RootsChat.Com
Research in Other Countries => Australia => Topic started by: bramcor on Friday 30 October 15 08:47 GMT (UK)
-
I've been searching for info about my great-grandfather William Watson prior to his second marriage for some time now & still struggling. He married my great-grandmother Margaret Daley in 1863, West Maitland, NSW, & was described as a widower & a sawyer, aged 39. An annotation on the birth certificates of his first 2 children suggests he married a Susan Price in March 1851, in the CofE, possibly in Launceston.
Recently I bought a death certificate of a Susannah Watson who died in West Maitland in Aug 1862. The informant is her husband, William Watson, sawyer, & he indicates they married in the CofE, Launceston, when she was 27 (she is 41 at death so the marriage date would appear to be c 1848. She apparently spent about 13 years in Van Dieman's land & 3 years in NSW. It seems likely that this is the same William Watson who married my g-grandmother the next year. He gives Susannah's parents as James & Mary Leader, & says she was born in Birkenhead, Cheshire.
I wonder if anyone can help me locate the marriage of William & Susan in Tasmania? The only likely one I've found is with a Susannah Wells in the Fingal district in Nov 1853 (not all that far from Launceston, it seems), but I cannot see a connection between Wells & Leader (or Price). Susannah Wells was a convict, apparently from Wedgebury, England (haven't located that place).
Could there be another marriage record that I just haven't found? I sometimes feel if I could just solve this first marriage issue, I might finally be able to break through the brick wall that has been holding me back for years. Thanks for any help you can give.
-
sorry, I'm wondering if I've posted this in the wrong place. My request isn't completed at all - it's just begun. Would Admin be able to move it to the right place, please?
-
Hi bramcor,
Just click on 'report to moderator' at the bottom right of your post.
An annotation on the birth certificates of his first 2 children suggests he married a Susan Price in March 1851, in the CofE, possibly in Launceston.
Who are these two children?
Debra :)
-
Is this other forum post yours?
http://freesettler2.wikifoundry.com/page/Watson%2BDaley%2FDaly+family+from+1863
I presume that the births you referred to above are those to William and Margaret - I have never seen seen a reference to a previous marriage on a birth cert before, seems odd.
Who registered the births?
Is there any mention of children on Susannah's death cert?
Do you have original images or are the certificates typed transcriptions? If they are originals can you attach a snip of the sections from the births certs which note the marriage and the section of the death cert which names Susannah's parents?
Debra :)
-
Debra, his first two children were Alice & William Henry. Somewhere on Roots Chat, I once posted the snippet of the annotation about the first marriage from the birth certificates of the two children. I don't know how to find it on here or how to link it, & I can't remember when it was. I suspect the annotations are written by the same person but have wondered if the second time it was just copied since the date details are slightly different. Perhaps the person who added it couldn't read the first entry properly.
That annotation seemed to be saying the first wife was Susan Price & the place possibly said Launceston (that was the gist of my enquiry at the time - I hoped someone might be able to verify what it said). I found a marriage of a Susan Price (convict) in Tasmania but she didn't marry a William Watson.
-
Debra, the free settler post was mine. That may have been around the same time as I posted the snippets about the first marriage on Roots Chat.
The two children, Alice & William Henry, were the children of William & Margaret. William was the informant for both certificates.
Susannah's death certificate says there were no children of the marriage (the annotation on the children's certificates also said "no issue").
All the certificates are handwritten. I will set about making copies of the pages & post snippets of what you have suggested as soon as I can. Thanks for your reply. I really need help with this as I'm getting nowhere. I thought the death certificate might break my brick wall but it just seems to have added another brick.
-
The first attachment shows the annotations about William Watson's first marriage on the birth certificates of his first two children with his second wife. I posted this here some time back as I needed help to try to determine the writing, & it was generally agreed that he married Susan Price, probably in Launceston. The dates differ slightly so I wonder if the second one was just copied from the first, but with an error - or perhaps William, the informant, just forgot the exact date.
-
The second attachment includes snippets from the death certificate of Susannah Watson. I also included the bit that shows William, the informant, signed with his mark. This is the first indication I've had that he might not be able to read or write. His marriage certificate with Margaret Daley shows her signing with "her mark", but there is no such indication for him.
-
And finally I've included the registrar details from all 3 certificates (death of Susannah, births of Alice & William Henry) - although the signatures differ slightly, I believe they are all written by the same man, probably Daniel Carter.
-
Just as a matter of interest, after posting the bits from the certificates, I decided to see if there was any information about Daniel Carter, the possible name of the registrar. Trove had some newspaper articles about him, including an interesting one where he appeared as a witness when a woman was charged with providing misinformation for a death certificate, & another where a petition was raised to keep him in West Maitland when registrar duties were going to be transferred to East Maitland.
It doesn't help my search but it did give me a little insight to the times my great-grandfather lived in. I have often wondered how people back then registered life events, considering many would have lived far from towns & many would have been illiterate. I can certainly understand why some events may not have been officially recorded.
-
Just click on 'search' in the banner at the top of the page and you can search by username and the applicable surname or any other word.
Here are the previous posts:
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=408292.msg2759531#msg2759531
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=400730.msg2731618#msg2731618
William must have offered up that info when asked about his marriage and previous children, which would normally be an added bonus but I had a look through the Launceston Church of England register and nobody was married on that day. I am a bit suspicious of him remembering the exact date anyway ;D
The only reason that I can think of for the two different names is that her maiden name was LEADER and (first) married name PRICE, but then he could have been making it all up as well ;D
Debra :)
-
Debra, is that Launceston Church of England register available for viewing online? It's the sort of thing I'd be happy to trawl through to see if I could find anything on a William Watson/Susan marriage on any date at all. Are there registers available for viewing from other places near Launceston as well? I've seen the Tasmanian portal website (where I found a marriage between a William Watson & Susannah Wells - still seems a possibility, though I can't find any link between Wells, Price & Leader).
I have wondered about the reliability of William's info as there are several conflicting pieces across all certificates relevant to him & his family. But I've never doubted the marriage happened. I suppose the registrar would have known him as the man who'd registered his first wife's death, then got married the next year, then registered 2 births, as well as the first child's death, over the next couple of years, so he couldn't just pretend he was a bachelor.
At least it all seems to confirm that he spent some years in Tasmania before coming to NSW around 1860, & that could support his story of being a convict transported as a boy (haven't really proved that either since there are so many William Watsons & none have exactly matching info). Perhaps he was trying to cloud a convict background - or perhaps he just didn't remember details. Learning that he might have been illiterate also indicates that he wouldn't have been able to write details down - the registrar would have had to rely on the spoken word & things can be misheard.
I won't give up the search for him & his past, but I may take another break from him. In the meantime more records might be digitised & put online so they'll be waiting for me next time I delve into his mystery.
Thanks for your thoughts on his story. It helps to discuss him with someone else.
-
The 1851 month of March registers for St John's Launceston start here and you can move forward and back through the images using the image arrows at the top of the page:
http://www.rootschat.com/links/01gek/
The start page for searching images of all Tas registers:
http://www.rootschat.com/links/0yf9/
I recall seeing somewhere that you can also move from image to image on The Tas Archives website but I can't remember the instructions and can't seem to work out how to do it ::)
Debra :)
-
Recently I bought a death certificate of a Susannah Watson who died in West Maitland in Aug 1862. The informant is her husband, William Watson, sawyer, & he indicates they married in the CofE, Launceston, when she was 27 (she is 41 at death so the marriage date would appear to be c 1848. She apparently spent about 13 years in Van Dieman's land & 3 years in NSW. It seems likely that this is the same William Watson who married my g-grandmother the next year. He gives Susannah's parents as James & Mary Leader, & says she was born in Birkenhead, Cheshire.
The Susannah PRICE who arrived on the Tory in 1845 would have to be a suspect. She is recorded as a native of Liverpool (which is just across the Mersey from Birkenhead) on her conduct record and indent, but her native place on her description document is Birkenhead, Cheshire. They did start to write B... on the indent and crossed it out.
http://search.archives.tas.gov.au/ImageViewer/image_viewer.htm?CON41-1-6,174,127,F,60
http://search.archives.tas.gov.au/ImageViewer/image_viewer.htm?CON19-1-5,258,34,F,60
http://search.archives.tas.gov.au/ImageViewer/image_viewer.htm?CON15-1-3,360,172,F,60
Her age is in the ballpark for your William's Susannah, and she was a widow. Her husband has been dead for eight years, her brothers are Josh (could be Joseph or Joshua) and Thomas, sisters Ann, Sarah, Margaret, and Betsey. All living near her native place which could be either Liverpool or Birkenhead. She has been living with W(?) HOLDEN for four years. Her parents are likely dead at this stage as she has not named them.
So can we link her to the LEADER surname?
If this is your Susannah then it is likely that she didn't marry William WATSON as she was already married to Henry TINDALL. Looking at her conduct record, I would say the relationship with him might have ended in 1850 when she was assigned to her husband and sentenced to nine months hard labour in the Launceston Factory for representing herself to be free, running a disorderly house and having men in bed with her. TINDALL's name isn't mentioned after that.
Launceston Female Factory
http://www.femaleconvicts.org.au/index.php/convict-institutions/female-factories/launceston-ff
Ross Female Factory
http://www.femaleconvicts.org.au/index.php/convict-institutions/female-factories/ross-ff
She received her COF in 1854.
Debra :)
-
Debra, thank you very much. You've given me food for thought. I had looked at the material on Susannah Price, convict, but hadn't noticed the Birkenhead detail (probably because I'm struggling to follow many of the details on those convict records!).
I just couldn't work out how she'd marry William Watson when there was a record of her marrying Henry Tindall. Never really occurred to me to doubt Watson & Price had married, since he gave info for certificates in NSW, when I would imagine he really didn't need to disclose much of that information at all.
I spent much of yesterday trawling records for Leader/ledder, Price & Wells (the convict who did marry a William Watson) & came up with nothing to create a decent link. However, I did discover that Wedgebury, Susannah Wells' native place, is probably Wednesbury, Staffordshire, so that answered one question I hadn't been able to answer.
Not sure what you mean about the relationship with Henry Tindall probably ending around 1850 when she was "assigned to her husband". Was she assigned to Tindall?
Thanks for the explanation about NP meaning native place in regards to family members. I had no idea what that meant, & had thought it referred to Newgate Prison. Maybe with names of brothers & sisters I can find something on the 1841 census, even though their surnames will be different.
Got lots to check out now - just what I like. Thank you so much. Hope I am able to let you know soon whether I've come up with something, especially if there is anything that helps me work out whether William Watson was a convict, &, if so, which one he was (since no one on the Tasmanian records seems to fit very well with the info I have from certificates).
-
You might find this list of abbreviations helpful with reading the records:
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~austashs/convicts/conabbrev.html
The names (sometimes) in brackets after the date of each offence/event is usually the person they were assigned to. You will see June 11/50 (Tindell), then June 27/51 (Hogg), but the references of June 28/51 (Ross) and July 5/51 (Ross) refer to the Ross Female Factory, not a person.
Debra :)
-
Sorry, can't report that I've found any link between Leader/Ledder/Leather & Price, or even with Holden...but I didn't really expect anything when it seems highly likely that the participants in the situation (William Watson & Susannah Price) have not been entirely truthful with facts. Perhaps the conflicts of information are just poor memory but I'm definitely leaning to the idea that Susannah Price/Tindall is the woman I'm seeking & that she & William Watson never actually married at all.
I have considered many possibilities, some reasonable & some highly fanciful (could the marriage between William Watson & Susannah Wells be the right one, but they stole the Wells ID to hide the fact that Price was already married to Tindall??? That marriage was in Avoca & Susannah Price was in Avoca at one time. I know...highly fanciful & probably not likely. I guess they just ran off together.)
Lots of Leader/Ledder/Leather names in Cheshire & Lancashire but nothing that leaps out at me. Lots of W. Holden names as well in Lancashire...but was he a lover, employer, landlord? Just can't be sure about any of them. Haven't found any baptisms for Susannah/susan in Cheshire that seem to fit, nor for possible siblings (nor in Lancashire).
But I did come across a funny police report from the Cornwall Chronicle (Launceston) Wednesday 27 February 1850, p 132 (on Trove): a Susannah Tindall was charged with drunkenness - I think!! The language is very tongue in cheek/sarcastic; the police office reporter obviously enjoys a fine turn of phrase. He reports Susannah Tindall, "lately free" (one of her lies), "allowed herself to be fettered in the bonds of hymen". Is he referring to her marriage? Or is he saying in a roundabout way that she is a prostitute?
Looking into Susannah is interesting - but so far I'm no closer to discovering whether my William Watson was a convict or not. Never mind, at least I have some material to share with relatives.