Esther CREIGHTON of Coonamble-criminal in 1880's & then what?

[Kylie B]

Hi Judith
Thanks so much for that.

1885 would possibly have mentions of Esther and George's illicit activities that appear to have had them in police custody quite frequently as the last date I have is in 26th May 1888- Charles Richard Creighton (child) was before the Coonamble bench for wandering the streets and his report states his father is currently away working and his mother is currently serving a 2 month sentence for larceny. His brother George Hector Creighton was also in gaol on this date according to his report. Is this possible for someone to check??

I have previously been in touch with the Family history group who cannot find mention of Esther and George in their records.

I have contacted the museum and they do not hold any records this early.

I wonder if Narrabri would be worth considering- according to her children's birth registrations, Esther was born in Mille near Narrabri....if she was from Narrabri, could the wedding have possibly been reported there?? Can anyone check this please?

Kylie

[judb]

Kylie - I'll have a look next time I'm at NLA but probably not till next week now.

The difficulty with the newspapers is that they are photographed in date order which means trawling through them all.  However, having the date of Charles being up before the magistrate is helpful.  Most country papers do have Court Reports although sometimes not every appearance is noted.  Nowadays, of course, information about children in Court is not published at all.

As for weddings it is usually those of high-ish social standing whose weddings are reported - I have seen some which even include the gifts given.  Would be awful if you'd only given a rubbish gift and it was noted in the local paper for all to see.    Some country papers have a lot of local social 'doings' and some have none.  Hopefully we might be lucky!

Judith

[Kylie B]

Thank you SO much Judith!
I have everything crossed we will be lucky this time- so many dead ends with poor Esther and her family.

Kylie
PS Yes it would be awful if you got horrid gifts and your big day was captured for posterity and for generations they knew what you got as gifts!! Then again, I guess the gifts are a good idea of what the gift-givers thought of you?!?!

[DaveKe]

I may have missed it,  but none of the posts on this thread seem to have considered exactly where or what "Mille" is.

Mille Creek is a short creek and associated valley,  which flows into the upper Manilla River right at the town of Barraba.   It isn't really all those close to Narrabri,  and rather inaccessible from there because of the mountains in the way,  the natural line of communication is south to Tamworth and North to Bingara.

One of the first selectors in Barraba was Edward Taylor,  and the location of his selection is in the North Barraba lands parish close to Mille Creek.  Between the creek and the asbestos mine.

This article on Trove might potentially be of interest

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/128588622

The other tern left unstoned in this thread,  is the identity of the marriage witnesses Andrew Cochrane and Peter Dodd.  Often they are just cronies of the clergyman,  but also often,  they are brother-in-laws or other relatives.

Andrew T Cochrane is an interesting one,  as he appears to have had a child with one woman at Coonabarabran in 1879 and a child with a different woman at Coonamble in 1880,  and no marriage to be seen.   There's about five different spellings of Cochrane, mind you.

[Kylie B]

Hi Dave
This is fascinating info- thank you!!
I had looked for Mille on maps and asked at the family history society but no one seemed to know where it was.
Now we do!

And the original prospector was a Mr Edward Taylor- do you know anything more about him?? Could Esther have been his daughter I wonder- one of the 12 children mentioned in the newspaper article???

IF the property was quite isolated, perhaps Esthers birth was never registered....
I will now try to do some more investigating with the location of Barraba instead and see if I have any more success.
Thank you so much again- Oh and I have tried looking into possible family connections with the marriage witnesses, but no luck as yet. So many spellings of Cochrane as you say though, has been hard to narrow down....

Kylie