Alice by the seaside

Eastbourne beach and seafront hotels.

Alice Griffiths, the grandmother of my dna match, was born in Eastbourne, Sussex, on the south coast of England in 1873. While still awaiting contact from my match I found a family tree at Genealogy.com which showed that she had married Emanuel Beeney in Eastbourne in 1895.  This allowed me to find her in the 1901 Census where she was residing at 11 Hanover St, Eastbourne with Emanuel, a cab driver, their child Matthew, aged 2, and her mother Mary Griffiths, a widow.  Both Alice and Mary were working as laundresses.   Mary Griffith, hallelujah, was recorded as having been born in Liverpool, Lancashire.  That took that family line back to the very area where I needed them to be.

Eastbourne, in the latter part of the 19th century, was no seaside village.  The railway arrived in 1849, and thereafter the major landowner in the area had developed the seafront as a tourist destination with lavish hotels dominating the seafront, and an enticing pier devoted to entertainment.

Eastbourne Pier

The development of the resort provided work, though some of it must have been seasonal.  The Beeneys were a family of Travellers, though Emanuel seems to have settled happily enough in Eastbourne. I will need further advice on that.

But what were the Griffiths gals doing in Eastbourne?  Tracing them back through the censuses was a bit trickier than you would think, even with their age and birthplaces, but with persistence I found Mary and Alice together in the 1891 Census, Mary a widow, and both working as laundresses.  In the 1881 census another bonus occurred in the shape of an older sister for Alice called Emily. They were located in Eastbourne, but Emily had been born in Woolwich, Kent.  I wouldn't have been able to identify Mary in the 1871 census without that clue, seeing that Alice hadn't been born yet.  I was hoping to find Mary with her husband.

I found Mary aged 33 and Emily aged 1 in the 1871 census.  Mary was a Wife, so her husband was still alive though not with them on the night.  They were recorded living in the Sheerness Barracks, Kent.  Emily had been born in 1869 in Woolwich, another military town, so it looked like Mary's husband was a soldier.  My dna contact later confirmed that Alice's 1897 marriage record showed her father as Michael Griffiths, Corporal (deceased).

Trying to locate Emily and Alice in the General Register Office index of births was again not as straightforward as you would think - probably because I had a too narrow time range in trying to identify them from all the other Griffiths with the same names.  Their ages given in the census tended to skew their birth years - presumably late in the year, after the census.  I had some help with that from other folk with Emily as their Ancestry tree starting point, and along with their correct birth year was able to pinpoint Mary's maiden name as TAYLOR.

Before following that up I looked for the death a male Griffith in Eastbourne between 1871 and 1881, and found only one,  Michael Griffith, who died in 1875 aged 38.  By putting his age and death place into the Ancestry search engine, and then narrowing the results down to Military, I found a Royal Hospital Chelsea Pensioner Admissions and Discharges, 1715-1925 entry for Michael Griffith.  He was examined on 6 Apr 1875, and was attached to the Royal Artillery Coast Brigade.

In 1793, following a survey of coastal defences in the southeast, approval was given for the positioning of infantry and artillery to defend the bay between Beachy Head and Hastings from attack by the French. Fourteen Martello Towers were constructed along the western shore of Pevensey Bay, continuing as far as Tower 73, the Wish Tower at Eastbourne. ("Eastbourne", Wikipedia: accessed 12/7/2017).

At the time of his retirement from the army, Michael Griffith was  a part of the coastal defence.  

The Eastbourne Wish Tower, 1890s. The name 'Wish' comes from the  marshy area called the 'wish' or 'wash' where the old Shomer Dyke entered the sea. The Tower was built in 1804 to counter the threat of invasion by Napoleon.  After the Peninsula war ended in 1815 it was disused until 1830 when coastguards occupied it for a period.   Courtesy of Prof Robert Pearl, Old UK Photos

At this point I did a search for the marriage record of Mary Taylor and a Mr Griffith. The only one that popped up was a marriage which occurred in Liverpool in 1856.  Both parties were minors.  As it was so long prior to the birth of Emily in 1869, and no other births apparent (though not necessarily non-existent) I went to bed thinking that couldn't be it.  I woke up thinking, "That could be it", and from that point it was a very short path to Ancestry trees with a Michael Griffith born in 1838 - but not George.

The marriage record shows that Michael Griffith was a bookkeeper residing at Gay St, Liverpool, father's name Michael Griffith, boot maker.  Mary was the daughter of William Taylor, watch maker, residing at Lionel St.  They married at St Nicholas Church in the Parish of Liverpool.  Mary signed with her mark.   (Liverpool Registers; Reference Number: 283 NIC/3/51)

So now we have my dna matches Griffith family back in Liverpool. Exactly where I want him to be.

Ten years sailing before the mast

Liverpool docks, 1875.

Young George Griffith had the world at his feet as he grew up in Liverpool, with sailing ships from every point of the globe coming through the massive dock system not very far from his home.  Despite a couple of generations of tradesmen in his family, George allowed the excitement of new places and new faces to lure him towards a life of adventure at sea.  In 1841, at the age of 17, George signed on as a ship's boy, and went to sea.

We know this from his Merchant Seaman's Ticket from 3 July 1845, courtesy of a researcher with the ID WayneSeymour.  The ticket also described George as a cook, born in Liverpool.  His hair was brown, eyes hazel, complexion fresh, and his height was 5' 7¾". He had a scar on his right leg, and cuts on his left forefinger.  

This previously unknown fact certainly explains why it was that he was not in Liverpool for the 1841 Census, nor the 1851 Census, nor did he appear in passenger lists to Melbourne, nor on passenger lists when he travelled from Melbourne to New Zealand to the goldrushes in Hokitika.   

It was an astounding career change from Ship's cook to Professor of Music, and yet idle hours on board ship would allow him to practice his instrument.  I think I would assume that by the time he left Liverpool at the age of 17 he had a solid grounding in musical education so that he was able to continue learning until he could earn a living by it.  We will look at this in a later post, though I am not sure there will be a lot of evidence to find.

It seems likely that he jumped ship in Melbourne as so many crewmen did in the 1850s, leaving their vessels to languish for months with no crew to sail them back to their home port.  I am hopeful I will find a warrant for him as a deserter which will narrow down the time frame in which he arrived.

It is a completely unexpected solution to some really puzzling absences from the record.

Got you! DNA test collars George Griffith

Liverpool Landing Stage, 1864. George Griffith's home town.  Print by W G Herdman.

I don’t suppose this is a record, but a power-boost from my recent dna test results enabled me to nail my ancestor George Griffith within four days of them being posted online.  I was able to pick him up in the paper record, but it could not be proven without the aid of the dna test. 

I received my results last Sunday evening.  My first inkling that the results had been posted was an email in my inbox from Carol Wilkes, a second cousin on my father’s side of the family.  She very kindly pinpointed each of her (and my) relations which appeared at the top of my results list.  Using the buttons provided at FTDNA to separate the results into two camps – those in common with that Carol on my dad's side, and those not in common, I could identify which side of the family my other  results came from.

My Griffith match, Dennis Beeney, appeared quite high up in the list of matches, with 94 cMs and the longest block at 44 segments.   Using the “Not in common with” button on Carol Wilkes, I came up with a list of matches on my mother’s side of the family.  It was my great good fortune that at the top of that list was Graham Johnston, someone whom I knew to be a second cousin  from my mother’s maternal family. My Griffith match was not far behind him, but using the “in common with” button, he disappeared.  So he was not from my mother’s mother’s side of the family.  He had to be from my mother’s father’s side of the family where the Griffith line does occur. And he had Griffith in his list of  family names.  Perfect!

Before attempting the dna solution, I had created an excel database of known George Griffiths from Liverpool – I had 21 Georges on that list, and not one of them pretending to be a musician.  I couldn’t tell if he had stayed in Liverpool after he was born there as he was nowhere to be found in the 1841 and 1851 censuses.  That just increased the degree of difficulty.  I still cannot make the link with a paper trail but my brand new cousin Dennis Beeney’s grandmother Alice Griffith’s mother was born in Liverpool.  Going flat out on Alice’s available records I was able to create a rough family tree, but the clincher came from her father’s name  on her marriage certificate – Corporal Michael Griffith.  Her mother was Mary Taylor.  The only marriage in England for a Michael Griffith and Mary Taylor occurred in Liverpool in 1856.  That marriage showed his father was also a Michael Griffith, and a cordwainer (or shoemaker).  The only shoemaker I could find who was named Griffith was Michael Griffith. And that Michael Griffith senior had a son called George Griffith.

The whole family did not appear in the 1841 Census. Where the heck were they?  Don’t know.  Given that his whole family did not appear in the census, it seems I was wasting my time trying to figure out which whitesmith, grocer’s apprentice, engineer’s apprentice, labourer or warehouseman was my George Griffith.  In all likelihood, none of them.

In 1851 Michael Griffith senior’s wife Catherine was back in Liverpool, the head of the house, and still described as Married.  Her husband was not in the household, nor was her son George, but her youngest son Michael who went on to marry Mary Taylor was  in the house.   His occupation at the time was errand boy. When he married his occupation was bookkeeper, but when he died, he was a Chelsea Pensioner, formerly a Corporal in the Royal Artillery Coast Brigade.  He died in Eastbourne in 1875, where Alice was born in 1873.  It was a long time after their marriage in 1856, but whether there were other siblings beside her sister Emily born in Woolwich in 1869, we don't yet know.

Dennis’s connection to the family from Liverpool now has a paper chain.  My paper chain is made of  very fine tissue paper, virtually not there at all.  George’s daughter, my great grandmother Mary Jane, didn't know either of her grandparents' names, but remembered her grandfather’s occupation of bootmaker. I didn’t take it as being reliable proof of relationship to the shoemaker, but the dna chain shows that Dennis and I are related, and so I have to rely on the very basic facts –George's name, his birthplace, his birth year, and the uncertainly remembered fact that his father was a bootmaker - plus the dna evidence - to show that I have found his right family. 

   

George, you may consider yourself well and truly collared.  I told you I was coming to get you!

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks are due to my second cousin Carole Wilkes who kindly contacted me with a list of her (and my) relations whom she had encouraged to be dna tested.  This enabled me to quickly separate my father’s and my mother’s families.

Thanks also to my second cousin Graham Johnston who had himself dna tested.  This enabled me to differentiate between my maternal grandmother’s and maternal grandfather’s lines and identify Dennis Beeney as being likely related to me through the Griffith family which he had named in his FTDNA profile.

Thanks to my friend Jenny Coates who patiently coached me through my abject ignorance of dna tests and helped me figure out what I was doing.

Very great thanks to my third cousin once removed Dennis Beeney who had put a detailed family tree online showing his grandmother Alice Griffith (a first cousin to Mary Jane) and came up with the first name of Alice’s father, Michael, which enabled me to put together a family tree which would include George Griffith; and who very kindly had his DNA  tested and put the results where I could readily find them.

Thank you everybody - you’ve all been Very Good!

There will be some future posts coming up looking at the family in Liverpool.  Can't wait to do the work!

PS  And thank you to a Benevolent Universe which provided me with a set of dna results which did not include my husband as a match.  Given that some of our brick wall families come from the same part of Tasmania, and that our colouring is very similar, I was suddenly struck with some trepidation that when I looked at my matches he might possibly turn up there.  But thankfully not.  How would I explain THAT to the children?

PPS  I should add, by the way, that I had my husband do a dna test back in 2012 to try and break down the brick wall of his Tasmanian family, the paper record being totally inadequate, but there has not been any movement at all in terms of solving that problem – so not all dna results are equal, I am afraid. In his case we just have to keep waiting.

Dear George, I am coming to get you.

Courtesy of Pixabay

George Griffith is one of my few ancestors who stand out from the crowd of agricultural labourers in my family tree. He described himself as a Professor of Music, and was able to play complex orchestral and liturgical pieces.  He played and taught violin and piano, but was not above leading a goldfields “N****r Band” when the circus came to town.

He was very consistent in giving his native place as Liverpool, and his birth year of 1824.  He was very inconsistent in giving a date and place of his marriage to my great great grandmother, Susan Rochester, from which I was forced to conclude that they had never married.   I also concluded there was a fair chance he had been married before.  Susan was just a girl off the boat from England, and there are no indications she was already married.

Because George and Susan never married, the occasion never arose where George stated his parents’ names. When he died his daughter could not name her Griffith grandparents, but made a stab at her grandfather’s occupation as bootmaker.

While George might have been born in Liverpool (and there are several christenings that might be him), there is no certainty that he stayed in Liverpool - but I don’t really have much to go on if he spent his youth elsewhere.  A musician would have to be fairly mobile to make a living.

 I have not identified with any certainty what ship he arrived on, though I have selected the George Griffith, 28, clerk, who arrived on the Panama from London in October 1852 as the most likely candidate.  (And yet, why not direct from Liverpool?)

I went fairly exhaustively through census records years ago when they were only on microfilm, going through all the printed indexes without coming to a conclusion, but I will now go through them again on Ancestry and compare them with later censuses and marriage records to figure out whom I can eliminate.

I have purchased marriage certificates to compare signatures with documents signed by George - eliminated them.

There is always the possibility that George gave his native place as Liverpool while in Australia in the same way I might give my native place as Melbourne if I was in England – but in fact I wouldn’t appear in any Melbourne records – I would appear in suburban records. 

But here is the big news, George.   I have had my DNA tested and I am coming to get you. 

Budd St, Collingwood

There is nothing faster than thinking of a question that can be answered by a Victorian birth certificate, and having the answer shortly afterwards. (Overnight, in fact, because the Vic BDM was down for maintenance last night).  A tiny bit of bad luck ensured that the twins were registered on different pages, but I obtained little Charlotte's certificate, showing her to be the younger of twins.  The birth occurred on 22 November 1867 at around 2 pm at 20 Budd St, Collingwood.

 

Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works detail plan, 1237,

 City of Collingwood, 1900.  http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/117738  

Courtesy of the State Library of Victoria collection.

This little snip of an MMBW plan of Collingwood shows 20 Budd St a few doors from Sackville St.

Was Mrs Charlotte Broadley present at the birth?  No.  The attendant was Mrs Mahaney, a midwife.

Was George Griffith the informant for the births?  No.  The informant was Susan Griffith of 20 Budd St, Collingwood.   The twins were a month old when she registered their births.  Her other children still living were Mary Jane 10, Annie 7 and Louisa 5.

In the 1871 Sands & McDougall Directory, the Griffiths and the Broadleys were shown to be neighbours, with the Griffith family at number 10 and the Broadleys at number 8, not far from the Johnston St corner.

Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works detail plan, 1237,

 City of Collingwood, 1900.  http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/117738 

 Courtesy of the State Library of Victoria collection.

Who was Charlotte Broadley?

McGregor & Macuire, Grocers, 107 Wellington Street, East Collingwood, Courtesy of the State Library of Victoria Collection, H694.  Charlotte may have done a bit of shopping here, as Budd St where she lived is only one block over from Wellington Street.

First the good news - this blog has been selected by the National Library of Australia to be perpetually preserved in Pandora Archive - you will see the new Pandora button to the right. The preservation of one's work is a great thing for bloggers, so I didn't want the occasion to pass unremarked.


After the Griffiths returned to the Melbourne suburbs, the family continued to grow, with the birth of George Henry Griffith in 1865, Alfred John Griffith and Charlotte Broadley Griffth, twins, in 1867.  Another two children arrived in 1873 and 1876 - Emily Frances Griffith and another George Henry Griffith, but I want to press the pause button at 1867.

Many, many years ago when I first learned the names of the Griffith children, I was convinced that Charlotte Broadley was the name of a relative of either Susan or George.   I had done enough of the Susan Rochester tree to rule out that side of the family, but George is still a complete unknown,  so I decided to have a red hot go at discovering whether there was a Charlotte Broadley,  or a Broadley family, in Liverpool that could be related to George Griffith.

I went through Censuses and birth, death and marriage records in Liverpool, all to no avail.  There actually *were* Charlotte Broadleys to be found, but I could not connect them in any way to the Griffith family.  Eventually I put that theory into the tested but unproven pile, and moved on.

At some stage I had gone through the Sands & McDougall Melbourne Directories tracing the various addresses of the Griffiths, and found them to have stayed mainly in the vicinity of Collingwood and Fitzroy.  I had a list of addresses gleaned from the alphabetical section, and was happy with that.  However, at a later time I thought I might pay a visit to some of these addresses and take a photo if the houses were still standing.  It was when I was looking through the suburban streets listing for the Budd Street, Collingwood East address to establish the position of the house in the street that my eye fell on a Mrs BROADLEY.   The unexpectedness of it was a bit of a shock.  Could this Mrs Broadley be Charlotte Broadley?

It took a fair bit of sifting through Victorian BDM *microfiche* (yes, it was that long ago), but I did eventually establish that a Charlotte Jones married Allen Broadley in Melbourne in 1856. Tonight, many years later,  I thought I would pop her name into an Ancestry search to see if someone had done her family tree, but what turned up was actually more interesting - Charlotte Broadley as a ratepayer in East Collingwood.

I sifted through the various years, and in 1868 found a ratepayers listing for Budd Street, East Collingwood, with Allan Broadley tinsmith and George Griffiths (sic), violinist listed sequentially. 

Broadley was shown as the owner of the property he occupied - a five roomed house of wood - and he was also shown as the owner of the 3 roomed wooden house occupied by the Griffith family.

I have discussed before the absence of George Griffith in New Zealand  in 1866 and 1867, and expressed some doubt whether George was the father of the twins.  He might have travelled back and forth to make it possible, but I don't know the answer.   But what the naming of the child Charlotte Broadley does suggest to me is that Mrs Broadley was very kind to Susan at this time, and the naming of the infant was a gesture of gratitude or admiration on Susan's part.

Arriving at this point, I realise that the birth certificate for Charlotte could resolve that question - was Charlotte Broadley senior present at the birth? And was George Griffith the informant, or was he missing in action?

Stay tuned.

Sisters' reunion at the goldfields

The story my grandmother told me:  The two Rochester sisters met again on the Ovens goldfields after many years apart.  The chain is a fine gold lady's watch chain made from a nugget found by the Griffiths at the Ovens and given to Elizabeth to have the chain made.  The chain is shown above with a gold bracelet for comparison.

It is only recently that the chain, which I remembered my grandmother telling me about as a teenager, fell into my hands.   It was the chain that set me off sifting through the known facts about Susan and Elizabeth Rochester and investigating them further.  We have already traced the Griffiths to the Ovens goldfields and the Hitchmans as newly weds most likely at Oaklands Junction on the Deep Creek.

Disappointingly, the Hitchmans, perhaps due to illiteracy, did not register the four known children they had in Victoria, but my grandmother told me that her father James, the eldest child, was born at Donnybrook in 1854.  The descendants of their third child, Elizabeth, had also heard Donnybrook as a birthplace for the daughter Elizabeth, about 1858.   The fourth child Anne was stated on her death certificate to have been born in Wangaratta,  circa 1862-63.  She died aged five at Wool Shed Farm, Gobbogombalin in 1868, the details being verified by her father.

Donnybrook is about twenty kilometres north of Oaklands Junction, along the Sydney Road.   A cluster of businesses had grown up around a permanent water hole known as Rocky Water Holes near  the Sydney Road, including two inns, a post office, watchhouse, flourmill, coaching depot and accommodation houses.  Small mixed and dairy farms were nearby and provided more opportunities for work. (See Historic Views of the City of Whittlesea by Robert Wuchatsch and Gwen Hawke, Whittlesea Historical Society, 1988). The locality may also have included the area of Mickleham on the western side of Sydney Road.  In 1874 the name of the town was changed to Kalkallo.

The Town of Donnybrook Parish of Kalkallo County of Bourke [cartographic material] / Robt. Mason Assist. Survr.; lithographed by R. Meikle, 1855.  Courtesy of the State Library of Victoria Collection.

In October 1861 James Hitchman was charged with being drunk in charge of a team by Constable Jones of Moonee Ponds.  When he appeared at the Flemington Police Court on 21 October 1861, James was fined five shillings by local JP, Patrick Phelan.  Phelan had lost his seat in the Victorian Legislative Assembly just the year before.

Presumably James was just passing through Flemington or Moonee Ponds  with a load, after possibly stopping off for a quenching ale at the Flemington Inn, but it is some indication that he was still in the vicinity of Melbourne in 1861.  By 1863 the family had moved on to Wangaratta where a daughter Anne was born.  The Register for Births and Deaths is missing for the period, so we don't know any further details about their stay in Wangaratta. Thank you Jenny Coates for the information regarding the missing births and deaths in Wangaratta.

Leaving Donnybrook via the Sydney Road (now the Hume Highway), Wangaratta was on the way to their final destination in the vicinity of Wagga Wagga. Phil Sheather, a relative in Wagga Wagga, NSW, tells the story that the Hitchmans were accompanied part of the way north by Ellen and John (Red) Kelly, the parents of Ned Kelly.

We don't know if they intended Wagga as their final destination when they first left Donnybrook, and we can't be sure just when they left Donnybrook.  The previous child to Anne was born at Donnybrook circa 1858, and Anne in Wangaratta in 1863.   The background to this movement north may have involved the dwindling of readily available alluvial gold in Victoria and the associated recession in the economy, with a peak in the number of bankruptcies occurring in 1862.  The through traffic from Melbourne to the goldfields in the north declined significantly, and the goods and services that a town like Donnybrook would provide to that traffic would have also declined.   The Hitchman departure may have occurred in response to loss of work.  It is interesting that they headed north at this time rather than return to Melbourne, but James' acquisition of a 50 acre conditional purchase farm at Malebo, near Wagga, in 1866 might indicate that the couple had a plan for their future.

Whether they spent any time at Wangaratta, or were resting there while awaiting the birth of their child I don't know.   We do know that the Griffiths were still in Beechworth in 1863, but had returned to Melbourne by 1865.  It would seem therefore that the fabled meeting of the sisters on the goldfields after many years' separation most likely occurred in Beechworth around 1863.  From Wangaratta, Beechworth was not overly far out of the way, with another route through to Albury north of the town, though the road may not have been as good.

The Sydney Hotel, formerly known as the Hope Inn, Wangaratta, 1868. Courtesy of  Museum Victoria, MM 6080. 

The story of the gold chain made from a nugget found on the Ovens goldfield hangs on whether or not the chain is made from gold.   This was a question recently resolved by calling in at a jeweller's in Moonee Ponds, Micheli Eurogold, and discovering that in fact the chain was machine made and gold-plated.

Any number of explanations might be put forward - that the gift of gold was sufficient only to purchase a gold plated chain; that the original gold chain is in other hands in the family; that the original gold chain was sold in times of hardship (and there would have been many of those).  Whatever the case, I am prepared to believe that the lady's watch chain does represent a joyful meeting of the sisters in the northern goldfields after many years' separation.  The value is in the associations attached to the chain. (Even though my sister told me to cash it in if the chain was real gold!  There's sisters for you.)

It is indeed the case that all that glisters is not gold.

Elizabeth and Susan Rochester of Chipstead, Surrey, daughters of a labourer, would have had few enough opportunities had they remained in England, most likely becoming the wives of labourers, if they could find a husband.  By accepting the challenges of migration to a very strange and different land, among strangers, Elizabeth became a farmers' wife and with her husband James Hitchman, helped to populate the inland areas of the Riverina. Susan, on the other hand, cast her lot with a musician with gold fever, who took her at first to the northern Victorian goldfields of the Ovens River, and then a suburban life in the growing city of Melbourne.  Both lives involved hard work to sustain themselves and their families, but also offered opportunities.  The two young girls from Surrey proved to be resilient pioneers in their own way. Neither of them became particularly wealthy, but they became the mistress in their own homes, which may not have been the case had they stayed at Chipstead.

Thank you to Phil Sheather of Wagga Wagga for helping with some birth and death details for this story.

Elizabeth up a Deep Creek

View to the north from Donnybrook Road, Mickleham.  These fields are currently being developed for housing.  Photo:  Lenore Frost 2014.

Elizabeth Rochester was a teenager of 18, in charge of a younger sister, when she stepped off the boat in Melbourne on 19 July 1853.   If they had hoped to stay together, that hope was dashed.  They were employed separately, Susan by Dr Hunter of Brighton and Elizabeth by Mr Livingston of Deep Creek.

Within five months of her arrival, Elizabeth married James Hitchman of Bristol, England, on 21 December 1853.  In a time and place where marriageable women were in short supply, Elizabeth might have chosen someone who had a greater claim to respectability, but realistically, out at Deep Creek her opportunities might have been as restricted as back home in Chipstead. The husband she chose was a time expired convict from Tasmania with an even larger age gap than that of Susan's choice.  Hitchman was aged about 38 to Elizabeth's 18.  It is interesting that both sisters chose much older men, but they presumably valued a more mature man in a strange place in a time of social turmoil.

The marriage record suggests they met at Deep Creek.  James was a labourer aged about 34 whose 'usual residence' was given as Deep Creek.  Elizabeth was a domestic servant, aged 23 (bit of a fib there) and her 'usual residence' Little Lonsdale Street in Melbourne. She had evidently left her employment at Deep Creek by then. Both James and Elizabeth signed with a mark, casting doubt on the passenger list in which it was suggested that Elizabeth could both read and write.  Most likely she could read a bible.  Writing was an accomplishment not widespread in the working classes of England at the time.

The witnesses also both signed with their mark, Thomas Caufield and Mary Mackay. Neither of those names appear on the passenger list of the Harpley.  Elizabeth and James were married by the Rites and Ceremonies of the Free Church of Scotland  at the Free Church Manse in Swanston Street, Melbourne. Although the minister at this time was William Miller, the ceremony was performed by the Rev Arch Simpson.

Photograph of a drawing of the John Knox Presbyterian Church manse, built for Rev. James Forbes in 1850. It was located in Swanston Street and was a building of eight to ten rooms that later housed some boarders from the John Knox School. Courtesy of the State Library of Victoria Collection, H6695.

It was an unusual choice of religion for their marriage.  Elizabeth had been brought up in the Church of England, and it seems likely that James was also C of E.   The term "Free" in the name of the church did not imply it was free of fees.  It was connected to a schism in the Presbyterian Church.  The purists formed the "Free Church of Scotland".   The John Knox Church, on the corner of Swanston St and Little Lonsdale Street was one of those.

Was it a co-incidence that the day following the wedding a notice appeared in the Argus Missing Friends columns  seeking James Hitchman?

If this should meet the eye of James Hitchman of Keilor, his brother wishes to see him at the Flagstaff Boarding House, King st, Melbourne.
The Argus 22 December 1853. 

One wonders how many times these messages got to the right quarter when the recipients were illiterate and lived out of town?  Whether James Hitchman had ever lived in Keilor is also a mystery.  But was it a co-incidence that ad was placed the day after the wedding?  Had the brother heard something on the grapevine?   All scenarios, both the message being transmitted to James, and the  brother possibly hearing of the marriage, rely on some fairly heavy duty gossiping going on.  Did James ever meet up with his brother in the Flagstaff Boarding House in King Street?

I was very interested in learning more about the Mr Livingston who had employed Elizabeth, and particularly where he lived.  It was was one of the first pieces of family history research I ever did, so perhaps 40 odd years ago I made a beginner's error, and was not able to correct it until fairly recently. That error was assuming that 'Deep Creek' was  the village of 'Bulla Bulla'.   Bulla had indeed been known as Deep Creek in the very early days of settlement. Living in the district, that was well known to me.   BUT (and you all know what I am going to say)  in the early days of settlement, Deep Creek could mean anywhere along the length of the creek (no matter how many miles), and I was not looking far enough afield to find Mr Livingston.  It was only with access to Trove and Ancestry, and a little more experience, and help from a friend that I managed to correct that error.

So forty years ago I could not for the life of me locate a Mr Livingston.  He did not appear in directories, birth, death or marriage indexes, histories of the area, parish maps or any index that I cared to consult.  The lack of a known first name was a problem.  The Mr Livingston conundrum remained in the too hard basket until discussing it a year or so ago with a friend, Christine Laskowski.  Chris commented that there was a Deep Creek in the vicinity of Craigieburn where her ancestors had lived.  The penny dropped with rather a loud clang. It was in fact the same Deep Creek near Craigieburn.  I hadn't been looking far enough. It made sense, because a couple of the Hitchmans' first children were said to have been born at Donnybrook, not too far from Craigieburn.

Trove has become a major resource for family historians, and I went there first.  It took some lengthy searching to locate three relevant items in the papers, which I will discuss in turn, firstly:

Missing since on or about the 25th ultimo Francis Palmer Livingstone, five feet five inches high dark complexion, dark whiskers, stout build, twenty years of age, wore a dark plaid jumper, dark tweed trousers, and white Manila hat. Was riding an iron gray mare, branded H on near shoulder, L on off shoulder, bushy tail, star in forehead Information to Mrs. Livingstone, Oatland's Farm, near the Deep Creek.

Monday 19 March 1855   http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4805607

Was Francis Palmer Livingstone the mysterious 'Mr Livingston'?  I presumed 'Mrs Livingstone' to be his wife and went to the BDM indexes to discover her name, but in one of those confusing results one gets, Francis Palmer Livingstone married 'Mary Livingstone' in 1859, four years after the above advertisement.  So who was Mrs Livingstone?  His mother? Turning to Ancestry family trees,  I found she was probably his sister-in-law, and a good 15 years his senior.

Mary's first husband was Gilbert Livingston, but I could not locate a death record for him. Several Livingston trees said he had died in 1853, but that didn't help to find him in the indexes.   However, one researcher had very kindly put the marriage record of Mary Livingstone and Francis Palmer Livingstone (yes, she went on to marry her brother-in-law after his first wife died) on Ancestry as a supporting document, and in this it was stated that her husband had died in 1853, so presumably this was the source of his death date.  The death occurred at the time civil registration was starting in Victoria, and it was not recorded.  He also didn't turn up in cemetery records and the like.  He may have died outside the colony, but no newspaper notices marked the bereavement.

Secondly, with the help of Ancestry trees, I now knew the names of the children, so was able to recognise one of their daughters in a Trove search - Mary Anne Livingstone, born in Tasmania in 1845, but attending the Bulla Bulla National School in 1855.  

BULLA BULLA NATIONAL SCHOOL.

An examination of the pupils attending the Bulla Bulla National School was held on Thursday, the 13th current, when the following patrons were present :-Rawdon Greene, Esq. (chairman) ; Messrs. Cameron, Murray, Forsyth, Patullo, Brannagan, and Massie (secretary). The Rev. Mr. Chapman, of Broadmeadows, was also present, and assisted at the examination.

[The prizes] were awarded as follows : [among many other prizes]

SECOND CLASS.-READING, SPELLING, &c:

Boys.-1st prize, Arthur Pattison.

2nd [ditto], Andrew Pattison.

Girls.-1st [ditto], Juliet Mackintosh.

2nd [ditto], Mary Ann Livingstone.

WRITING.

Boys.-1st prize, Richard Brannagan.

2nd [ditto], John Fawkner.

Girls.-1st [ditto], Agnes Robertson.

2nd [ditto], Mary A. Livingstone.

3rd [ditto], Mary Massie.

BULLA BULLA NATIONAL SCHOOL. (1855, December 15). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), p. 6. Retrieved October 5, 2016, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4825881

Bulla Bulla National School at first glance seemed to take me back to the old village of Bulla, but looking at the three volume history of the Victorian Education Department, Vision and Realisation, a description of the location of the school placed it further north.

Plan of the Parish of Bulla Bulla, 1856.  Courtesy of the State Library of Victoria Collection. http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/117418

According to Vision and Realisation the Bulla Bulla National school was on an acre of land on the south east corner of Section 11 – in the above parish plan - owned by Crown Grantee J Cameron.   Trustees of the school included Patullo, Young and Cameron, all Crown Grantees in the vicinity. Cameron's 640 acres includes 'Warlaby', an historic property at Oaklands Junction, between Oaklands Rd and St John's Rd.  

See this parish map at the State Library of Victoria to get a better idea of the 

distance from the Bulla village to the National School. It was several kilometres 

north of the village.http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/192312.  

Mary Anne Livingston's presence at the Bulla Bulla National School suggests the Livingstone family was within striking distance of the school buildings at the southeast corner of Section 11 in 1855.

Thirdly, Mary Livingstone remained farming in the area after her husband's death for a little while, which we know from evidence she gave at an inquest in 1854. (Thanks to Christine Laskowski for alerting me to this inquest.)

Mary Livingstone - deceased Robert Smith has been in my employ for last 18 months and he left Flemington yesterday morning driving in  a bullock dray belonging to my brother. I was following in a dray behind and there was another dray in front. I was about ¼ of a mile behind. I saw the two drays ahead til they came over the hill about ½ a mile from this place and on coming over the hill I saw two men looking at something lying in the road and when I got up I found it go be the body of the deceased. He was quite dead. He was lying on his face and there was a great deal of blood on the spot. He was much intoxicated when he left Flemington but during the time he had been in my employ he had not been addicted to the drink. I saw the mark of the wheel of the dray which passed over the shoulders and head. There was above 2 tons on the dray. Mary X Livingstone of the Deep Creek, taken at Travellers Hope, Deep Creek.

 Inquest on SMITH Robert VPRS 24  1854/560  Inquest held at Travellers Hope, Deep Creek

The Travellers Hope Hotel would appear to be the Travellers' Home or the Travellers' Rest Hotel, which was along Bulla Rd, about halfway between 

Parer Rd and Sharp's Rd, Airport West. See Steele Creek and the Lady of the Lake by Christine Laskowski.

Detail from the Parish of Doutta Galla. The Travellers Home was on the 'Main Road' (Bulla Road) in the apex of the triangle of roads between Section 22 C and 22 D. Section 23 is the site of Essendon Airport. Courtesy of the State Library of Victoria Collection. http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/156280

This route along the Bulla or Deep Creek Road is the one Mary Livingston would take to return to a farm near Oaklands Junction.

Returning to 1853, it is possible that James Hitchman was also working on the Livingstone place, or nearby, at least.  We know in the latter part of 1853 they were both working at Deep Creek, so it seems likely.  In 1853 the farms in the Oaklands Junction area were several hundred acres. Employees at this time most likely lived in mud-brick huts or cottages on the farms.  Some settlers owned several sections, so the area was fairly sparsely settled.  Gilbert Livingston's death evidently occurred between his employing Elizabeth in July 1853 and the end of the year, leaving his wife Mary with five young children.

Looking west on Mickleham Road to the open park-like landscape of the old
Shire of Bulla.  Photo:  Lenore Frost, 2014.

 The landscape was considered significant in the  City of Hume: Heritage Study of the Former Shire of Bulla District, 1998, but time will tell whether the landscape will resist the inroads of developers.  The fine farming land just a little north at Mickleham, as shown in the photo above, is already disappearing under concrete and asphalt roads.

"The landscape is significant at the State level as a rare surviving example - at least as pristine as survives anywhere - of Melbourne’s exceptional and much valued “park-like” natural landscape at the time of European settlement. Partly as a consequence of these natural values, the area also acquired some outstanding cultural associations, evidence of which also survives".

In that curious way that we often cross paths our ancestors trod without realising it, my parents leased a block of land for a time a little north of Bulla on Wildwood Rd, near Oaklands Junction.

The block on Wildwood Rd.  Photo:  Lenore Frost, circa 1966.
The cows were called Leisl and Greta, after a couple of the
children in The Sound of Music, released in 1965.

In the next episode, we will look at how Susan and Elizabeth met up again on the goldfields.

PS   While researching this story a couple of years ago I followed what looked like a lead from Trove about a farm at Oakland, Mickleham in 1876. I drove that way to a cemetery tour of the Donnybrook Cemetery in 2014.  It turned out to be not connected, but having spent so much time on it I decided to write it up for Wikinorthia with the view that it might help someone else. You can read it here: Fellows of Oakland Mickleham  It explains why I have photos of Mickleham on hand and not Oaklands Junction!

Update:   The following paragraph is from an unpublished small history, called "History of Bulla, 1966", by Mary Butler.  A copy is located at the State Library of Victoria. No 42 was the number given to the Bulla Bulla National School in later years. While not sourced, the information would have come from a contemporary government report at the State Library.

"The formation of an Education System, however, provided instruction with the erection of three more schools in the Bulla area [Besides the C of E near the creek] School No 42, consisting of two rooms, had at this time fourteen girl students and twenty-one boy students located on Oaklands Road near Warlaby Stud, or "Narbonne". (page 10)