U is for Una

Una Elizabeth Dwyer née Sneyd (1900-1982), first cousin twice removed of my husband Greg, was the daughter of Samuel Charles Sneyd (1863-1938) and Emily Sneyd née Way (1868-1952).

Usually in my family work I am able to find a considerable quantity and variety of information about the person I’m looking researching. I gain, I hope, some small insight into their circumstances and perhaps one or two events of their lives.

Una Sneyd and her family, however, managed to keep a very low profile. They didn’t write to the paper with bright ideas about burials in wicker baskets, weren’t imprisoned for bankruptcy, and weren’t exiled for their religious views. Thoreau said that the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation; the Sneyds apparently just led quiet lives, and left few traces of themselves for a family historian to work with.

Una’s mother Emily was the seventh of ten children of John Way and Sarah Way née Daw. She was born in Grenfell, New South Wales in 1868 but her family moved to Parkes, New South Wales, when she was about five years old.

In 1892 Emily married Samuel Charles Sneyd, a police constable, in Hughenden, Queensland. I don’t know why Emily, then aged 24, was in Queensland; Hughenden is two thousand kilometres north of Parkes. As far as I know, no other members of her family were in Hughenden. At the time of her marriage Emily was living at Hughenden.

1892 marriage certificate of Charles Samuel Sneyd and Emily Way

Emily and Samuel Charles had six children:

• Lionel Walter Sneyd 1894–1976
• Cecil Sneyd 1896–1954
• infant daughter Sneyd 1898–1898
• Una Elizabeth Sneyd 1900–1982
• Ruth Dawes Sneyd 1904–1996
• Jasper Samuel Sneyd 1906–1991

Lionel was born in Hughendon but the others were born in the Emmaville district of north-east of New South Wales. Samuel Charles Sneyd worked as a miner.

When Emily’s father John Way died in 1911, four daughters were mentioned in his obituary, so it would seem Emily was still in touch with her family. When her sister Mary Ann Waine died in 1938, Mary Ann’s obituary mentioned only one sister, Eliza: the family seemed to have lost touch with Emily.

The Sneyd family moved to Sydney sometime after 1913. In August 1915 Lionel Sneyd enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force. He gave his father as his next of kin. At the time, he was living in Marrickville, an inner-west suburb of Sydney

Lionel served overseas in France, was wounded in action in July 1916, and was repatriated with a fractured left ankle.

Only limited number of electoral rolls for New South Wales have been digitised. In these I have been able to find  Una Elizabeth Sneyd listed in 1930 as living at  39 Tupper Street, Marrickville. Her occupation was shop assistant. She was living with her parents and younger brother Jasper, who was also a shop assistant. Samuel was a carpenter. Emily’s occupation was listed as home duties.

In 1932 Una Sneyd married Patrick George Dwyer, an engine driver. In 1935 the Dwyers were living at 11 Audley Street, Petersham. Una’s occupation was given as home duties. Petersham is immediately north of Marrickville.

By 1936 the Dwyers had moved to 6 Brightmore Street, Cremorne. The suburb of Cremorne is on the lower North Shore in Sydney, 13 kilometres north-east of Marrickville, across the harbour. The Dwyers were still at the same address at the time of the 1980 electoral roll.

Samuel Charles Sneyd died in 1938 and Emily Sneyd died in 1952.

I have not ordered her death certificate, but I notice from the index that Emily’s mother was named Ruth; her family appear to have known very little about Emily’s parents.

Patrick and Una seem to have had only one child, called John. He is listed on the 1958 electoral roll as living with them and is named in their death notices. As the voting age was 21, he was born between 1936 and 1937. I have not found a newspaper birth notice.

Patrick George (Paddy) Dwyer died 29 December 1981 in hospital. His death notice stated that he was from Cremorne, loved husband of Una. The notice names his son and two grandsons. Una died on 13 February 1982, also in hospital. Her death notice also named her late husband, son and two grandsons. In May 1982 there was a notice in the Sydney Morning Herald associated with the estate of Patrick George Dwyer, retired council employee.

In researching Una I have been able to verify dates, places and relationships with the aid of birth, death and marriage indexes, electoral rolls and notices in the newspapers. The Sneyd and Dwyer families, however, did not attract much notice in the newspapers and it has been hard to find any events that enable me to get to know Una Dwyer née Sneyd.

J is for John

One of my husband’s great great grandfathers was John Way (1835-1911).

When he died on 11 June 1911, in Parkes, New South Wales, John Way was buried in  Parkes cemetery with his wife and son. His gravestone noted the death of his grandson Leslie Leister, killed World War 1.

The local paper, recording John Way’s death, provided a  brief obituary.

MR. JOHN WAY. (1911, June 16). Western Champion (Parkes, NSW : 1898 – 1934), p. 16. Retrieved December 4, 2017, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article111914465

Sadly, the headstone of John Way’s grave was broken in two by vandals in 2010 (after this photo was taken).

Because the marble is too soft and hollow to drill and pin, it could not be completely restored.

As a community service, J.T. Cock & Sons, a Parkes monumental masonry firm, repaired the headstone as best they could, picking it up off the ground and laying it flat. Unfortunately, some of the lead lettering, fractured in the damage, has come away, making the inscription harder to read.

Related blog posts

• Immigration on the Trafalgar in 1854 of John Way and Sarah née Daw
• Sepia Saturday 329: shepherding near Murrumburrah, New South Wales
• Mapping the birthplaces of the children of John Way and Sarah née Daw
• Trove Tuesday: Leslie Leister died at Fromelles 19/20 July 2016

William Smith Daw (1810 – 1877)

This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt image is of a water mill in Wales.

My husband’s great great great grandfather, William Smith Daw (1810 – 1877) was a miller. In 1841 he lived at Upcott Mill, near Sheepwash, Devon.

1841 census of England: Class: HO107; Piece: 244; Book: 10; Civil Parish: Sheepwash; County: Devon; Enumeration District: 3; Folio: 4; Page: 3; Line: 5; GSU roll: 241320 retrieved from ancestry.com

He and his wife Mary had five children aged between 6 months and 9 years.  One was my husband’s great great grandmother Sarah (1837 – 1895).

When I was looking for information about the Sheepwash mill, Gary from Sheepwash told me that the mill site now had only ruined buildings. He referred me to the 1839 tithe apportionments and map, and pointed out that millers tended to move around quite a bit as they rarely owned their own mills.

In 1839 Upcott Mill at Sheepwash was owned by the Reverend William Bickford Coham and George Coham Esquire who seem to have owned considerable amounts of land  in the area. The Tithe apportionment shows a number of fields and an orchard associated with the mill.

1839 tithe apportionment for Sheepwash, Devon page 20 showing Upcott Mill from http://files.devon.gov.uk/tithe/sheepwash.pdf (click to enlarge image)

1839 Tithe map for Sheepwash, Devon showing the fields associated with Upcott Mill. The tithe map is available through http://www.devon.gov.uk/tithemaps.htm . The highlighting was done by Gary, a resident of Sheepwash.

The location of Upcott Mill north of the village of Sheepwash on Mussel Brook can be seen from the full map and can be compared with Google maps.

In 1851 the Daw family were at Wendron, Cornwall, just over 80 miles south-west of Sheepwash.  In the 1851 census William Daw was described as a miller and farmer of 25 acres.

1851 census of England: Class: HO107; Piece: 1912; Folio: 158; Page: 13; GSU roll: 221066.retrieved from ancestry.com

Confirmation that it is the same family is obtained from the birthplaces. For example, Elizabeth aged 11 in 1851 was born in “Shipwash”, Devon.

The family moved to Cornwall about 1844. Honor, aged 8 in 1851, was born in North Tawton, Devon. Louisa, aged 6 in 1851, was born in Helston, Cornwall.

Trelubis, also written Trelubbas, was a hamlet midway between Helston and Wendron near Trannack,. It is not marked on Googlemaps.

Trelubis near Wendron and Helston from Ordnance Survey First Series, Sheet 31 retrieved from Vision of Britain Historical Maps

The 1876 Ordnance Survey map gives more detail, though I am not sure where the mill at Trelubis was. Perhaps it was the mill immediately above the label ‘Lower Town‘.

Trelubbas near Trannack from Ordnance Survey Cornwall LXXVI.NW – OS Six-Inch Map first published 1876. Retrieved from National Library of Scotland http://maps.nls.uk/view/101439575  Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland

In November 1851 there was an accident at the mill, serious but not fatal:

SERIOUS ACCIDENT ­ On Thursday the 13th instant, as a little girl named BISHOP was amusing herself by putting straws into a thrashing machine, situate at the back of Mr. DAWE’s Flour Mills, at Lower Town, near Helston, her arm got entangled in the machine, and was torn off just below the elbow. Medical assistance was promptly obtains, and amputation above the elbow joint being necessary it was performed by Messrs. BORLASE and ROSKRUGE, and the child is doing well. Not many minutes before the accident Mr. Dawe had sent her out of the building, but she had returned unobserved. (I am not sure which newspaper this comes from. This item is in the newspaper collection of Sheila Pryor.)

In 1853 the Daw’s youngest child Sophia was drowned. She was just 14 months old.

Royal Cornwall Gazette – Truro Cornwall 3 June 1853  page 5 retrieved from FindMyPast Image reproduced with kind permission of The British Newspaper Archive (www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk) © THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Another newspaper report of 3 June 1853

On Tuesday, a little girl, daughter of Mr. DAWE, miller, of Lowertown, in Wendren, came by her death in a most melancholy manner. The child who was only fourteen months old, was suddenly missed, and there being a river running in front of Mr. Daw’s house by which the mill is worked, search was immediately made, and after an hour and a half, the body was found in a pit at the bottom of the river, having previously passed over the mill wheel, under two bridges, and down the stream a considerable distance. (Newspaper item in the collection of Sheila Pryor.)

I learned from the family history website of  Lorna Henderson, my husband’s 5th cousin,  (http://familytree.lornahen.com/pi27.htm ) that the Daw family were millers in a number of places in Devon and Cornwall. Lorna was trying to work out which family members might be pictured in a photograph that her grandmother had of Lumburn Mill, Tavistock, West Devon.

I still have much research to do on this generation of the family.

Sepia Saturday 329: shepherding near Murrumburrah, New South Wales

This week’s Sepia Saturday image is of a shepherd, photographed by Joseph Gale in the 1890s. The title of the photograph, Ninety and Nine, refers to the Parable of the Lost Sheep told in both Luke 15: 3-7 and Matthew 18:12-14. In the parable a shepherd leaves his flock of ninety-nine sheep to search for one that is lost.

John Way (1835-1911), my husband’s great great grandfather worked as a shepherd in New South Wales in the 1860s.

We know from the birth and death certificates of his children what jobs John Way had.

In 1859 when his daughter Mary Jane died in the Melbourne inner city suburb of Collingwood,  John was a labourer.

In 1865 when his daughter Elizabeth was born at Brittons Dam Station, Kitticara near Murrumburrah, John was a shepherd.

I have been unable to find a birth certificate for the birth in 1863 of Sarah Jane Way. All other documentation states she was born at Barbara / Bobbarah Creek near Murrumburrah. I suspect that John would have been working as a shepherd then too.

Bobbarah Creek is probably close to Binalong.  There is a Mount Bobbara just under 7km from Binalong.

Mt Bobbara near Binalong July 2007

the road near Mt Bobbara July 2007

In 1868 when his daughter Emily was born in Grenfell, New South Wales, John was working as a sawyer.

It seems that for some years between 1859 and 1868 John Way worked as a shepherd on properties near Murrumburrah, New South Wales. At 560 km north-east of Melbourne, it was a long way from Collingwood.

Perhaps John and Sarah Way answered an advertisement like this one, which appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald in September 1859 seeking a married couple, Scotch or English, to shepherd two flocks.
.

In the early 1860s there were few fences, and men were employed as shepherds. Fencing became more widespread during the decade, and by the mid-1880s, over ninety-five per cent of sheep in New South Wales were in fenced paddocks. The use of wire fences was spreading rapidly, and the cost of fences was falling.

A shepherd’s hut in South Australia

Sweet, Samuel White (1869). Shepherds hut.Retrieved from Trove http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/22433904

 

“Shepherding” in Australia. Wood engraving published in The Australian news for home readers 25 May 1864. Image from the State Library of Victoria.

 

Gill, Samuel Thomas & Hamel & Ferguson (1864). Homeward bound. Printed in colors by Hamel & Ferguson, Melbourne. Retrieved from the National Library of Australia.

Further reading

• Pickard, John. Cambridge University Press; 2007. The Transition from shepherding to fencing in colonial Australia.  Retrieved from http://www.researchonline.mq.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/mq:6065

Related post

•  Mapping the birthplaces of the children of John Way and Sarah née Daw

Y is for Young family photographs

In the early 1990s, when I started our family history research, we met Noel Tunks (1943-2008), a cousin by marriage, the 2nd great-nephew of the husband of the 2nd great-aunt of my husband. Noel was very generous in sharing Tunks family photographs. Some were of members of the Young family.

I am still puzzled by two of these photographs. I have slightly different conclusions now than I did more than 20 years ago but I am still not convinced I have the answers.

The notes I have on the back of the photo, made about the time it was given to me by Noel Tunks, read: photographer Charlie Farr Maryborough (no 15198 (?) handwritten on back). Jack Young inscribed on back. My own notes say “looks like George Wilkins with Ethel and George (son) & Jack & Cecil Young“.

Cecil was born in July 1898. His brother John Percy, known as Jack, was born  in August 1896. From the inscription on the back of the original I am fairly confident that the two young children are Cecil and his brother Jack and, looking at the age of the two small children, the photograph was taken about 1899.

According to the Victorian genealogist Susie Zada, quoting Australians behind the Camera, the photographer Charlie Farr worked in Marybough from 1893-1906.  So my guess that the photograph was taken in 1899 matches the photographer’s business dates.

Looking at this photo again recently I assumed that the adult must be of John Young (1856-1928), posed with his two sons and his two step children, Robert Whiteman (1883-1957) and Mary Ann Whiteman (1884-1945). John’s wife Sarah Jane Young formerly Whiteman  née Way (1863-1898) died at the time of Cecil’s birth. In 1899 Bob Whiteman would have been 16 and his sister Mary Ann 15.

However, this interpretation is complicated by another photograph from Noel Tunks.

Again the photo is noted as having been taken by Charlie Farr Maryborough (no 14556 handwritten on back). I wrote that this picture was of George Wilkins, Charlotte Young, Ethel (Grose) & son George died WA.

The two young people standing appear to be the same people in the first photograph. However, the girl’s dress is different and she looks younger in the first photograph, so I don’t think the photographs were taken on the same day. The numbering sequence suggests that this might be an earlier photograph but I think the two teenagers look older.

Cecil Young and his brother Jack lived at Homebush near Avoca with their aunt Charlotte Wilkins née Young (1861-1925) and her husband George Wilkins (1857-1944). Charlotte and George Wilkins had two surviving children, Ethel (1883-1955) and George (1884-1909).

I think the girl in the two photographs looks older than the teenage boy and so I think it is more likely that the two teenagers in both photographs are Ethel then about 16 and George Wilkins, who would have been about 15.

I don’t think the two men are the same, but I don’t know why John Young would be photographed with his niece and nephew George and Ethel Wilkins as well as his two small sons.

It would be nice if there were other photographs to compare with these. Perhaps some other Young or Wilkins family descendants have some.

An update – October 2016. Yesterday we visited a cousin of Greg’s on the Way side of the family from Parkes. She had a magnificent family photograph album. The first photograph was among her family photos. To my mind this indicates the two teenagers are the Whiteman children and a photo of the four children was being sent back to their Way relatives in Parkes.

Although the teenagers look similar, with similar hairstyles I think they are in fact different – one is the Young and Whiteman family, the second family is the Wilkins family.

Related posts

• Cecil Young and family: Cecil’s early life up to end World War I
• Trove Tuesday: Obituary for John Young (1856 – 1928) 
• W is for George Wilkins writing from Western Australia  

Typhoid epidemic in Parkes in 1896

Headstone in Parkes cemetery of John Way and his parents, with a memorial inscription recording the death of his nephew

On 21 April 1896, John Way, 24 years old, died of typhoid, perforated bowel, and peritonitis after an illness of three weeks. John Way, from Parkes in central New South Wales, was a miner like his father, also called John.

Typhoid is a bacterial disease caused by eating food or drinking water contaminated by human faeces. Its spread is prevented by efficient sanitation and careful public hygiene.

John Way’s death was reported in the Evening News, a Sydney newspaper, on the next day:

Death from Typhoid.
PARKES, Wednesday.— Another death from typhoid has occurred a young man named John Way being the victim.

I came across this article by accident while browsing the National Library of Australia’s ‘Trove’ collection of digitised newspapers. I broadened my search to look for typhoid in Parkes in April 1896.

On 1 April, the Queanbeyan Age reported that there were 21 cases of typhoid in Parkes hospital. On 17 April the Sydney Evening News reported that since the beginning of the year there had been 59 deaths in Parkes, 19 of these due to typhoid. The source of the outbreak was yet to be traced. The mayor was taking steps to have cesspits filled in and the pan system generally adopted. On 24 April the Albury Banner and Wodonga Express reported there were over 100 typhoid cases in Parkes and district under medical treatment.

PARKES. (1896, April 24). Albury Banner and Wodonga Express (NSW : 1896 – 1938), p. 17. Retrieved June 29, 2014, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article99431481

Towards the end of May a report on the epidemic was tabled in Parliament.The Riverine Grazier summarised the report on 23 June:

• Dr Tidswell, medical officer, was sent by the Board of Health to inquire into the prevalence of typhoid fever and the insanitary state of that town with special reference to the recent outbreak.
• Although certain by-laws were passed in 1890 requiring the adoption of a dry earth system, the by laws were not enforced as the validity had been disputed and in 1894 a bylaw was passed permitting the use of cesspits . Despite the requirement that they be constructed so as not be a nuisance, the bylaws were neglected and the arrangements were most primitive. The soil was polluted from slops, drainage and nightsoil.
• The excreta from typhoid patients was not treated before being buried in back yards or gardens.
• The supply of water was defective. Rainwater collected in tanks was very largely used in Parkes. The report pointed out that the roofs from which the water is collected are often covered with dust, sometimes to the extent that the gutters are blocked. During dry weather dust storms are no uncommon and the town is a dusty one. The rains carry the dust into the water tanks. the dust from the polluted soild carried the typhoid bacilli into the rain water collected in the tanks.
• Tidswell pointed out that soil pollution was the primary evil. The combined influence of natural conditions and the absence of an efficient drainage system meant that Parkes was specially liable to diseases fostered by soil pollution. The neglect of the by-laws resulted in excessive soil pollution.

In 1895,according to the cemetery register, there were 22 burials in Parkes cemetery. This in
cluded seven people burnt to death in a fire in April, mainly members of a family called Quinn. Twenty people were buried in the cemetery in 1896 but ten of the burials were in April. The cemetery register does not appear to include all those affected by the typhoid epidemic but the disproportion of the deaths in April 1896 gives some idea of the tragedy.

Usually there were no more than three burials a month in Parkes cemetery. The exceptions are in April 1895 when there was a fire killing seven people and in April 1896 when there was a typhoid epidemic. The figures are derived from the Parkes cemetery register.

In May 1879, John’s sister Harriet Way, nine years  old, died in Parkes of typhoid after an illness of three weeks.

John and Harriet Way were my husband’s great grand mother’s siblings, that is his great grand uncle and great grand aunt.

In my family tree, Eleanor Mary Niall (1858-1891), my first cousin four times removed, died of typhoid in Adelaide in November 1891.  My great great grand uncle Daniel Budge (1842-1895) died of typhoid in Coolgardie, Western Australia, in January 1895. One of his obituaries mentions that typhoid was firmly established at Coolgardie.

It is estimated that worldwide today there are 21 million cases of typhoid and 200,000 deaths each year. “Typhoid Fever.” National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 14 May 2013. Web. 30 June 2014. <http://www.cdc.gov/nczved/divisions/dfbmd/diseases/typhoid_fever/technical.html>.

X, her mark

In 2012 at http://www.lonetester.com/2012/10/family-history-through-the-alphabet-challenge-x-is-for-signatures/ Alona Tester blogged about ‘X is for signatures’. She included examples of certificates where ‘X his mark’ showed that someone could not sign his name.

I looked though my collection of birth, death and marriage certificates for examples of people who could not sign their name.

On the birth certificate of Alice Young, born in 1859, the informant, her mother Caroline née Clark, could not sign her name and made an X. On the birth certificate of Caroline Young in 1867, the informant was her father George Young. He signed his name. In 1878 the birth of James Ernest Young was registered and the informant was Caroline. This time she appears to have signed her name. The informant’s name is in a different handwriting to the details on the rest of the certificate. Perhaps Caroline had learned how to sign her name in the twenty years between the births of Alice and James.

Informant’s details from the birth certificate of Alice Young. Birth registered in Victoria number 4807 of 1859. Caroline was also the informant on John Young’s birth in 1856. She signed with her mark on that certificate too.

Informant’s details from the birth certificate of James Ernest Young. Birth registered in Victoria number 20382 of 1878. Other details from the certificate and from the preceding certificate have been left to show the difference in handwriting, which suggests that this might be the signature of Caroline.

Sarah Way née Daw was the informant on the 1868 birth certificate of her daughter Emily Way. She could not sign her name and made a mark. However, in 1896 Sarah’s husband John Way signed his name as the informant for the registration of the death of his son John.

When she registered the birth in 1864 of Henry Dawson at Corby, Lincolnshire, Eliza Dawson née Skerritt, his mother, could not sign her name. Her husband Isaac was able to sign his name when they married in 1855. She signed the marriage register with her mark.

These are the only examples I could find in my family documents of people who could not write their own name. All three women were great great great grandmothers of my husband. Eleven of his other great great great grandparents could sign their name.

These women were all born in the first half of the nineteenth century. All their husbands could sign their own names. In the next generation, their children, both girls and boys, could write their own name.

Some demographers have argued that illiteracy is linked to the size of families, in particular that education diminishes fertility. For example, a study of demographic changes in Britain from the 1850s to the early twentieth century found that “the extension of basic literacy is related to increases in female labour market participation, which is in turn related to fertility reduction”. (Newell and Gazeley) The data from my family does not support this hypothesis. None of the women in the table below were ever in paid employment. I cannot see any link between the literacy of my own and my husband’s great great great grandparents and the size of their families.

Age at marriage, children and dates of birth for our great great great grandmothers

Name	Ahnentafel number	literacy	number of children	age at marriage	age when first child born	age when last child born	age at death	lived	Notes
Caroline Clarke	33	no	13	18	18	43	44	1835-1879	Includes one set of twins.
Sarah Daw	35	no	10	17	18	37	58	1837-1895
Ellen Murray	37	passenger list stated she could read and write	11	19	20	41	64	1837-1901
Margaret Smyth	39	passenger list stated she could read and write	7	21	19	38	63	1834-1897	had a child before she married
Eliza Sinden	43	signature appears on birth and death certificates	8	25	26	41	85	1823-1908
Eliza Skerrit	45	no	10	21	24	38	65	1834-1899	Includes one set of triplets. This is the only English family. The last child was born at the time Eliza’s husband, Isaac Dawson, died.
Caroline Ralph	47	signature appears on marriage certificate	10	20	21	43	46	1850-1896
Annie Frances Chauncy	49	yes	2	20	21	24	25	1857-1883	died young
Jeanie Hawkins	51	yes	4	21	22	31	79	1862-1941
Margaret Budge	53	yes	13	21	22	44	67	1845-1912
Ellen Jane Mainwaring	55	yes	10	20	20	37	75	1845-1920

The women in this table were Australian, with the exception of that of Eliza Skerrit, wife of Isaac Dawson, who was from Lincolnshire, England. I have not included my German great great great grandparents as I do not have the relevant data.

A graphical representation of the above data for our great great great grandmothers

click to enlarge

Reference:

• Newell, A. and Gazeley, I. (2012) The declines in infant mortality and fertility: Evidence from British cities in demographic transition, Economics Department Working Paper Series, University of Sussex, No. 48-2012 retrieved from http://ftp.iza.org/dp6855.pdf 27 April 2014

L is for Eliza Leister

I have decided to continue the story of Leslie Leister by writing about his aunt, Eliza, who became his foster mother.

Eliza Way was born 22 August 1865 on Brittons Dam Station, Kitticara, near Murrumburrah, New South Wales. Her father John Way (1835-1911) was a shepherd. She is named Elizabeth on her birth certificate.

Eliza was the sixth child of John and Sarah (1837-1895). The birth certificate stated three males living and two children deceased. There was a mistake on the certificate, Eliza in fact had three older sisters, and a boy and a girl had died before she was born. There were also four younger siblings.

• • Louisa 1855-1926
  • William John 1857-1758
  • Mary Jane 1859-1859
  • Mary Ann 1860-1938
  • Sarah Jane 1863-1898
  • Elizabeth / Eliza 1865-1940
  • Emily 1868-1952
  • Harriet Elizabeth 1870-1879
  • John 1872-1896

from an advertisement in the Grenfell newspaper in 1868

• Martha 1874-1875

From the birthplaces of her siblings we can see that the Way family had moved to Grenfell by 1868, when Emily was born. John’s occupation was then as a sawyer. In 1870 Harriet was also born in Grenfell, “near Reece’s foundry” (‘The European Iron Foundry’). John was still a sawyer. In 1872 his son John was also born at Grenfell. In 1874 when Martha was born in Parkes, John Way’s occupation was as a miner.

By the 1890s, and perhaps earlier, the Way family were living at Bogan Street Parkes.

Eliza’s sister, Sarah Jane, married Robert Whiteman, a miner on 12 July 1882 at Parkes. They had two children: Robert Henry, born 1883, and Mary Ann, born 19 August 1884. Six months before Mary Ann was born, Sarah Jane’s husband Robert  died of pneumonia after an illness of four days. Sarah Jane probably relied on her parents and sisters for help in bringing up her two infant children. Sarah Jane remarried on 26 September 1894 in Melbourne to John Young, a miner, who had spent some time in New South Wales, presumably including a period in Parkes.

On 13 August 1894, just before her second marriage, Sarah Jane gave birth to a boy, Jack Walsh Whiteman. The father was not named on the birth certificate. The birth was registered on 21 September, with Sarah Jane the informant. Her mother had been a witness, assisting at the birth. There was no doctor and seems to have been no other nurse or midwife.

It appears that Sarah Jane left her baby Jack behind with her mother in Parkes when she went to Melbourne to marry John Young.

Sarah Way, the mother of Sarah Jane and Eliza, died on 7 April 1895 of what is described on the death certificate as biliary colic and an impacted gallstone. The length of her illness was described on her death certificate as chronic. Four of Sarah’s daughters were married: Louisa in 1873, Mary Ann in 1883, Sarah Jane in 1894 and Emily in 1892. Four children had died. Eliza and John junior were unmarried and probably still living with their parents. It would seem to have become Eliza’s responsibility to care for the grandchild Jack.

On 1 July 1896 Eliza married Robert Watson Duncan Leister at her father’s residence in Parkes. The witnesses were Hugh Leister and Caroline Harrison.

Robert Leister was 25 years old, a blacksmith, born at Maryborough, Victoria. His father was a carpenter. Eliza was 29 and her occupation was given as “living with her father”.

From Leslie Leister’s war record, we know that Eliza was his foster mother. We don’t know when Jack’s name was changed to Leslie. There were no formal adoption laws in New South Wales at this time. The first legislation in NSW to regulate adoption was the Child Welfare Act 1923. (Releasing the past : adoption practices, 1950-1998 : final report / Standing Committee on Social Issues. [Sydney, N.S.W.] The Committee, 2000. – 1 v. (various pagings); 30 cm. (Report 22, December 2000) (Parliamentary paper; no. 600) retrieved from https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/committee.nsf/0/56e4e53dfa16a023ca256cfd002a63bc/$FILE/Report.PDF 12 April 2014)

Robert and Eliza continued to live with Eliza’s father John at Bogan Street, Parkes. When John died in 1911, Robert Leister is given as the informant on his death certificate. John’s will left his estate to his daughters Eliza and Louisa and appointed Eliza as his executrix.

Taking load of wheat to silos by horse – Corner of Bogan & Dalton Streets, Parkes, NSW. , 1925-26. Image from the State Library of New South Wales retrieved from http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/10508626 The Way and Leister families lived two blocks away on the corner of Bogan and Church streets.

Robert Duncan Leister died on 31 March 1925 at Bogan Street, Parkes. He was 56 years old. His occupation was upholsterer. He had been ill for several years with chronic nephritis (inflammation of the kidneys) and for 24 hours with uraemia (the illness accompanying kidney failure). He had been 26 years in Victoria and 30 years in New South Wales; he had arrived in New South Wales about a year before he married Eliza. Robert and Eliza had no children of their own.

In 1929, William Charles Waine, husband of Eliza’s sister Mary Ann, died in Orange. By 1930 according to the electoral rolls, Eliza was living at Byng Street, Orange. She had no family left in Parkes. Perhaps she was helping her sister or perhaps they enjoyed each other’s company.

Eliza died after a car accident in February 1940. She was hit by a car when walking to church.

 

Eliza is buried at Orange. The grave at Parkes beside her husband remained empty. Parkes is 100km from Orange and there were no other members of the family living in Parkes at the time of Eliza’s death.

grave of Robert Duncan Leister at Parkes Cemetery

 

grave of Eliza Leister at Orange Cemetery

F is for Fromelles

Leslie Leister (1894-1916), the half-brother of my husband’s grandfather, was one of the 250 soldiers who were killed at the battle of Fromelles in July 1916 and buried in a mass grave by the Germans after the battle.

Fromelles is said to have been the worst 24 hours in Australia’s history. There were 5,533 casualties and about 2,000 men were killed in one night. (McMullin, Ross. “Disaster at Fromelles.” Wartime 2006. Australian War Memorial. Web. 6 Apr. 2014. <http://secure.awm.gov.au/wartime/36/article.asp>.)

After the battle many men lay dead in the area occupied by the Germans. It was summer and the rotting bodies had to be dealt with quickly so the Germans buried the dead British and Australians in pits near a wood.  The Germans sent the identification tags of the soldiers they had buried to the Red Cross so relatives could be informed. Leslie Leister’s name was on the Red Cross list.

Although many bodies were recovered after the war and reburied in Imperial War Graves Commission cemeteries, the bodies in the graves at Fromelles were not. Lambis Englezos, an amateur historian from Melbourne, began a project to identify the grave site.  Eventually he convinced the Australian government to commission an excavation and the bodies were located and reinterred, with DNA samples taken for identification. 124 soldiers have been identified using DNA, forensic science and historical data.

In February 2009 my husband Greg received a phone call from a researcher and former police officer, Tim Lycett, about the excavation of the soldiers from the Fromelles battlefield.  Although there had been several news stories I hadn’t paid any attention because at that time I didn’t know there was a family connection. Tim worked with other researchers, including a genealogist called Sandra Playle, to identify men who might be buried in battlefield mass graves.

In November 2009, one of Tim and Sandra’s stories appeared in an article in the Sydney Morning Herald.  They said about Leslie Leister:

But the real eureka moment was Lesley Leister: “It took months,” says Playle. ”We had nothing but an adoptive name as a starting reference and still we uncovered the truth about his illegitimate birth, identified his true parentage, established his birth name and located his descendants. Oh, we did a little jig with that one!” (Totaro, Paola. “Face to Face with the ‘lost’ 85 Diggers of Fromelles.” World News. Sydney Morning Herald, 7 Nov. 2009. Web. 3 Apr. 2014. <http://www.smh.com.au/world/face-to-face-with-the-lost-85-diggers-of-fromelles-20091106-i25h.html>.)

We had seen the gravestone of Greg’s great-great-grandparents, John and Sarah Way (1835-1911 and 1837-1895), in Parkes cemetery. Their grandson Leslie Leister is mentioned, but as a nephew. Beside the Way grave is the grave of Robert Leister (1871-1925) and we assumed that Leslie was a nephew of Robert’s and did not understand that he had a more direct connection to the Way family.

Gravestone at Parkes photographed March 2009.  The inscription reads: In memory of our dear father John Way died June 11, 1911: aged 76. And our dear mother Sarah Way died April 7,1895. Aged 58. Also our dear brother John, died April 21, 1896, aged 24. Erected as a memorial of our loving nephew Leslie Leister killed in action in France July 20,1916. Aged 22. At rest.

Greg’s great-grandmother Sarah Jane Way (1863-1898) married twice.  Her first husband was Robert Whiteman, by whom she had two children. He died of pneumonia in 1884. Ten years later she married John Young (1856-1928) in Melbourne. Sarah Jane had also had a third child, Jack Walsh [Whiteman] born on 13 August 1894 at Parkes in New South Wales, just weeks before her marriage to John Young. The child’s father is not recorded on the birth certificate. Leslie Leister was brought up in Parkes by Sarah Jane’s sister, Eliza (1865-1940), who married Robert Leister in 1896.

The information to trace the family history is there in the World War I dossier, NAA:B2455, Leister Leslie. In his letters to the Defence department, Robert Leister always refers to Leslie as his wife’s nephew. The linking document is a letter from the Mutual Life and Citizens Assurance Company at folio 52 which refers to his birth name. Without that information we might never have identified him.

folio 52 of NAA:B2455, Leister Leslie

We believe this is a photo of Leslie Leister. It was in a family album and Leslie is the only soldier who fits within the family tree who is not otherwise identified.

Leslie enlisted on 2 October 1915 at Holsworthy Barracks near Sydney.  He had been working as a postal assistant at Lambton, Newcastle, New South Wales. On 8 March 1916 he embarked for Egypt on the troopship HMAT A15 Star of England. In 21 April 1916 at Ferry Post, on the Suez Canal, he was transferred to the 55th Battalion. On 29 June he sailed with the 55th on HMHT Caledonia from Alexandria to Marseille. On July 19 he wrote to his adoptive parents from “somewhere in France” that he was quite well. Robert and Eliza Leister received that letter on September 9. On July 20 Leslie was dead, killed at Fromelles.

Photograph from the Australian War Memorial image id A01562.  Unknown photographer. Portion of the German 2nd line held by the 31st Battalion, AIF, throughout the night during the Battle of Fleurbaix which took place on 19 July 1916 and 20 July 1916. Note the attempt at consolidation. This photograph was taken during the morning of the 20th July whilst the Germans were re-occupying their old position. Note the three German soldiers at rear. Retrieved from https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/A01562/ https://www.awm.gov.au/blog/2008/07/18/the-worst-night-in-australian-military-history-fromelles/ : For a long time afterwards many would refer to the events about to unfold as the battle of Fleurbaix, but eventually the name of Fromelles stuck and today it is by that name that the battle is known.

 

Leslie Leister is one of the soldiers who was identified. His grave in the new cemetery is marked with the same inscription as his grandparents’ grave at Parkes.

Related posts:

• K is for King and Country : looking at the official correspondence which survives in Leslie Leister’s World War I dossier, NAA:B2455, Leister Leslie, between the next of kin and the Department of Defence following his death
• L is for Eliza Leister : concerning Leslie Leister’s aunt and foster mother

B is for Births, Deaths and Marriages registration in Australia

In  Australia, the births, deaths and marriages registration system is known as the Archer system after the man who designed it.

William Henry Archer (1825-1909), a statistician, arrived in the colony of Victoria in December 1852. He had trained and worked as an actuary in England. Legislation had recently been passed to introduce a compulsory system for the civil registration of births, deaths and marriages. Governor La Trobe appointed Archer as a clerk to advise on the new system soon after Archer’s arrival.

In February 1853, in an address to the Legislative Council, the Lieutenant-Governor of the colony of Victoria, Charles La Trobe,  said that the purpose of civil registration was proof of births, deaths and marriages and to assist in tracing pedigrees.

From the address by the Lieutenant-Governor (La Trobe) to the Legislative Council on February 8 1853  The Argus. (1853, February 9). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 – 1957), p. 4. Retrieved March 9, 2014, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4789655

The Melbourne Argus wrote on the importance of the new legislation, in particular the legislation’s intention to minimise disputes about identity.

The Argus. (1853, May 14). The Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 – 1957), p. 4. Retrieved March 9, 2014, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4792610

Civil registration was designed to help resolve questions of identity. New immigrants were so far away from family and from the community they had grown up in, so questions of identity could arise, including when it came to making sure that property acquired in the colony went to the correct next of kin after somebody died. 

The Archer system, named after William Archer, is very useful for family historians to trace anyone’s pedigree.

At http://www.jaunay.com/bdm.html , Graham Jaunay, a South Australian genealogist, has usefully summarised what information can be found on civil registration certificates of the Australian (colonies and) states.

New South Wales and Queensland adopted the Archer system from 1856. The other colonies adopted the system later.

Indexes of civil registration certificates are available in various formats, and online. The indexes can also help to identify siblings and other relatives, because information on the indexes usually includes parents.

PDF images of historical certificates can be purchased online from Victoria and Queensland. From the end of April 2014 a similar system will be available for New South Wales.

So, how does it work?

In Australia, historical census returns are destroyed, so we do not have the useful information about families and their location every ten years that those tracing their nineteenth century family history in the United States and England.

Australian birth certificates records when and where the baby was born, the names of its parents, their ages and their birth places, where and when they were married , the names of siblings both living and dead, and who the informant was (usually a parent).

A marriage certificate has the date and place, the names, whether they have been married before or are widowed or divorced, the birthplace of the bride and groom, their occupation, their exact age in years (that is, not just whether the person is over 21), their residence both present and usual, and for both bride and groom, the father and occupation and the mother and her maiden name.

A death certificate gives the name, when and where died, usual place of residence, occupation, cause of death, duration of last illness, when last saw a medical practitioner, name and occupation of father, name and maiden surname of mother, informant, burial, where born and how long in the Australian states or colonies, marriage spouse, at what age and where, and whether the spouse was still living or whether divorced, issue in order of birth with names and ages. Death certificates of course depend on the knowledge of the informant and thus are the least reliable. The subject of the certificate is not in a position to contradict or supplement the information.

The collection of certificates gives a comprehensive history and most people most of the time filled in their details conscientiously.

You learn a lot about people from the birth certificates of their children, their patterns of movement around the country and what jobs they had.  For example, in the case of John and Sara Way, I could follow them through three states, with John changing his occupation from labourer in Adelaide and Melbourne to shepherd near Yass in New South Wales and then to a miner in Parkes in New South Wales.

 

John left very few other pieces of information. He didn’t appear in the newspapers, and we have inherited no letters or diaries. The certificates have been most revealing.

Similarly for George Young. Thanks to the certificates we could follow him from rush to rush until the birth of twins caused him and his wife to settle in Lamplough. He didn’t move when the gold rush there ended.

For Australian family history I believe it is essential for the researcher to purchase  certificates for all members of the family being researched, particularly if the family moved around. With each certificate you learn something new and for many people these are the only records we have of their lives.

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