Please help? RANSOM Thomas 1820: MCNALLY Catharine; AMOS T: STIEGLITZ

[majm]

  Catharine is fixed at 1789/1790 birth years though.

Wiggy, Are you basing this on her age as noted on her death cert?  If so, I think that is suspect. 
I think Robyn's Devonshire Records offices are worth following up.  Plymouth was a major seaport with vessels sailing from there to PJ and VDL.  Two children are mentioned with Catherine MacKnally in 1818 at Plymouth.
Do you have marriage and death cert's for Ann Ransom?  What details are on either or both? I find that death certificates are only as reliable as the informant's own knowledge which after all was given at a time of grieving.  One of my forebears death certificate lists as the mother, the woman who raised her, but NOT the name of the birth mother who died ten weeks after giving birth to her.  The age at death was "out" some ten years, but the name of the informant (a son) and his siblings, and her two marriages and the address all confirm that the cert refers to my forebear.  There's NO requirement to produce proof of the details the informant gave. 
In 1980's NSW I was informant to a death cert.  I was not required to produce any evidence,  I signed that I gave the information truthfully and to the best of my knowledge.  
JM   

[davclem]

JM,
Anne Ransom married Francis Stieglitz at Avoca 1840 aged 22 ie born circa 1818. Thomas Ransom born Novemeber 1820 at Hobart. Certainly my read on all this is that Catherine was not a long term resident of Hobart, and that 1818-1819-1820 is the key period. A Catherine Mcnally in Plymouth with 2 children in 1818 is a nice find by Robyn - so she leaves Plymouth without husband,on a voyage( find)  directly to Hobart,(Why?) with one of the children, Anne, arrives in time for the October 1819 Muster to meet Thomas and  be included as his wife , and bears young Thomas  a year later to Thomas aged c 75. She can't marry Thomas because she is still married to McNally back in Plymouth, or did he come as well and ditch her? Do we discount Leo's post that Ann was the daughter of a liason with the blow through solicitor Amos in Jan-April 1819, or do we say that she came without children or husband (why?) and yes Ann was the result of such a liason, because Catherine was alone and vulnerable in a penal colony at the end of the planet.
Nice, neat, simple, over to Robyn    David

[majm]

Hobart Town Gazette and Van Diemen’s Land Advertiser  page 3, of Friday 3 June 1825

http://newspapers.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/search?   (the article has NOT been text corrected, I will leave that to Wiggy)

SHE was not married to Thomas, but she WAS a married woman, and thus his licence to operate Joiners Arms was withdrawn!

Mr, Ransom, a truly respectable inhabitant of this town, 35 years resident in these Colonies, 18 years Principal Superintendent of Works, ....... at an advanced period of life, nearly seventy years of age, has been deprived of his license, to his most serious loss and injury, because it was discovered that the faithful and valuable female, who had for years borne his name, and conducted herself in all the various relations of humble life, with credit to herself and injury to no one, was unhappily unable to enter into the legal estate of matrimony, in consequences of circumstances of long previous existence not within her own control, which she could neither alter nor recur to; and which, until the prying eye of some persecuting hypocrite, ferretted out, were before generally unknown .........
 
I have just read  Thomas Ransom's bio at that was mentioned by Robyn very early in this thread.  Noticed the references include newspaper cutting that I realise is available online.  I used keyword search "prying eye" and restricted date to 3 June 1825

http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A020316b.htm

 JM

[majm]

In 1825 Several people in VDL knew her, and knew that Thomas and Catharine were NOT married to each other. (the prying eyes, and the letter writer, and Thomas, and of course Catharine) . Thomas died early 1829, and they had never married each other, BUT she was his principal beneficiary, so the impediment to their marriage was something HE understood and did not offend him, and the impediment still existed when he was dying. 
Hence, I suggest that Catharine learned of the death of her first husband (not necessarily with surname McNally or variations), shortly after Thomas died (Jan 1829) and before Frederick Von S arrived in VDL (Aug 1829) otherwise she would not have been free to be courted by him, and afterall by 1829 EVERYONE in VDL would have learned of her lack of marriage to Thomas, and prying eyes issues would have arisen again, to cause the 1830 marriage to be challenged. 
ANY SUGGESTIONS to follow up, as I have Not got any clues as to how to find the death of that earlier husband. 
JM

[regross]

JM I agree ages are very flexable and more often wrong than right, usually women make themselves younger, men older and when they get to real old age ages tend to get older again (easy to say you are 95 and only 85)

I also agree, "Prying Eyes" would have been everpresent and if this is so then they too would have known that the impediment(1st hubby) was dead when she remarried. That begs the question How did they know? His death must have been made known in some way ergo there must be record c1828-1830 of which we are in our ignorance blissfully unaware of its importance.

Anyone know how to search deaths by DATE alone??

took some time but I found this in the IGI:
 DANIEL MACNELLEYand Catharine Inglis  Marriage:  18 JUN 1804      Dunbar, East Lothian, Scotland.  (no deaths though)

(There are 5000 McNallyand variations in here and this was the only marriage of a McNally to a female Catharine of any spelling.)

Robyn

[majm]

Good find Robyn
  no idea about finding death for her first huband, but it has to be before Jan 1830 when she married again.   Presume her first husband may have had rellies/friends in VDL who had those prying eyes ! That IGI marriage in 1804 seems possible.  JM

[majm]

I don't think this would be Catharine's first husband, but just in case
NSW death  V18291468 13/1829  MC CANAN  DENNIS  AGE 48 

I did spot an IGI extracted birth for a Catharine Inglis, (there's lots of possibles) 15 Dec 1781 born, 23 Dec 1781 Christening, at Crail, Fife, Scotland, father was William INGLIS, Mother was Elizabeth CAMPBELL.

JM

[majm]

On NSW Col Sec online index :There's a record for a Daniel McKenna (a Constable) travelling from VDL to PJ to give witness at a trial of a Doctor Morgan (ex navy Surgeon who had mental illness in 1819). 

On VDL index Daniel McKenna a Ticket of Leave to travel to PJ, - indicating a convict record perhaps?  Was he connected to Catharine McNally - possibly, but not sure how to follow that up. 

This next question may be way off track, but are we sure that the "Winifred McNally" or the "Bridget McNally", both who arrived VDL August 1817 per "Elizabeth Henrietta" at Hobart, but was transported to PJ per "Canada" 1817 were NOT Catharine McNally? 

EDIT TO ADD -  Perhaps Bridget or Winifred knew the "prying eyes" dobber 
JM

[davclem]

Bridge and  Win have ben forensically investigated- they're cool, not in the loop, been flicked
David