Where was John Wilkey born?

My 3x great grandfather John Wilkey died in August 1877 in Bristol, Gloucestershire, England, aged 65. He was a tobacco pipe maker. He married Elizabeth Bath at St John the Baptist, Bedminster on 11 March 1833. 

My biggest question is where John was born. 

The 1841 Census has him living in Great George Street, Bristol, with his family and two other families, including his in-laws. It gives his age as 25, though the 1841 Census ages for adults are rounded to the nearest 5 or 10. It says he is from Out of County - therefore he was not born in Gloucestershire.

In 1851 the Census lists John and his family living at New Street, Bristol. His age is given as 38 and he was supposedly born in Bath, Somerset. The rest of his family are all listed as born in Bristol, Gloucestershire.

The 1861 Census has John, his wife Elizabeth, son John, and grandson James living in Prospect Place, Bristol. John is aged 48, and his birthplace is given as Bath, Somerset.

The 1871 Census has John and his wife Elizabeth living together, gives John's age as 58, and once again his birthplace is listed as Bath, Somerset.

One would think this is all pretty compelling evidence that John Wilkey was born in Bath, Somerset in about 1813. Unfortunately, I cannot find any record for a John Wilkey born around 1813 in Bath. 

Searching using FreeReg, I widened the search to the whole of Somerset, in 1813, which produced one record - a baptism for John Wilkey in 1813 in Taunton, Somerset, to Joseph and Susanna Wilkey. Widening the search further, for Somerset between 1810 to 1815 found three baptism records, John Wilkey (as above), William Wilkey, in 1811 in Wilton (part of Taunton), who was John's brother, and Mary Wilkey, in 1814, to William and Diana Wilkey, in Templecombe. The distance as the crow flies from Bath to Taunton is about 65km, and from Bath to Templecombe is about 40km - neither place being particularly close to Bath.

For good measure, I searched all counties in England on FreeReg between 1810 and 1815 for Wilkey baptisms. This produced eight records, from Devon, Somerset and Cornwall. The only John Wilkey was the one from Taunton, Somerset in 1813.

I changed the setting to names that might sound like John Wilkey and it produced the following:

Name	Baptism	Place
John WALLIS	20 Feb 1813	Frome
John WELCH	18 Apr 1813	Kilmington
John WELLS	12 Jun 1813	Shepton Mallet
John WILLS	27 Jun 1813	West Chinnock
John WILKEY	25 Dec 1813	Taunton

The fact that there is only one John Wilkey makes me choose him as the most likely option.

I realise that FreeReg doesn't have a comprehensive record of all parish record baptisms in England, so I searched FamilySearch for a John Wilkey baptised in 1813 in England. Once again, the only John Wilkey baptised in 1813 in the whole of England in their records was the one baptised in Taunton to Joseph and Susanna Wilkey.

So we could assume from all this that our John Wilkey was born in Taunton, baptised at Taunton St James on 25 December 1813, born to parents Joseph and Susanna Wilkey. However, there is still the chance that our John Wilkey's baptism hasn't yet been transcribed, or even that he was never baptised, hence no record of his baptism in Bath. I haven't found any evidence of a Wilkey family living in Bath at that time, but that doesn't mean there wasn't one.

For now, though I have decided to assume that our John Wilkey was born in Taunton to Joseph and Susanna Wilkey, and will continue to wonder whether it is actually correct or not. I guess the only way to definitely know might be through DNA, which so far, I haven't delved into.

And then, of course, we wonder what made John Wilkey move to Bristol and settle there...

Samuel Baumgarten’s parents

I have been struggling to learn more about Samuel Christian Friedrich Baumgarten’s parents for quite some time. 

My research suggested that his father was a Cantor in Usingen, and that his name was Johann Nicolaus Friedrich Baumgarten. I had no information at all on his mother - not even her name. I guessed that they were Lutherans rather than Catholics, based on their son Samuel getting married in a Church of England parish when he was in England. It’s not a foolproof assumption, but sometimes you just have to make a guess in order to move your research forward!

Having trawled Google Books (which is often more useful for historical records, turning up information that you won’t necessarily find in a normal Google search) for references to a Cantor called “Baumgarten” in Usingen, I had found a few, most of which I realised actually referred to Johann Nicolaus Friedrich’s son, Johann Friedrich, who was a cantor in Usingen after his father died. One potentially useful search result showed a book only available with snippet view, which referenced a Nicolaus Baumgarten, who apparently was the Cantor (and a stocking maker) in Usingen, was from Sachsen, and died in 1754, and his son Johann Nicolaus Friedrich Baumgarten (Bonnet, 1965). Being a snippet view, I was unable to see the actual section on the son, and I’ve not been able to track down a hardcopy of the book to read it. I assumed that Nicolaus Baumgarten was Samuel’s grandfather, and Johann Nicolaus Friedrich Baumgarten was his father. 

Snippet from “Die Lehrer des Kreises Usingen”

I hoped that if I managed to access the relevant parish records for Usingen I might be able locate Nicolaus Baumgarten’s death/burial record in 1754, and might be able to find out a little more information on him.

FamilySearch did not have any records that matched this particular event, so I searched in their catalogue to see if there were parish records available for Usingen for that time period. I had already accessed the church records for the period of Samuel’s baptism and many of his siblings, though it did mean reading through many many German language records, mostly in a different script to that which is used today. FamilySearch did have the records, but they weren’t available to access online. I sent a record query to them, and it came back with the answer that (for whatever reason) those records had restricted access. I booked an online consultation with a FamilySearch German family history expert to see what could be done about that. He gave me the bad news that my only options would be to either visit the FamilySearch headquarters in Salt Lake City (not a feasible option for me) or engage an expert there to do the research for me. He did also suggest I check out Archion, a paid online search engine for German church records. Being the sort of person who likes to do research, rather than employ someone to do it for me, I decided a month of access to Archion was the best option for me, once I had checked they actually did have the records for the Lutheran church in Usingen. 

I was extremely disappointed that there was no record of a death/burial for any Baumgartens in Usingen in 1754. I began to suspect that the information in Bonnet (1965) about the Baumgartens wasn’t completely accurate. Having bought a month’s worth of Access I decided I had nothing to lose searching through the Usingen church records for any reference to Baumgartens - it wasn’t a common name in the parish, seemingly only for Samuel Baumgarten’s relatives. 

In June 1758 I found a death record that named the parish cantor, Nicolaus Baumgarten, and also referred to “Ana Martha”. It took me quite some time to make sense of the script (it should have been law that all scribes must have possessed exceptionally neat handwriting) but eventually I managed to work out that it was the death/burial record for Nicolaus Baumgarten’s wife Ana Martha. It is possible that her maiden name was Schwein, though the word isn’t written very clearly. It was also recorded that she was from Kirchhain, Hesse-Cassel, and she was 67 years, 2 months and 8 days old when she died, on June 27th. This allowed me to work out her date of birth - 19 April 1691.

Further searching revealed another death/burial record referring to Johann Nicolaus Baumgarten, Cantor, in November 1758. Because, as cantor, he was a reasonably important person with the parish, there was quite a bit of information recorded about him, all written in the same slightly illegible handwriting as his wife’s record. Patient deciphering revealed that Samuel Baumgarten’s father was 74 years, 1 month and 6 days old when he died on 13 November 1758 (allowing me to work out his birthdate - 7 Oct 1684) and had been at Kirchhain, serving as conrector, before the growing family moved to Usingen. He was cantor for the Usingen parish for 35 years, until he died. Much of the rest I haven’t yet been able to decipher. 

So I now have much more info on Samuel Baumgarten’s parents, Johann Nicolaus Baumgarten and Ana Martha Schwein(?). Since I haven’t been able to read Bonnet (1965) I don’t know what his source material was for the information he published about the Baumgartens, but I do think it needs a few corrections. I also think it is possible that the Nicolaus Baumgarten referred to by Bonnet is actually Samuel’s father (based on the close-ish to accurate year of death), and the Johann Nicolaus Friedrich Baumgarten, son of Nicolaus, is actually Samuel’s brother Johann Friedrich - I’ve never seen any historical record with “Nicolaus” in his name though. As for Samuel’s father, I’ve not found any other reference to him being a stocking manufacturer, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t. 

And now I have to do some research in the parish records of Kirchhain!

References

Bonnet, R. (1965). Die Lehrer des Kreises Usingen. Germany: Degener.

2012 - The year in review

I had thought that this past year hadn't been quite as successful as the previous one based on exciting finds, but in reviewing all my work for this post, I'm not so sure that's correct. True, there haven't been as many well-known/famous people popping up in the family tree, but I've still found out huge amounts, but with a lot more hard slog.

I thought for my review of this past year's research I would focus on the most useful resources I've used. Not the ones that anyone can plug a search into and find info - like Ancestry or Findmypast, but the ones where it takes much more patience, but in the end can be so much more rewarding because you discover a titbit of information which no one else has known about perhaps since the time the relevant person and their close relatives died.

I love research and have no problem trawling for hours through parish records or newspaper articles to find useful information. Often it involves the use of Google Translator to translate things from French or German, but that's just more of the fun! So here are the most useful resources that I've used this year for finding obscure bits of family history information:

FamilySearch microfilms
I am enormously grateful to Pauleen Cass for putting me onto this wonderful resource. Although on FamilySearch you are able to search for records online, the Church of the Latter Day Saints has microfilmed thousands, possibly millions, of parish records from across the world, which you can borrow for a limited time for a small fee, and access through your local Family History Centre. You can find the records available for borrowing through their catalogue search. Through this service I have searched through many for baptism, marriage and burial records for lots of Beringers this year, as well as some of the Baumgartens in Germany. There is no way I could have accessed all of those as easily if I were trawling through the same records in the local archives in Germany. Here, I can take down the information, go home and translate it, and then go back for more when I know who else to look for. As well as the vital records I also checked out a merchant navy record for someone who turned out to not be a relative. Looking through parish records takes a lot of patience, especially when they are written in other languages, but you can find out so much that you just can't get anywhere else.

Gallica
Gallica is a search engine for French documents. Although you can choose to have the search page in English rather than French, the results are in whatever language the document was published in - most often French. From Gallica I have, over time, found an awful lot of information about the Weiss' and my research this year on William Baumgarten was definitely aided by Gallica. Usually when I use Gallica, I find any articles which appear to reference the person I am interested in (because I can't read French), then type the relevant paragraph(s) into Google Translator to work out if they actually are about the person I am researching. It's a slow painstaking process, but can be quite rewarding.

British Newspapers 1600-1900 (Gale)
These British newspapers are what I return to time and again when I am researching my English and Scottish relatives. As a resident of NSW I am eligible to be a member of the State Library of NSW, and in their e-resources I have access to this database (through a password), from the comfort of my own home. If your relative won any "biggest turnip" competitions at the local fair, got in trouble with the law, had possessions stolen, played in the local cricket team, advertised their business, etc, there's a chance they got their name in the paper. Once again it is a slow painstaking process checking through sometimes hundreds of articles to see if any of them actually refer to your own relative, but you can find some gems. I have found lots of references to my musical relatives importing instruments, advertising music lessons, their latest published music, or write ups of concerts they were in. If the felt they were important enough (or rather had the money to pay for it) they might also have placed birth, death or marriage notices. However I also have many other relatives who seemed to keep their heads down, out of mischief and never rated a mention. It can be a real mixed bag.

UK National Archives Documents Online
The UK National Archives can be a goldmine of information - well what would you expect?! Through their catalogue you can search all collections or just online collections. With the online collections, for a small fee you can download the document straight away. It is very useful for wills and military records. The family line that I myself have traced back the furthest - the Peisleys in the 1600s (through the Weiss', Baumgartens and Joynes) - it was mainly because of information in wills that led me back so far, as the parish records that far back don't contain much useful family history information. Be prepared to decipher difficult handwriting.

So there's my top options for finding obscure information about your ancestors. Happy 2013!

The Baumgartens from somewhere in Germany

Quite some time ago I found out the names of the siblings of my 5x great grandfather the bassoonist Samuel Christian Frederic Baumgarten, according to the will of their brother John Henry Baumgarten. Although both Samuel and John lived and died in England, it has long been believed that Samuel was of German birth (according to musical history sources), but no one knew exactly where he was from. Once I knew names of Samuel and John's brothers and sisters I hoped that information might help me narrow down where the Baumgartens came from. The names were Leopold Baumgarten, Frederick Baumgarten, Gertrud Schwein, Magdalen Schmied, Julia Haberkorn, and Frances Baumgarten.

My best hope was FamilySearch, so I plugged all the names into FamilySearch, focusing particularly on the married sisters - this was because I had an extra name to work with - not just the maiden name but also the married name. I possibly found something with Julia Haberkorn - a marriage record for a Juliana Ernestina Baumgarter to a Johann Friedrich Haberkor in a protestant church in Lahr, Offenburg, Baden, Germany on 17 February 1757. Despite the slightly different spellings I thought it was enough to order the microfilm of the parish records for Lahr in to my local LDS Family History Centre.

The microfilm arrived this week and I was able to make the time to have a look. I found February 1757 and looked for the names Baumgarten and Haberkorn. I was confused to find an entry for Christian Leopold Baumgarten rather than Juliana Ernestina Baumgarter/n. But she was there as well, only her brother Christian Leopold was married ten days before her.

Going back to Juliana though - in the parish records her surname was actually Baumgarten, not Baumgarter, and Haberkor was actually Haberkorn - they have evidently been transcribed incorrectly by the FamilySearch transcription volunteers. Although I haven't quite worked out exactly what the entry says (it's written in German language in the German Kurrent script), it does tell me that Juliana's father's name was Nicolaus Baumgarten, and seems to suggest that both he and the groom - who was a widower - were possibly secondary teachers (Praeceptoris secundari)?

The entry for Christian Leopold Baumgarten's marriage to Maria Salome Dieterlin on 7 February 1757 shows that his father was Joh. Nicolaus Baumgarten, with the same occupation as Juliana's father. I'm pretty sure that means they were one and the same father. Interestingly, if I'm translating it correctly, it suggests that the father Johann(es?) Nicolaus Baumgarten was from Usingen (...Joh. Nicolaus Baumgarten Cantoris und Praeceptoris zu Usingen...).

So the question is: are Juliana Ernestina Baumgarten and Christian Leopold Baumgarten siblings of Samuel and John Baumgarten?

• Names: Julia could well be a diminutive form of Juliana, and with the baptisms of his children Christian Leopold was sometimes named as Leopold Christian.
• Church: that they were married in a Protestant church rather than a Catholic church fits well with the fact that Samuel Baumgarten's children were baptised in a parish of the Church of England.
• Usingen: if Johann(es) Nicholas Baumgarten was from Usingen that gives me a link to Samuel Baumgarten's daughter Marie, who was, according to the Burgerbuch of the city of Mulhouse, from Nassau-Usingen. As far as I know, none of Samuel Baumgarten's other children were born there, so what were they doing there if they weren't visiting family? It is possible he could have been on a music tour, but there is little evidence that he did anything like that - apparently only being well known as a musician in England. And would you take your apparently heavily pregnant wife with you on a music tour anyway?

So if these are Julia Haberkorn and Leopold Baumgarten, sister and brother of Samuel and John Baumgarten, where are the rest of the siblings? I haven't seen the baptism and burial records for Lahr to see if the Baumgarten siblings were born/baptised in Lahr, or if their father/parents was/were buried there. That may be my next step. And I also need to investigate the Usingen link and see where that takes me. So the circumstantial evidence points to them possibly being the siblings of Samuel and John, but there is nothing at this stage that indisputably links them. More work needed!

Adelaide Weiss/White/Sheldon

I've been researching Charles and Benigna Weiss' son Egmont and decided to plug "Weiss" into the India Births/Baptisms, Marriages, Deaths/Burials collections of FamilySearch. I was surprised to find a record for Adelaide Martha Weiss, aged 17, daughter of Charles Nicholas Weiss, marrying Patrick White, aged 32, son of Patrick White, in Bombay on 12 Oct 1846.

Huh? Adelaide Weiss, firstborn child of Charles Nicholas and Benigna Catherine Weiss, was married to James Sheldon, a Church Missionary Society missionary, and they had at least five children together. And so she was, and so they did, but in fact she was married to Patrick White first.

And that explains why I have never been able to find a marriage record for Adelaide and James - because Adelaide's surname was not Weiss but White when she married him.

The family story goes that the family was in India and when the children of Charles and Benigna Weiss were orphaned, after their parents died in quick succession in 1845, the boys stayed in India and went to military school, and the girls returned home to England. That their firstborn daughter Adelaide married Patrick White in India, only a year after the death of her remaining parent, her mother, suggests that Adelaide may not have returned to England, but in fact stayed in India.

Adelaide married at 17 to a man almost twice her age. Although this was probably more common then than it is today it is tempting to wonder if it was a marriage of convenience, in order to provide her siblings with some stability and security in India. I have not found any evidence of children being produced by the marriage. When Patrick died on 26 April 1853 (information from FIBIS and the Glasgow Herald of 20 May 1853) at age 39 Adelaide was only 23. Adelaide's sister Caroline was definitely in India during this time - she married Henry Richard Hughes in Bombay in 1851. Her brother Frederick was definitely in India from 1850 until September 1853 when he returned to England - I have copies of some of his own notes which state this.

Perhaps after her husband Patrick died Adelaide did go back to England for a time, but she turned up again in Bombay, India, on 9 July 1861, marrying her second husband James Sheldon, who was a CMS missionary in Karachi. James and Adelaide were the same age, and I find it easier to imagine that they married for love rather than convenience.

William Baumgarten

Samuel Baumgarten (born c1729, died 1798), bassoonist, and his wife Mary (born and died ?) had at least 11 children. I previously have mentioned the three daughters, Marie, Charlotte and Lucinda, whom I have been able to trace further than their baptisms here. Marie was my great great great great grandmother, married to Gaspard Weiss. Although they married in England, Marie and Gaspard moved to Mulhouse, France in about 1783. Marie died in Mulhouse 16 April 1798.

I was looking at Lucinda again yesterday, as the marriage record of her daughter is available to view on FamilySearch. Lucinda Worrall Baumgarten, like her sister Marie, moved to Mulhouse. She married Paul Blech in Mulhouse on 12 November 1787. They had at least three children, one of whom was Lucinde. Lucinde Blech married Auguste Debaute on 9 April 1831 in an unknown French protestant church. I took some time to study the names signed under the marriage record entry, presumably the happy couple, the minister and some witnesses. The names included: Auguste Debaute (the groom), Lucinde Blech (the bride), H Glück, Z? Engel, Laure Glück, Marie Heilmann, Le Lieutenant Gen.al B? ??? (can't read it all, but very intriguing!), [squiggle] Baumgarten, ? Debautes, S. Baumgarten Dollfus, Julie Roederer, ? Roederer, David Roederer, J. Kohler and P. Heilmann.

It was the Baumgarten surnames that caught my eye. Although the mother of the bride's surname was Baumgarten (Lucinda) and also her aunt's (Marie), I didn't expect to see any Baumgartens there, unless a male member of the Baumgarten family had come across from England too.

Googling "Baumgarten" and "Mulhouse" revealed a number of Mulhouse-related genealogy websites, mostly the same ones that come up when searching for "Weiss" and "Mulhouse". And I found a William Baumgarten who married an Anne Catherine Schlumberger, but the most telling point was that William Baumgarten was "l'époux est originaire de Londres (Grande-Bretagne)" - he was originally from London, Great Britain, and was also born in approximately 1762. Marie, Lucinda and Charlotte Baumgarten had a brother William who was born around 1764 (at least, that's when he was baptised).

A search on Gallica revealed a couple of references to a William Baumgarten of London in a cartulary for the Schlumberger family, including one which noted that he had a personal fortune of 36000 livres (a lot of money). So where did his fortune come from? I have found no references to him back in England. Was it an inheritance, from his father? Could his father, a professional bassoonist and bassoon teacher have possibly earned enough to leave an inheritance like that to one of his children?

Looking for other Baumgartens on FamilySearch in the same collection as the marriage record for Auguste Debaute and Lucinde Blech (France, Protestant Church Records, 1612-1906), I came across an entry which referred to a Baumgarten and a Schlumberger - "Guillaume Baumgarten" and "Catherine Schlumberger." Guillaume is the French version of William, plus its definitely possible that an Anne Catherine might go by her second name... Looking at the actual record (a marriage record for Guillaume and Catherine's son Médard) it recorded the place of birth of Médard as Mulhouse. Bingo! So I think we can assume that William/Guillaume Baumgarten moved to Mulhouse from London, and was most likely the brother of Mulhouse residents Marie Weiss née Baumgarten and Lucinda Blech née Baumgarten.

The final two things I was curious about were (a) which of the Baumgarten siblings arrived in Mulhouse first, and (b) considering we don't know where Samuel Baumgarten was born, was it likely that they were returning to their father's birthplace?

Gaspard Weiss returned to Mulhouse with his wife Marie and their children in 1783. Both Lucinda and William were married in Mulhouse, France in 1787 - Lucinda on 12 Nov 1787, and William on 9 May 1787. It suggests to me that Marie arrived in Mulhouse first, William and Lucinda followed at some stage, met people, fell in love, married and stayed. As for whether Samuel Baumgarten originally came from Mulhouse, I can't find any records of Baumgartens in Mulhouse going back as far as his reputed dated of birth, so it's unlikely.

Thomas Wickham, butcher of Margate, Kent

I was contacted by a descendant of Thomas and Rachel Wickham yesterday, seeking more information about the family, which got me searching a little further. It goes to show, send me an email and I might do some research you are interested in!

I have previously written about Thomas Wickham (1811-1897), the patriarch of the Australian branch of my Wickham family here and here. I was searching for information on him or his children on FamilySearch today and discovered three entries for the birth of his firstborn son Thomas (1836-1911). One entry, under "England, Births and Christenings, 1538-1975" just gives his date of birth, the other two are from the "England and Wales, Non-Conformist Record Indexes (RG4-8)", one of which gives his birthplace as No 7 Market St, Margate, Kent, the other gives it as Cripplegate, London. I think the reason for the discrepancy here is because Cripplegate is where Dr William's Library is, which is where the records for some of the non-conformist churches (Baptist, Congregational and Presbyterian) were held (they are now held by the UK National Archives).

This is interesting on two points. The first is that the Wickhams clearly attended a non-conformist church, though of which variety I have no idea. Unfortunately I have not been able to find definite birth records for any of Thomas and Rachel's other children, which may or may not have helped me to narrow it down. I do know, however, that Thomas and Rachel's son Robert Wickham was married to Annie Jane Smith by the minister of the Waterloo Congregational Church (Sydney). So perhaps the Wickhams were Congregationalists.

The second reason why this is interesting is because it names the actual place Thomas Wickham jnr. was born (in 1836) - 7 Market St Margate. Google Street View shows that the building currently at that location houses a Chinese restaurant! A search of historical directories shows Thomas Wickham, butcher, at 6 Market St, Margate in the Pigots Directory of 1840. I have found no other references to the Wickham's place of work or residence in Margate anywhere else. I don't know if 6 and 7 Margate St were beside each other or roughly opposite, but looking at the buildings in the street now, it is my guess that the Wickhams lived in the same building as the butcher shop. Perhaps Thomas jnr was born in a neighbour's house (someone who could help first-time-mother Rachel through the labour?) or perhaps they moved within the same street. I think the former option is more likely.

Who was the Rev James Dunlop married to?

I have been going through an old photo album of my great aunt's, scanning the photos, as well as trying to work out who they all are. Apart from having many many photos of my ancestors in the Paterson and Macindoe families, it has produced some puzzles for me to solve as well.

The latest puzzle I've been working on is "Rev Dunlop" and his wife "Mrs Dunlop". According to the photos, the Rev Dunlop was married to one of my great great grandfather Thomas Macindoe's sisters. As far as I know Thomas had four sisters: Mary McIndoe (it seems that Thomas used the "Macindoe" spelling of his surname, but the rest of his family generally used "McIndoe"), born 7 April 1826, Margaret McIndoe, born about 1838, Jane McIndoe, born about 1840, and Jeanie McIndoe, born about 1843.

Of these four sisters I know that the youngest sister Jeanie McIndoe married Thomas Weir, from a marriage notice in the Glasgow Herald:

"At Albion Cottage, Helensburgh, on the 12th inst., by the Rev. James Dunlop, Motherwell, assisted by the Rev. John Lindsay, Helensburgh, Mr THOMAS WEIR, writer, Glasgow, to JEANIE, youngest daughter of the late WALTER MACINDOE, Esq., of Ashfield." Glasgow Herald, 13 August 1875.

I don't think it is too presumptuous to assume that the Rev James Dunlop who married Thomas Weir to Jeanie McIndoe was the Rev Dunlop who was married to Jeanie's sister, especially considering he was "imported" in from a different parish to celebrate the marriage. So, clearly, his first name was James.

Searching historical newspapers, I hoped to find a marriage notice for Rev James Dunlop. No such luck. However, I did find his death notice:

"MOTHERWELL. - DEATH of a U.P. MINISTER. - Yesterday morning the Rev. James Dunlop, U.P. minister at Motherwell, died in the 60th year of his age and the 36th of his ministry. Mr Dunlop, through failing health, found it necessary lately to resign his charge. He was born in Irvine in 1823, and was educated at Glasgow University, where he took the degreee of M.A. He laboured at Biggar for nineteen years prior to being called to Motherwell." Glasgow Herald, 26 January 1883. [U.P. stands for United Presbyterian.]

Googling him, I found out he had two ordained brothers, the Rev Hugh Dunlop and the Rev William Dunlop, and he himself was ordained on 14 April 1847, and he accepted a call to the Motherwell parish in 1866. Still no mention of a wife though.

I am guessing that the wife could be Mary McIndoe, mainly because she's the closest in age to James Dunlop. A search on FamilySearch revealed two options: two marriages between a James Dunlop and a Mary McIndoe - one a marriage in Biggar, Lanarkshire in July 1851, the other a marriage in Kilmaronock, Dunbartonshire on 4 July 1851. My hunch is that this is the same event, registered in two places, probably each person's home parish. I could check on Scotlands People, but I would have to pay then, and I prefer to do my genealogical research for free if possible. It must be my Scottish heritage!

Further searching on FamilySearch revealed children of the marriage, the first being named Walter Macindoe Dunlop. I think that clinches it - the first son named after Mary's father. Finally, I've worked out that the Rev James Dunlop was married to Mary McIndoe!

John Merrick

When I first started researching the Merricks, I tried to find out information on them from Ireland. Perhaps I was comparing it to the ease of access to records that we have here in NSW but I really didn't get very far. I knew that James Merrick was from Sligo, but I didn't have a certain birth date, and really didn't know where to search. I had a bit of a go at RootsIreland, but that was pretty expensive and pretty hit-and-miss as well. In the end I gave up.

Recently though, a relative of my husband's did some excellent research on the Irish branch of their family so I picked her brain to find out the secret of her success. She had access to another subscription database (origins.net) and found a number of references to Merricks in Sligo. She passed them on to me, so I made up a spreadsheet of all my Merrick references to see what I could make of them. I also used information from the new FamilySearch website, which is SO much better than the old one (which I found next to useless).

I still had the problem of knowing that there were two sets of James and Samuel Merricks in Australia, both from Sligo, so I focused on the brother of my James and Samuel - John, my great great great uncle. I didn't even know if he had emigrated to Australia, but I had found references to at least one other child born to a William and Jane Merrick in Sligo at about the right time - Mary Ellen. If she hadn't emigrated, but the three brothers James, Samuel and John had, then that could be why only the three brothers were listed in the death notice of Samuel.

These were the pieces of information I had on a John Merrick:

• John Thomas Merrick, born 3 Sept 1864, Sligo. Father: William, mother: Jane. From FamilySearch.
• John Merrick, carpenter in John St, Sligo, 1894. From Slaters Directory, 1894.
• John Thomas Merrick, died in Parkes (country NSW), but lived in Penshurst (Sydney, NSW). Was a builder. Was married to Margaret. Father: William, mother: Susan Jane. Children: William, Mary, John. From Trove (Sydney Morning Herald death notice), NSW BDM, Sands Directories of NSW.

So were these all the same people? My great aunt didn't remember any uncles called John, but I spoke to my great uncle. He remembered an Uncle Jack (✓ - "Jack" often equals "John"), who worked on the Sobraon as a tutor, teaching carpentry skills (✓). Uncle Jack was married to Margaret (✓), had three kids (✓), one called Mary (✓) who worked for the Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney, and another was a chemist (✓ - this was the son John). My great uncle also told me a lovely story about Uncle Jack's apple: Uncle Jack went to Tasmania and got an apple which was so big it was shared between six people. After that, within the family, if anything was big it was compared to Uncle Jack's Apple. He also, incidentally, remembered one of James' daughters going back to Ireland to visit an aunt - perhaps Mary Ellen.

So, with my great uncle's help I concluded that the pieces of information I had were all for my great great great uncle, John Merrick. The different mother's name - Susan Jane - is probably because it was "remembered" by grandchildren who had never met her, and therefore may have been hazy on her name - close enough though! I came to the conclusion that John had married and had at least one child before he and the family emigrated to Australia. This was confirmed when I accidentally happened across the military service record listing for John's son William in the National Archives of Australia - it listed his birth date and his birthplace - 1895 and Sligo, Ireland.

So there we are - chipping away a little bit more of the Merrick brick wall.