Bottrell deaths in New South Wales

[Aussie1947]

Free BDM

Joseph BOTHRELL and Eliza Selina Lambert.

Jan-Mar 1890, Swansea, 11a, 883

Gerry

[wivenhoe]

IGI birth  Joseph Richard BOTTRALL  1863 Redruth Cornwall

[Jamjar]

On the 1891 census they are Bottrall. 

J.

Added: June quarter 1872 - Eliza Selina Lambert REDRUTH 5c 258

[Jamjar]

Could this be a son for them out of wedlock, or a son of Joseph to someone else? :

March quarter 1888

Joseph Richard Bottrell PENZANCE 5C 279

Dec Quarter 1863

Joseph Richard Bottrall REDRUTH 5c 277

[lemming23]

This is all so helpful! And thank you for your generosity in giving this mystery your time!

I will try to answer some of your queries:

Firstly – yes – there are multiple spellings for Bottrell, my favourite being “Bothball” but “Bakaret” and even “Retallack” are possibilities! One of my great aunt has one certificate using “Bottrall” and another with “Bottrell” and then of course there’s “Bottrill” and “Boterel”.  Surprisingly, a more unusual name can make things more difficult not less!
Joseph Bottrell (b 1863 Redruth) was my great uncle and I’m collaborating with my Australian cousin to try to understand the story. We do think it likely that Doreen was adopted but she very probably didn’t know that she was adopted and so her marriage certificate might well reflect her mother’s name as she knew it, ie Eliza Selina (known as Selina). I don’t believe my cousin has Selina’s death certificate but it might well mirror Joseph’s death certificate and report all 3 children as theirs, adopted or not, which takes me to the excellent point that maybe Joseph had been married before. However, I can find no earlier marriage for him either in Cornwall nor in Wales. (The rest of his siblings moved from Cornwall to S.Wales between 1888-1891 so I’m thinking that Cornwall is far more likely for an earlier marriage.) I investigated the possibility of Joseph R b1888 Penzance being a son but it appears from his will in 1949 that he was the son of Charles Thomas Bottrell (a different family).

I also looked again at other Welsh possibilities. Selina returned on a visit in Nov 1900 and was still in Wales in 1901 in time for the census, living with Joseph’s father and daughter, but there aren’t any births/deaths of infants recorded at this time in the Swansea/Neath area.
 I don’t think that any other of Joseph’s immediate family emigrated to Australia, although his mother was a Mutton and she had relatives who went to the Bathurst area, and Selina had a nephew, William Philp, and an aunt Mary Ann Seymour, who had emigrated prior to her own emigration.

So – we don’t seem to be able to find the boys in New South Wales! There should be records of births surely as well as deaths, even if they were still-born? So I’m now thinking that either they were also adopted or they were born in S. Australia (the family were ticketed for Adelaide and Selina departed from Adelaide when she made her return visit, so it’s possible the family started off there before moving to NSW.)  Or am I giving up on the NSW front too easily?

Do I need to start new threads to ask about how to find out about adoption in NSW early 20th century and to find out if anyone can help re the S. Australia possibility?

I’ll share your findings with my cousin and suggest that he asks for Doreen’s marriage certificate and also Selina’s death certificate. If we discover what happened, I will let you know.
Many thanks again,
Lemming

[wivenhoe]

NSM BDM marriage
10855 / 1936 BOTTRELL Doreen Josephine Lincoln   m.  O'NEILL John William    @ Waverley

The LINCOLN name might be worth following. Doreen's marriage certificate would give her birthplace, and witnesses names might be useful.

Death certificate for Selina would indicate if Doreen is accounted for at that time.

It is possible that Doreen knew she was not born to the BOTTRELLs and might have had an unrecorded, informal, attachment to them. They might have been the closest she had to a family, acknowledged that role in her life, and knew they were not her parents.

[majm]

I don't think you need to start new threads for look ups in Australia for this family, but you need to recognise that in Australia there's eight different jurisdictions.  So there's no central BDM registry.  On top of that, each of those jurisdictions has their own regulations that restrict public access to non historic registrations.

For example, in NSW, access to the online index for
births is restricted for the first 100 years,
deaths is restricted for the first 30 years,
marriages is restricted for the first 50 years.

Other states/territories have different 'years' for those restrictions.

Formal adoptions in NSW do not commence until 1920s, (December 1923) and many families raised "Foster" children.  In the pre WWI era, in NSW, sometimes the fostered children were family members, sometimes they were informal placements organised through Benevolent Societies, including Lodges. Sometimes children were 'boarded out' via formal placements arranged by government, sometimes children were lodged with individuals (so someone paid someone else to care for their child for short term and also for long term placements).

It is possible that the 1936 marriage registration will have clues to show what Doreen knew, or at least what Doreen was willing to share about her origins.   The official transcription will have all the same information as the real deal certificate.   It will be transcribed by well qualified, experienced people with quality knowledge about the NSW BDM administrative system from that era. 

JM

[cando]

Nothing for your couple in South Australia.  It is possible that as Joseph's occupation was smelter on the passenger list they first went to Kadina, Wallaroo, Moonta area of South Australia.  This area of copper mining attracted many Cornish miners and smelters to South Australia.  Around the turn of the century there was a migration of miners etc from that area of South Australia to the developing mines in Broken Hill.  There is quite a lot of history about these areas on the net. 

Cando

[joboy]

I did work alongside a fellow named Frank BOTTERILL during the 1950's in NSW.
Probably doesn't help much except the variant surname.
Joe