Thank you.I've discovered more about those contracts via Tasmanian records, but it still leaves a mystery...
I've copied the contracts but they are still too large to post here. If anyone would like to see, they are free to access on thelist.tas.gov.au using the reference numbers on that schedule. The first contract refers to the transfer of a total of 200 acres (in three parcels of 100 acres and two of 50 each) to John and Christiana Vernon in 1909, various instructions about paying off an existing mortgage and the cost (which, after tortuous calculations between some figures in shillings and others in pounds) show they paid £315. The second entry on that schedule seems to be a typo as the other two documents just mention a piece of the original land, total size 50 acres. This was transferred for a nominal 5 shillings to each of them (and noting that by now John Vernon is "overseas"). No mention is made of the remaining 150 acres and I can see nothing to tell me what happened to it later.
I can find nothing to suggest people named John and Christina Vernon actually existed. I've also done a timeline merging what I know Isiaiah and Christiana did with the dates of these land purchases. They fit beautifully which is another pointer to what probably happened.
So now (this seems to be the never ending story...)
1. If there really were people named John and Christina Vernon, where did they come from and what happened to them? They are supposedly married but there is no evidence of this anywhere on
Ancestry.com or FamilySearch
2. What happened to the other 150 acres? Checking laws at that time it seems John Vernon could have sold the 150 acres without input from Christina as it was almost certainly his own money that bought it. So I'm wondering if this was just left to revert to the Crown?
3. This may answer why Christiana's daughter adopted the name Vernon when she ran away to Melbourne in 1913 before ultimately committed suicide
4. Is this the site of the mysterious fire alluded to in the piece written by Helen Maydwell, rather than the New Norfolk fire she mentioned (I can't find evidence of that anywhere). Something obviously chased them out of Tasmania but at the moment I can only imagine it was their own relationship breakdown. Certainly they left Tasmania separately and Isaiah was "overseas" (ie I know Isaiah was in Melbourne by then) before Christiana left.
5. Should there be some sort of records relating to their stay in Forcett - Local taxes paid etc?
6. This couple seemed to be able to wander around changing their surname at will, things were so different at the beginning of the 20th century... I know Christiana started life as Whitfield, was then I'Anson through marriage, reverted to Whitfield for her passage to NZ, then used Isaiah's surname of Oldbury, seemingly used North for a short period in Tasmania and then seems to have become Christina Vernon and finally becoming Christiana Maydwell. Isaiah stuck with Oldbury for quite a while but once the decree absolute was issued awarding William I'Anson £1500 he seems to have followed Christiana's path. Obviously he didn't take on the Maydell name as they had parted ways by then. He did finally return to the UK as John Wilson and was so successful at hiding away that his death certificate was issued in that name, his real identity only coming out when his will was discovered in his real name.
