circumstances, are unable to pay for it.  62, Great Collins street, Eastern Hill,

Wednesday 5 March 1851  http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4776536

In a very long self-vindication, Hunter gave an airing of his private family life at a public meeting, published in The Argus in 1859. The main cause of his difficulties, he claimed, stemmed from his wife's mental infirmities.  I have noted, however, that after Hunter's death Mrs Hunter remarried, to a reverend gentleman, so she cannot have been too obviously deranged.   By 1851 Hunter was an MLA for East Melbourne, serving from 1859 to 1861.  Further troubles caused him to leave for New Zealand in 1862, dying in Hokitika in 1867.  If Hunter had hoped to escape his notoriety by hiding away in New Zealand, it must be noted that George Griffith from Melbourne was also in Hokitika in 1867.   "Why, Dr Hunter!  WHAT a coincidence!"

But to return to the period when Mrs Hunter arrived from Scotland, Dr Hunter closed his practice in Melbourne.

He went to live at Brighton until he realised his property, which was then sufficient to keep him in affluence. He was tempted to build some houses at Brighton, which occupied 10 months, and during that time his house was the theatre of scenes such as no tongue could tell. Mrs. Hunter would, in spite of his servants, make her escape from his house, and rush about the country, saying that he wanted to poison her. He was then wealthy, but suddenly the affairs of the colony began to turn, and through the title to his property being questioned, his houses being unlet, and the loss of a law-suit, he found himself a poor man. There were two courses for him to adopt - to lie down and die, go back to his native country a poor man; or, like a brave man, beat back his difficulties. He felt that in a free country nothing could stand before him. He had lived on bread and water previously, and could do so again. The only drawback was Mrs. Hunter. He returned to Melbourne and again succeeded ; but the seeds of trouble were sown so deep that they afterwards sprang up so as to overwhelm almost to strangle-him.

 It was into this house of discord and confusion that Susan was brought to be a servant when Dr Hunter of Brighton employed her off the boat.   

On 5 April 1854 Dr Hunter announced in the Melbourne papers that he was resuming his practice at his old residence in Great Collins St, East.   It is possible that there is some connection, perhaps only an opportunity, between that announcement on 5 April and one which was placed in The Argus on 21 April 1854:

Ship Harpley.  If this should meet the eye of Elizabeth Rochester, her sister Susan is very anxious to hear from her.  Address Post Office Brighton.

We can deduce from this that Susan did not know that Elizabeth had married in the previous December, and certainly not of her whereabouts. They had presumably not heard from each other since being separated on arrival in July 1853.   We don't know how long it was before Elizabeth heard or saw the ad, if she did at all at this time. 

Another co-incidence can be noted here - in that Dr Hunter's premises were in the same street as Wilkie's Music Saloon where George Griffith had been, or was, working. It was only one block away.  Is this where Susan and George met, somewhere in Collins Street?  The Argus premises, by the way, was also in Collins Street at this time, at number 74, a few doors away from Dr Hunter. In her ad Susan used the Post Office at Brighton as her return address, so presumably at this time she was still residing in Brighton.  She may have left the employ of the Hunters some time earlier and was working for another family, we cannot be sure.   

Collins Street when George and Susan knew it in 1853.  Hand-coloured lithograph by Edmund Thomas, 1853, courtesy of the State Library of Victoria Collection, H15480

We don't know where Susan met George Griffith, but a few months after the break-up of the Hunter household at Brighton, around early September 1854, Susan became pregnant.  Susan may have come in to Melbourne to seek work, or perhaps had transferred from the Brighton household to the house in Great Collins Street.  It would have helped enormously if they had married, but it would seem that they did not, and whatever useful information we might have had from such a document,  disappointment is our lot. My suspicion is that the older George had been married in England, or someplace else, but that also remains unresolved.  George was 30, Susan was 16.

The child was born in Wangaratta on 17 April 1855 - 8 days after the second anniversary of the  leaving of Southampton.