Thursday 25 October 2018

Granny was a perjurer

It may seem an odd admission for a family historian to make, but I was about ten years old before I recognised that most other kids had more grandparents than I did. It was not just that we did not see my father's parents, it was as though they had never existed. Naturally, as an inquisitive child, I set out to find why and quickly learned that this was another of those "things we don't talk about".

Advance half a century and I was able to show that my paternal grandparents married in Belfast in 1923 and separated approximately three years later. He migrated to north america: she brought their two sons to Queensland. Around the time of her divorce and remarriage in 1938, something happened between mother and son that meant that Dad never spoke a word to her again. Indeed, he tried to not acknowledge her as his next of kin1 when enlisting in 1941.

Those were the bare facts in the documentary records but (as is often the case) a newspaper can provide the context, the background and the colour that is absent from the official certificates. In my case, it was the report of the divorce proceedings in The Truth2 that revealed so much more. Readers familiar with the reputation of that paper may wonder at my apparent faith in its reporting, but as you will see it was most informative.

Christina (my grandmother) presented the facts of her case to show that after a few short years of marriage her husband had migrated to Australia and later sent the passage money for his family to join him. Joyously reunited in August 1928, they lived at Sandgate apparently in domestic bliss until November 1928 when he mysteriously vanished without a trace. From that day hence, she had neither seen nor heard from him.

His Honour was clearly concerned by some minor details, such as the plaintiff's inability to recall where her husband had worked in Sandgate.

 "It is a most extraordinary story you are telling me" [Mr Justice Henchmann] remarked to which Mrs McAllister replied "Well it is true".

It is the case that (as in all extravagant fantasy) there are grains or perhaps wisps of truth woven into the tale, but there are even more elements that are demonstrably false.

My grandfather had left Belfast on 13 November 1926 aboard the S S Regina bound not for Brisbane, Australia but for Montreal, Canada3. That this person was the correct Robert Joseph McAllister is shown by the notation on the ship's manifest4 that he intended to be joined (eventually) in his new home by "Mrs C McAllister (wife 24 years) Robt J 2¾ Andrew B 1½".

The cost of the voyage to Brisbane by Christina, Robert, and Andrew aboard the Demosthenes was met not by Mrs McAllister from funds remitted by her husband but by the Queensland Government5 (and the Salvation Army). In correspondence on her migration file, Christine acknowledged that as a deserted (sic) wife unable to locate her husband in Canada, she needed financial assistance to join her sisters (who had made the journey to Brisbane earlier).

Upon arrival in Queensland, Christina lived not in Sandgate but at Stones Corner6 - a short walk from her address at the time of the divorce. And she remained in that general locale for the rest of her life.

In short, neither party had ever lived in Sandgate and the "missing" husband had never set foot in the country. But Mrs McAllister wanted her freedom.

There were other extravagant claims in Christina's evidence (possibly incorporated to add artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative) that seem so absurd as not to warrant investigation. In total, the obvious inconsistencies apparently disturbed the presiding judge who made one last attempt to understand the situation

... and yet he left you and his children. Was he fond of them?" "He did not take much notice of them" Mrs McAllister answered.

The decree nisi was granted along with an order for the custody of the two boys. In December 1937, Christina remarried and my father (aged 13¾ years) left home.

While it is undeniable that much of the evidence given in the case was false and its reporting sensationalised, that newspaper report answered a very important question for me.

The worst offence that I could commit in the eyes of my father was not to admit to a misdeed. I must always be truthful and "own up" to what I had done. And never, ever try to shift the blame for my actions onto another person.

My father would not want me to associate with any person to whom the terrible label LIAR could be attached. She Such a person could cause untold hurt to others and should be shunned.

Sources
  1. RANR Record of Mobilised Service NAA: A6770, MCALLISTER R J
  2. DISAPPEARED AT HIS SECOND ATTEMPT Truth 31 May 1936: p 12
  3. Outgoing Passengers UK BT27/1110/4 Regina
  4. Immigration Records (1925-1935), Canada Robert J McAllister 1926 vol 24 p 116
  5. Queensland State Archives Item ID1120524, Files - immigrant McAllister, Christina
  6. Queensland, Australia, Electoral Rolls 1934 Christina McAllister Griffith, Buranda

Sunday 5 August 2018

Genetic Genealogy is different

It has been more than a year since I received notification of the results of my Autosomal-DNA (Family Finder) test. In all that time, I have not really engaged with the data it provides. I have carried out all the mechanical tasks - provided lists of family surnames and places, downloaded the raw data file, created a direct line GEDCOM, and uploaded all these to the appropriate comparison sites.

But I have never really set out to find what I can learn from this rich new source. At first, there were other pressing tasks that needed to be cleared away before I could devote the time that this new area of investigation demands. Then more and more activities were assigned a higher priority than a study of my DNA. All the while, the number of suggestions for further investigation grew and grew. Finally, I have had to admit that I have been avoiding the task. What was it that I was hiding from?

I am sure that I not concerned by what I might find; the block is far more deep-seated than that. When I investigate a branch of my family, I am seeking great, great ... grandparents but this new tool offers me nothing but cousins. Instead of ancestors, it presents me with potential research collaborators. When the bulk of my research involves people who are (let's be blunt) dead and unthreatening, the promise (or threat) of genetic genealogy is lots of contacts who are very much alive and may want to "share" or even "catch up".

I have failed to find a school report that explicitly stated "Robert does not play well with others" but it would have been a fair description of my loner behaviour. Traditional genealogy provides a perfect match for my character flaws.

When an acquaintance asks mockingly "Are you one of those people still at your desk as late evening turns to early morning with no company other than your database, piles of old paper and half a mug of cold coffee?", I can only emulate Agent 86 in my response.

I understand that family research can be enriched by selective collaboration. I am happy to help others with their work. I enjoy giving assistance and believe that I am quite good at it. But there is a world of difference between offering advice to others and having them "help me".

The mathematics is inexorable. My 2xgreat grandfather will have (at least) several hundred descendants and some dozens of them are probably investigating details of his life. But in a document-based world, they are each working in their own bubbles making egregious errors or astonishing breakthroughs that have no impact on my work. I am free to retain complete control over what I do and what I uncover (or not). Like a toddler placing pudgy hands over his eyes, I could declare "You cannot see me."

But genetic genealogy changes all that. I have invited the people that I have been ignoring into my inbox. The game has changed and I need to find ways to deal with that. I must make time to really look into all those possible connections. Soon.

What if there is another bossy, opinionated control-freak out there with fixed ideas on how we should research our family tree? Do you think that sort of thing could be driven by factors inherited from a shared ancestor?

Monday 16 July 2018

The Lost (fictional) Ancestor

Family history researchers spend a lot of time reading. Original records, collections of transcriptions, and indexes all clamour for our attention; or even space on our desks. Can we really find room for fictional genealogy? (Not public Ancestry trees, but tales about researching.)

Yet, there is a burgeoning sub-genre of popular fiction that has been dubbed genealogical mysteries. I thought that the collection on the Goodreads shelf was comprehensive until I came across the enormous list maintained by Jule Cahill Tarr at Julie's Genealogy & History Hub.

Clearly, there was a huge market for these books but I had never been enthused. A few years ago, I dipped into works featuring Jefferson Tayte and Nick Herald without any great passion. When a colleague commented on how much she enjoyed such works, I wondered whether it was the basic proposition or the US background that I had found unappealing. Which is how I came to encounter Morton Farrier.

Nathan Dylan Goodwin describes how he "... came up with the idea of a genealogist who has to solve a crime in the past, using genealogical research methodology, but who ironically knows little about his own past" in his (very) occasional blog The Forensic Genealogist. Since Morton lives in Rye on the Sussex coast, his (predominantly) UK-based research experience might strike that chord his american counterparts had missed.

I selected The Lost Ancestor (the second of a series of (currently) seven titles) which opened with Morton being engaged to locate a "missing" grand-aunt for a rich client with a terminal illness (thereby ensuring that cost was no object for the investigation but time was definitely constrained). But this was not a conventional brick wall despite the apparently prosaic nature of the brief. Of course, Morton is blissfully unaware of the threat he was to face; but if the case were straight-forward, why was the subtitle of the book A Genealogical Crime Mystery?

The structure of the narrative is split between events from 1911 to 1925 interspersed with descriptions of the research task in the present. Which is the source of some unease for me. The (historical) mystery or thriller elements are clearly designed to lead me to leap to conclusions about whodunit that will then be shown to be completely unjustified in the following modern-day segment. But the researcher would never have drawn that incorrect inference (not only because of his professional caution, but) because the eavesdropper lurking behind a door left slightly ajar would have left no documentary record and so is utterly irrelevant (and invisible) to the research process.

There is another element essential to the formula of this genre. The target ancestor was not simply "lost" and there is a living person prepared to go to any lengths to ensure that her true fate is never revealed. This allows Morton to employ some modern gumshoe techniques (spiced with just a little family history expertise) to save himself from a similar fate. This is not a complication that most of us need ever consider in developing a research plan. Although I am not sure how I would react if, while I was desperately seeking the identity of a mystery hitman stalking me, my associate reported: "I've spent the rest of the time digging around the Findmypast website, but nothing so far".

Despite these quibbles, I enjoyed the book enough to finish it in four days. I cannot claim that it ever took me away from real work (on actual family histories) but I was happy to forego my daily (mental-agility) routine of Crosswords and Sudoku for the period.

It is certainly not great literature but there is something appealing about the familiar ordinariness of his securing a locker at the archives, searching the catalogue and requesting a bundle of papers. (Although no staff member of any archive that I frequent would ever be as uncooperative as the dreadful Deidre from "The Keep"!) Do I have sufficient empathy with Morton Farrier to delve into more of the series? Well, I am ambivalent about his next cold case but now that he has learned that Aunt Margaret was actually his birth mother, we need to find his father. Don't we?

Monday 2 July 2018

If the name fits

There are many different ways in which our given names are decided. Some prospective parents spend months poring over books and magazine articles devoted to anthroponomy. Others wait for inspiration to strike after the birth: "As soon as I held her for the first time, I just knew she was a Marie".

The decision-making method of most interest to family historians is the practice of following a traditional naming pattern: "This is my fourth son, so he is named for my eldest brother". If you are researching a family who adopt this method and an expected name is "missing" from your search results, then you have a good idea of whom you are looking for.

The best known of these patterns are found in thousands of families within a particular culture now spread across the globe. Sometimes you may detect a pattern with limited applicability that proves equally useful in guiding your research.

Arthur Chandler, gamekeeper of Beckenham in Kent, and his wife Jane Taylor had a large family (at least by modern standards). Some online trees listed as many as 12 children for the couple. I was able to account for five of them in the civil registrations of birth and they were confirmed by the details of the 1851 Census. Pre-1837 baptismal records added four more documented children.


As I contemplated the list of known children and those yet to be found, a pattern in the names suddenly became glaringly apparent. Arthur and Jane had named their children Arthur, Asenath, Alfred, Andrew, Amelia, Antoinette, Amy, Angelina and Alice.

Might this explain my inability to find evidence for their purported siblings Joseph, Caroline and Bob?


It was a straight-forward task to establish that the births supposed to have occurred in 1851 (Caroline) and 1853 (Bob) did not involve Jane Chandler (or take place anywhere in England, for that matter). Perhaps these were added to the family by international "cuckoo" researchers dropping their ancestor into the nest of any UK family of the same name to establish their immigrant origins - a type of retrospective informal adoption?

The status of Joseph is more challenging. In the 1841 Census he is listed after Arthur and Janet with the surname "do", but without any indication of a family relationship (a feature not introduced until 1851). His stated age (15) would mean that he was born some years before the marriage of his putative "parents". Might he be an ex-nuptial child of Jane or a pre-nuptial child of the couple who was named by Jane's parents (and so missed receiving an A-name from Arthur)? On the other hand, Joseph might be a nephew or cousin of Arthur residing with them at the time of the census. I said that a naming pattern could guide your research not find all the answers!

In case you are wondering how the children felt about their names; Arthur junior had thirteen children (born in Surrey and then in New South Wales) and he named them Arthur, Amos, Alma, Andrew, Abraham ... you see the pattern. Young Alice (who came to Queensland) was a rebel with a not a single A-name among her five children despite (or perhaps, because of) the fact that their French father Gustave Collin also had the names Antoine and Alexandre.

Saturday 23 June 2018

The only constant is change

I am trying to love the new Family History Research Service launched by the Queensland Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages on June 6. After all, I don't want to be labelled a grumpy old man who wants everything to stay just the way it "always" has been. So I am trying, but gee they make it difficult.

Let's begin by acknowledging that the new search facility has brought some wonderful new features. How could anyone complain about immediate access to the full date of an event without the need for fiddly split-half search techniques? And we all appreciate the opportunity to purchase images of the original source documents as an alternative to the register entry (for the same price) with the possible bonus of additional correspondence at no extra charge.

And how about the new global search facility? Well, let's examine that for a moment. I often use our 2xgreat grandfather Thomas Henry Suddaby as a test subject. His name is rare enough that it almost always produces a manageable set of results. Now when I used the "old" search engine, I was limited to a single given name but a search for the birth Suddaby, Thomas produced two records (that for my target and one for his son with similar but not identical given names). Similarly, I located two death records (father and son) and two marriages (one for the target and the other for his daughter marrying a man with the same given name as her father).

With the new improved tool, a simultaneous search across all three datasets for Thomas Suddaby returned 221907 hits. Editing the search term to Thomas Henry Suddaby (additional given names are an added feature of the new service) increased the number to 405391. Does anyone remember when we were advised to "widen your search by entering fewer fields, and less exact information"? Now it seems that the opposite is true.

Fortunately for those appalled by those numbers, in the last few days an enhancement has been made offering the option to "Show only exact matches on names". When that was applied to my search the number of hits dropped to a mere 404932.

Perhaps, the simultaneous search is an unfair comparison. When I limit the new search to one event type at a time (as in the "old" system), it returns 127803 births, 90504 marriages and 186625 deaths. At least, it is consistent.

Of course, the quantity of hits is not the only (or even the most important) criterion of a search procedure. How relevant are the results returned? In each case, at least the first dozen results for each event referred to known members of the family of T H Suddaby and that was true of 58% of the first 50 entries in the aggregated search. But 47 of them were not the records I was searching for!

The new service has achieved this (admittedly impressive) feat of identifying records with an incidental relationship to the actual search being conducted by the introduction of "fuzzy" search algorithms. If I were a novice researcher making my first search with a single isolated name, I might be very excited to be presented with details of more than 20 other related people spread across three generations. As a grizzled veteran looking for a specific piece of information, my response is frustration rather than joy.

Perhaps when I find the switch to turn off, or even to moderate, the "fuzziness" of the search then I will come to love the new service. Grumpy old men will have the tool with which we they are familiar and the beginners will have immediate access to a flood of names and dates to maintain their burgeoning interest.

The page called Searching our historical records—hints and tips will surely explain how to regain some sensible measure of control over the process. Sadly, it does not. On the other hand, it does offer fascinating insights into the use of wildcards and sorting your results. Which is rather depressing because these were important features of the old system that have been disabled (lost|stolen|destroyed depending upon your current level of frustration). Never mind, in a short time, the help page will be cripplededited to correspond to the limitations of the search tool. Then a whole generation of genealogists will grow up not knowing what a price has been paid for the "improvements" we now enjoy.

But I really do not want to be seen as the old codger who pines for "the good old days". A positive response to my predicament would be to see how much of the functionality of the old site I can reconstruct in other tools. Clearly the first step is to copy the results returned from the web page into a spreadsheet for local manipulation.

Did I happen to mention that the format in which results are displayed has also been enhanced within the new service? That old-fashioned tabular presentation has been jettisoned in favour of something that scales nicely on small screen devices. Of course, making the list nice to read on a phone does mean the items cannot be pasted easily into a spreadsheet ...

I am trying to love the new Family History Research Service. I am, really. I don't want to be a whinger. But gee they make it difficult.

Tuesday 5 June 2018

Who can I believe?

Thomas Bryce, the son of David Bryce Esq, was at his father's home in Glasgow on Sunday 7 April 1861 (census night)1. And he was definitely in Brisbane, Queensland on Tuesday 18 September 18662 (the day of his wedding with Janet Menzies). The timing and method by which he was transported between these two points in space-time are less clear.

There is no entry in the QSA Immigration Indices that might plausibly describe his journey. That is not really surprising because the period 1860-67 is almost certainly the one with the least complete coverage of immigration records.

The report of Thomas's death in The Brisbane Courier of 8 January 19123 is quite definite concerning his entry into Queensland. "He started his career as an accountant in his native city, but left there in 1862 in the ship Golden City, and came to Queensland in search of health." Murphy's Law would have predicted as much because the Golden City is fabled among researchers for its association with missing records. (Can't find your ancestor's arrival in the 1860s, put down "via the Golden City".)

Fortunately, although not recorded at QSA, the 1862-63 voyage of the Golden City was the subject of one of the series of booklets They Came Direct compiled by Eileen Johnson4. But that transcription contains no reference to Thomas Bryce, 20-year-old accountant from Glasgow. On the other hand, there is an entry for a 20-year-old Scottish labourer who apparently joined the vessel at Queenstown (the port in Cork, Ireland) named Thomas Boyce. The full transcription of the passenger list also includes a Mrs Boyce and two (unnamed) infant children travelling in the cabin.

Could there be a family connection between these passengers that has nothing to do with "my" Thomas? Or having encountered the name Boyce at the top of the list, were the transcribers predisposed to interpret a later, similar but indistinct name as being the same? If the male passenger was actually Thomas Bryce, why would an accountant travel to Ireland (rather than London) to join the ship and then list his occupation as "labourer".

The Queensland Family History Society has recently completed an extensive project to transcribe passenger lists held by the National Archives for which there is no corresponding Queensland State Archives record. They are published on CD as the Queensland Customs House Shipping lists. And the arrival of the Golden City is included in the volume covering 1852-18855.

That (independent) QFHS transcription includes an entry for Thomas Bryce 20-year-old Scottish labourer who boarded the vessel in London. Clearly, this reading is closer to what I was expecting but the discrepancy concerning his occupation remains. I really have no basis to decide that one or the other is correct, particularly given the conflict over where he boarded the ship.

The original paper record that underpins both transcriptions was held in the Brisbane collection of the National Archives of Australia and formed part of the set of early shipping records in delicate condition transferred to microfilm for ease of public access. But the passage of time saw that base film stock subject to "vinegary decay" and this required a further transfer of the information to a stable format. Roll 1 of Series J715 is now an enormous file of 1327 digital "frames" that can be viewed online6. There is no index but the images are arranged approximately in date order of departure from the UK.

The voyage of the Golden City (departing London on 3 December 1862 and then Queenstown on 13 December 1862, arriving in Moreton Bay 5 March 1863) is recorded in frames 314 to 328. On frame 318, can be seen a passenger name B?yce that has apparently been over-written at some point. I cannot determine if a letter "o" has been replaced with an "r" or vice versa. I cannot even definitively rule out some other combinations.

If a reader was expecting "Boyce", she would find it. On the other hand, someone expecting the name "Bryce" would certainly recognise that. This clearly is the entry of interest.

Upon a wider examination, it is plain that Thomas's occupation was not actually recorded as "labourer". A ditto mark was placed against his name, apparently referencing the last full word recorded above, which was "labourer". However, it is possible that when more than dozen young single men boarded in quick succession and the first few were labourers, the shipping clerk recorded them all as the same. It is not necessarily true that Thomas claimed to be a labourer, he may have simply failed to correct an error (if he was aware of it).

Which leaves the question of where he boarded the vessel. The people around Thomas in the list are all of Irish nationality but their names are on the document created in London on 3 December. Those people who did board in Queenstown (a week later) were recorded on a separate paper form with a different heading and distinct signature block.

The claim that Boyce/Bryce boarded in Ireland apparently arises from a marginal notation (Queenstown) added in another hand beside the the names of the group of Irish nationals (and Thomas). Perhaps a later user of the list assumed that the original was incorrect and that the Irishmen "must" have been listed on the wrong page. However, the statistical summary made on the last page at the time the list was created shows that there were a small number of Irish citizens boarded at the first port (London) before the much larger group a week later.

So when it comes to deciding how Thomas Bryce travelled to Queensland, who can I believe. My conclusion is that the reporter for the Courier got it absolutely right (which is not a claim that I would make lightly today). He got his information from the best available source and there is nothing in the (extant copies of the) original documents to contradict what he was told.

Transcription is not a straight-forward task. Every line interpreted involves dozens of decisions based not only on the marks on the paper but also the context in which they were originally made and then read. I can take issue with the interpretations made in the case of one man about whom I had additional information not available to the previous transcribers. There were hundreds of other passengers on that voyage for whom I have no basis to disagree with the published transcript. The overall value of the transcriptions should not be questioned.

Respect the work of transcribers but trust the evidence of your own eyes informed by all the background you have on the individual you are researching. Ask yourself, not only is that reading possible but also is it plausible given everything else I know about the person concerned.

References

  1. 1861 Census of Scotland, Glasgow, enumeration district (ED) 52, page 28, Thomas Bryce; digital images, Scotlands People.
  2. "Family Notices" The Brisbane Courier 20 September 1866: 4. {http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article1274492}
  3. "PERSONAL." The Brisbane Courier 8 January 1912: 9. {http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article19724675}
  4. Johnson, Eileen Golden City", 1863: Immigration vessels to Queensland Self published 2003 ISBN 1 875790 63 2
  5. QFHS Queensland Customs House Shipping 1852-1885: Passengers and Crew Published 2014 ISBN 978-1-921171-32-1
  6. Ships passengers lists - Brisbane - inwards - 4 August 1852 to 13 December 1870 NAA: J715, ROLL 1 Item barcode 32722213

Saturday 26 May 2018

Baa baa

The UK tabloid press gave lots of coverage to the behaviour of some of the more "interesting" in-laws acquired by a certain retired army officer through his recent marriage. That reflects the fascination for all of us in discovering the outrageous, the slightly scandalous or even the downright despicable actions of the black sheep romping in the far-flung family pastures.

Yet if that black sheep is one of "ours", the excitement of exploring the dim recesses of the documents is tempered by the ever-present worry "Who must I be careful not to tell?". No-one wants to spend an entire family reunion being berated for besmirching the family honour with the revelations, or concocting vile lies, or (possibly) both. Which is why helping someone else to explore their family history offers such wonderful opportunities for the guilty pleasure of "just being open and honest".

We may well think it about a member our own family, but would we ever say aloud:

  • Oh, you assumed when I said his parents were married, that I meant to each other.
  • For that year where you cannot find a Census Record, have you looked into prisons?
  • Well, one cause of long-delayed demobilisation was treatment for a serious STD.
  • No, "had in his possession" does not always mean "was the owner of".
  • With so many marriages for one man, you may need to consider the possibility that some were simultaneous.
  • Perhaps all these "transcriptions errors" concerning the same person suggest that she was not always truthful when dealing with authority figures.

At the same time, we must be scrupulously honest in researching and recording the transgressions of our own ancestors. For there will come a day when you gather your children around you for the bitter-sweet revelation, "In your family, there are an adulterer, an unmarried mother, a deserter, a thief and a lunatic; but ... there all on your mother's side!"


Disclaimer: The precise attribution of characteristics to my wife's ancestors in the above post may have been slightly exaggerated for dramatic effect.

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