Edward Alexander ALEX Rippingille abt 1855 • Brighton, Melbourne, Victoria

[maddys52]

Meant to add earlier, it seems clear from the timeline that Alexander RIPPINGILLE did not marry someone else before Alice was born.

1851 - marriage of Alexander RIPPINGILLE and Elizabeth BRYANT
1858 - birth of Alice Rose
1859 - death of Elizabeth RIPPINGILLE (nee BRYANT) "beloved wife of Alex Rippingille"

[Neale1961]

Yes, and I'll add that I wonder if Elizabeth died of some complication following on from child birth. She was reportedly ill for 8 months before her death; and Alice Rose was born abt 8 months before her death.
Anyway, the death certificate may clarify that.

[sparrett]

Yes, It would also show the informant on the birth of the child Alice Rose.

To register a birth (be the informant) at that time you did not have to be related to the child.
The child did not need to be present.
You could be a minor.

I do agree with Maddy that the maiden surname of the mother is a mistranscription of BRYANT.
The reason for the wrong   given name, Christiana, may be hinted at in the full certificate.

Sue

[elliot]

There is an Alex. RIPPINGILLE arrived July 1850 on the Francis Riley. A letter of thanks to the Captain and crew:
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/38450862

MADDY
Many thanks.  Once I had learnt how to navigate this very useful TROVE website, and found the RIPPINGILLE arrival listing on the ship FRANCIS RIDLEY.   Was this a common practice of the era, to publically thank the crew for a safe arrival?

[sparrett]

Edward Alexander [ALEX] Rippingille
Birth abt 1855 • Brighton, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Death 1911

Please can the birth be confirmed?
Some of the family returned to England and married my GF.
I have no idea about the death date accuracy!

I am struggling with this interesting RIPPINGILLE family as three generations appear to have identical names and possibly three marriages for one of them!

It is good that some aspects of your query have been answered.
Unfortunately unless you purchase original documents the rest will remain unclarified.

Ancestry hints and trees and errors won't help. Instead frequently compounding errors and obscuring facts

As mentioned, you need certificates of events if you seek accuracy.

If you need support in the purchase and downloading of images in Victoria, many here will assist.

What you might expect to see on a Victorian birth certificate
Name
Date
Place
Child present or not
By whom registered
Father's name
Father's occupation
Father's age
Father's birthplace
Mother's name
Maiden name
Mother's age
Mother's birthplace
Marriage date
Previous children


Sue

[Neale1961]

Ancestry hints and trees and errors won't help. Instead frequently compounding errors and obscuring facts

As mentioned, you need certificates of events if you seek accuracy.

Well said Sue.
There are about 40 public trees for Alice Rose Rippingille on Ancestry, and all have the wrong date of birth for her. Clearly no-one has even bothered to look at the most important primary source:- her birth certificate, which is so easily available online. In some instances, the copying of errors across trees, and the recording of careless and illogical mistakes, is quite outstanding. The trees with the most records and sources attached are the ones with the most problems. This interesting family seems relatively straight-forward to follow through the records, so one wonders why Rippingille descendants don’t seem to be interested in accuracy. 

[sparrett]

Yes, all true Neale.
Also it is astonishing to me that none of the many tree authors regarding Alice, have noticed that Brighton is not in Gippsland. as I mentioned.

And because of logical timeline, there could not have been an extra a wife for Alex, as Maddy has noted above.

In reply to your question elliot.
Was this a common practice of the era, to publically thank the crew for a safe arrival?

Yes, it was common in those times.  One's name was added to the thanking list upon request.  not compulsorily.
Sue

[maddys52]

Thanks Sue, yes it was quite common to see thank you letters like this. One of my ancestors was a ship's doctor in this era, and it is lovely to read the letters written to him. 

elliot - I'm not sure what process Ancestry uses in compiling their Australian Birth Index, but obviously an error has occurred in transcribing the Victorian Births Deaths and Marriages Index, which is itself merely a transcription. Whilst Ancestry may give useful hints, it is always best to look for the original documents. Here in Australia we are fortunate to have free access to the different States' indexes, though information available differs fro State to State. A useful guide to what can be found on certificates:
https://www.jaunay.com/bdm.html

[elliot]

SUE, MADDY and NEALE,
So many thanks for your care and understanding of some my stumbling efforts.  I hope that I have learnt a little over recent decades!  And please forgive my thoughtful ramble below.

As I recently spotted a person that I had never heard of, I resolved to rebuild all of my RIPPINGILLE family tree and with the the help of you good fellows at Rootschat, I have found that it is a far from a simple task and with a surprising number of bear-traps along the way.  It is soon apparent that it is impossible to just concentrate upon one person, without at the same time revisiting their context in the rest of the family! 
As we know to our expense, that family stories and myths are regularly found to contain much mis-information or even fibs that cover up some shame and that distort any attempts towards the realities and the inaccuracies of our family stories.
Perhaps, that even with our desire to record an intellectualy prove-able accuracy, it is the stories and the imaginations of the ancestors that remains even more fascinating.  His-tory is never just about a mathematical spreadsheet.

Other branches of my family are riddled with an arbitary name-changing on the part of the parents. Changes even on the short journey beween baptism and Civil Registration of their children.  This name changing tendency has infiltrated the self-concept of most members of the large sibling group, so that these variable versions of their self identity have been past down to several further generations along with further distortions and fantasy story-telling. 
Perhaps, my interest in family genealogy is driven by my futile attempts to resolve some of the contradictions found in my own existance.  Too many fluid identities and less able to maintain a single focus amonst so many interesting yet different versions.

And then after all our hard work, we die, leaving very little impact upon the universal attraction of myth and fantasy.  Such is the similar uphill task to support rationality and a scientific approach when story-telling remains a vivid part of our mental evolution!