I have a number of elderly living relatives, some of whom have had significant admin careers in NSW government offices ... and in their retirement they have returned to rural and regional localities, near their rural farming siblings... so based of course in regional NSW, and at this current point in time, all are a tad worried about those affected by bushfires and ongoing drought issues As they are excellent at appreciating the inner workings of form filling and book-keeping and getting the info in the 'right' option box etc, online and offline ... well ... they are a tad busy as volunteers helping those 'obtuse' aspects of government forms.... but for refreshing their concentration efforts one or two are still following my RChat posts ... and making good use of their phone skills.
So I am just posting my thoughts now, for 'everyone' to read and follow up... as I have been prompted by one or two of those rellies who have read through some of those linked threads.
Someone was wondering if Letitia, Mary’s sister and witness at Mary’s 1867 NZ marriage was perhaps named Letitia after their mum?
There is a death registered on the NSW BDM index for 1859 for a 23 year old lass who died in Sydney, named as Letitia MURPHY. #1115/1859 If you are going to purchase that, don’t. Order an official transcription instead … cheaper, and already transcribed by excellent, experienced and dedicated transcribers. See RChat’s NSW Resources board for info.
Trove is an excellent online resource, particularly when you notice ‘age …. Years’ and ‘Died …..’ at the NSW BDM indexes in lieu of father and mother given names…. Tip = try Trove and look for Coroner Inquest. Why? Well the original indexers for NSW BDM were volunteers, early members of SAG and they made every effort to transcribe sufficient info onto their cards etc from the ‘mess’ of the record keeping officers at the NSW Reg Gen’s offices (BDM was part of the then Lands Titles Office, both were very poorly under funded from earliest times, and still are and Lands Titles have been sold off to private FOR PROFIT without due regard etc )
Trove sightings of interest from my armchair this morning:
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/13032406 SMH 29 Oct 1859 … Inquest on Letitia Murphy.
AND THEN
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/13032613 SMH 2 Nov 1859 … Coroner would have needed to reopen and hear that Letitia was 32, not 23, and that her right name was ….
So, I wonder if that 32 year old in 1859 was a mother, perhaps to two girls, and the girls were sent to NZ to live with relatives there?
Just speculations of course… but striving to find names of parents of people in NSW after convictism ceased in 1840 and prior to civil registration commencement in 1856 or who came steerage and not on immigration schemes and who likely came suffering gold fever, and likely helped the population grow several times faster than the 80 or so years of convictism…
I have a full agenda and may be a tad busy at real life matters during the rest of this week. I may not have opportunity to actually concentrate on helping further on this or other threads, but I will try.
JM
