RootsChat.Com

Purely considering those DNA results, may I suggest another possible explanation is that George Henry Field was not your mother-in-law's biological grandfather at all, and that a son of William Brown & Deborah Riley was (for example, through an NPE involving your mother-in-law's grandmother).

This sort of thing was incredibly common ... I've come across it quite a bit in my tree. It would perhaps make more sense than an adoption in the circumstances you describe.

Did William Brown & Deborah Riley have any sons together? Have you traced those sons' lives - where they were living around the time your mother-in-law's parent was born?

This could of course be way off the mark, and apologies if you've already discounted it, but just wanted to offer another explanation for these results.

Quote from: Aguella on Saturday 26 July 25 03:38 BST (UK)

She was born in 1890 in Brighton, VIC (daughter of George Catanach and Maria Sydenham), 

 

This reply offers no help in your quest.....but

George William Catanach was the founder of a very successful business in fine jewellery which survives to this day in High Street Armadale after being passed through many generations of Catanach’s

My engagement ring was bought there (not one of the big ones ) because my father insisted that we go to Bill Catanach ( William Alan, the grandson of your George William)  because Dad had been with him in New Guinea during the war in  for a time. They used to have a beer after the war at the local Club.

Sue

Hi Sue, it may not find me Nellie's death but it definitely adds some character and colour which is always the best part of family history in my opinion! Thank you for sharing - I really appreciate it. 

The Catanachs have a brilliant history section on their website documenting the 6 generations of ownership from George to the present day. I've been meaning to get in touch!

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/102185412?searchTerm=%22Nellie%20Irwin%22
There's a Mrs Nellie Irwin in a nursing home in the ACT in this article. Age is about right.

https://services.accesscanberra.act.gov.au/s/public-registers/generic-register?registerid=historic-death-index
A Nellie Irwin died in 1977 in the ACT. Unfortunately not enough info on the index to determine if this is your Nellie.

Thank you Jorose, that is extremely interesting. Nellie only hand a handful of nephews & nieces, and one of those, Sir Alan Cooley, lived in Canberra. Seems quite possible that after being widowed she didn't have any family in Sydney, so may have sought to move closer to relatives. Definitely worth investigating this further - thank you for a great lead!!

Hi

My grandfather's second cousin, Nellie Catanach, is the closest relative who I simply cannot "kill off" and I'd love to rectify this.

She was born in 1890 in Brighton, VIC (daughter of George Catanach and Maria Sydenham), and married Major Alan Cavendish Irwin in 1920. I don't believe they had any children. They moved to Double Bay, NSW in the late 1920s.

Alan died on 2 July 1970 and his death notice appeared in the SMH on 4 July. It confirms he was of 95 Wentworth Road, Vaucluse, and implies he was survived by Nellie (she is not listed as "deceased", whilst his brother is).

I cannot find a death in NSW or VIC BDM registers, and nothing appears on the Ryerson Index. Alan appears on Find a Grave, buried at Rookwood but no mention of Nellie.

I'm starting to wonder whether, despite being 80 when widowed, Nellie may have remarried and therefore her death appears under a different name.

The last definite trace of Nellie was in the 1963 electoral roll, at the Vaucluse address, together with Alan. I cannot find either of them in any subsequent electoral rolls.

I have nothing to indicate that Nellie was ever known by any other name. NSW death index goes up to 1995, so this seems an odd one to me!

Any assistance gratefully received.

Hi

I'm having an issue viewing newspapers on FindMyPast. I've tried different browsers, restarting etc. These are the error messages I get:

via Chrome:
SyntaxError: Unexpected token '<', "<!DOCTYPE "... is not valid JSON

via Safari:
SyntaxError: The string did not match the expected pattern.

Is anyone else experiencing this? Does anyone have any suggestions?