Something fishy

Tonight I found myself reading about herring fishing in 1830s Scotland.

Herring fishing was the most economically important industry for the people of Latheron, Caithness, Scotland at that time. About a third of the parish population fished or working directly in support of herring fishing. There were the men who undertook the exhausting and dangerous work of catching the fish, and women who would then gut the fish and pack them in barrels of salt, the labourers, carriers and the coopers.

My Couper ancestors were coopers – presumably engaged in supplying the herring fishers with some of the 1000s of barrels they needed each season to pack the fish.

Deaths in my tree on Friday the 13th

When I realised the date, I thought I would see if Family Historian could produce a list of people who died on a Friday the 13th.

No problem! Family Historian allows you to filter on just the day (13th) and just the day of the week (Friday) without needing to do anything too complex. I quickly identified three people who died on a Friday 13th. Curiously, all three were from Scotland.

They were:

James Couper, the two year old son of William Couper and Anne McKenzie. He died of croup on Friday 13th March 1857 at Portmahomack, Ross, Scotland.

Elizabeth Sinclair died in Lybster, Latheron, Caithness, Scotland at age 93 on Friday 13 May 1864. I think she is my 5xgreat-grandmother, but I need to gather more evidence to be sure I have the right Elizabeth Sinclair.

Alexander Miller died a pauper at the age of 74 after six months suffering from chronic bronchitis on Friday 13th April 1877 at Bardfellister, Clyth, Latheron, Caithness, Scotland. He is my 4xgreat-grandfather.

If you are related to any of these people, please get in touch. I’d love to exchange information.

New treasure on Trove – Oakleigh Leader

This evening an item came up in my Google reader which made me exclaim a delighted “Oh!”.

One of the many great features of the Trove site is all the RSS feeds. As all of my immigrant ancestors settled in Victoria, I have signed up to the RSS feed for newly added titles from that State. It has been fantastic seeing more and more newspaper names relating to regional areas appearing.

This one in particular made me sit up and take notice because my COUPER branch had a long history in the Oakleigh area, being some of the earliest pioneers and also sitting on council. They also have the sad distinction of the known first burial in Oakleigh Cemetery – Christina Couper was buried there on 11 December 1860, aged just 7.

Naturally I jumped right in. A search on COUPER gave me 69 hits. Many of them were advertising for “Dr Couper-Johnson”, and not likely to be of interest to me. When I eliminated those I still had 22 results. Sadly, 21 of those results are still undergoing quality control so I can’t see them!

The one result I can see is notes from an Oakleigh Shire Council meeting, where my butcher ancestor’s request to renew his slaughtering licence was considered, but postponed. I will have to do a manual search for meeting notes for the next month to see what happened. I know that he continued as a butcher for many more years, so presumably he got the licence but there must have been a reason for consideration of the request to be postponed.

OAKLEIGH SHIRE COUNCIL. (1888, December 22). Oakleigh Leader (North Brighton, Vic. : 1888 - 1902), p. 7. Retrieved August 4, 2011, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article66176226

I must remember to search on Cowper and other variations as well.

Moving on there were tantalising glimpses of promising articles which were in the results but not yet viewable. Like this one:

What sad event?! What was his role in it?

There were also several mentions of a D.Couper in Court of Petty Sessions reports. I will just have to wait and see what they contain.

Something to look forward to!

Treasure Chest Thursday: Marriage Certificates

I am lucky enough to have access to a real family history treasure chest. Over coming weeks I plan on sharing its contents with you as I rediscover what's inside.

Although I was not experienced in genealogy when I first explored the box, I could definately appreciate the genealogical value of the original marriage certificates inside. As well as my grandparent's own marriage certificate, the box contained marriage certificates for two sets of my great-grandparents. I'm sure there are plenty of people who wish they could have that sort of head start! Don't worry, information on my other branches was much more sparse!

I think that what I didn't appreciate, until now, is the feeling of holding in your own hands an original document that your long-gone ancestors had held before you. Although I love the ability to download digital images of all sorts of things, it's not quite the same as seeing the documents 'in person'.

I've scanned these before, but at a time when computer storage space was at a premium. Now that storage is a bit cheaper, I'm rescanning them in colour to try to capture some of the feeling of the originals, for any family members who want to see them.

Here is the marriage certificate of Arthur Stannus and May Black, in 1908. 

Marriage certificate of Arthur Stannus and May Black, Victoria, Australia, 1908

And the other for Arthur Milne Lee and Jessie Isabella Couper, a little earlier, in 1904.

Marriage certificate of Arthur Milne Lee and Jessie Isabella Couper, Victoria, Australia, 1904

Are you related to these families?  
Sure, you could grab the images and run, but it would be much nicer if you got in touch. Please contact me at the email address on the about page, or leave a comment!

Newspaper clipping puzzle solved

The puzzle
Back in January I found a clue to a mystery that although minor, had been puzzling me for some time. The mystery was the connection of a young man, mentioned in a newspaper death notice among my grandfather's papers, to my family. The young man had accidentally drowned overseas in the late 1970s.

Why did I think there was a connection? Well, most obviously because the clipping was kept with family papers. It also mentioned that the young man had a grandparent known as "Couper" - which is one of my family names.

My apologies for being a little coy about naming names here. I have decided not to name the people, as some family members close to the deceased man may still be alive.

The clue
The clue I stumbled across was the burial place of the young man. It appears his body was returned home to Australia for burial, as he was buried in the same plot as one of my great-granduncles. Also in the plot was the relatively recent burial of a woman whose first name was a variation on the mother's name from the death notice and surname matched the son's surname. Always check who else is in the plot!!

It looked very much as though my great-granduncle was the "Couper" mentioned, the woman was his daughter and the young man his grandson. It all looked very promising, but I wanted a bit more certainty before I entered anything into my database.

The search
The dates were too recent for birth and marriage information (births and marriages in Victoria are currently only available up to 1908 and 1942 respectively). I had an Ancestry.com subscription at the time so I checked out the Australian electoral rolls. I was hoping to find the mother living in her parent's house before marriage, then disappearing and neatly turning up in her husband's house with a new surname.

I didn't get quite what I had hoped for. I did find the couple, but when they first appeared on the electoral roll they already shared a surname and were living in her (supposed) parent's house. This was completely consistent with my theory. The only trouble was that all it really showed was that the couple seemed to have a close relationship with my great-granduncle.

I put the puzzle to the side for the time being.

The solution
A few days ago I finally found something that gave me the confidence to enter the relationships into my database. Like so much of the information I have found lately, it was thanks to the wonders of Trove! More years of newspapers have come on line since January. Enough years, that I found a marriage notice. It gave full names and parents for both partners and even had a photo of the happy couple!

If you haven't tried Trove, I encourage you to give it a shot, even if you're not Australian! So that there can be no excuses, here's the search box...





Let me know if you find anything!

The last will and testament of a married woman

Christine McGiffin (nee Couper) was married on the 15 March 1911 at the age of around 47 and died in December 1912, a "married woman" with property in her own name. She also had a son born prior to the marriage.

She bequeathed:

• To her sister, Barbara Couper, her sewing machine, chest of drawers, clothing linen, jewellery and also all her shares in the Standard Mutual Building Society.
• To her husband Robert McGiffin, property at No 71 Epsom Road, Ascot Vale, Victoria.
• To her brother, Daniel Couper, and brother-in-law John Bennie properties 379 and 381 Ascot Vale Road, Moonee Ponds, Victoria in trust for the use and benefit of her son Charles Henry Couper (known as Charles Henry McGiffin) with rents and profits to be paid to him until he reached the age of 25, when the two properties were to be transferred to him.

So far so good. Here's where it gets complicated.

If her son did not attain the age of 25 the two properties were to be sold and the proceeds were to be distributed as follows:

• If a wife and their lawful issue survived him the wife was to received half and the other half to be divided equally among the children.
• If no wife survived him, but he had lawful issue, the proceeds were to be shared equally among the children.
• If he had a wife, but no children, the wife should receive half and Christina's sisters, Jessie Bennie and Barbara Couper were to have equal shares of the other half.
• If he had no wife or children her sisters Jessie Bennie and Barbara Couper would have equal shares.

Christina's other property, a block of freehold land on Lennox Street, Moonee Ponds, Victoria, was to be sold and the proceeds used to pay for probate duty, funeral and administration expenses, and any charges or debts against her real estate. The residual was to go to her husband.

Got all that? Good.

The combined value of her real estated was 631 pounds. You many wonder how she managed to accumulate such wealth. It appears that those responsible for granting probate did, as her probate file contains a sworn oath by Daniel Couper and John Bennie that she was indeed married, and describing the source of her funds. She had purchased the properties with money received as a legacy from her father, Robert Couper, savings from her occupation in service before the marriage, and profits from the raising and sale of poultry.

Christina is not my direct ancestor, her brother Daniel Couper is. There's plenty of names, dates and places in the probate file. Lots of leads for me to follow when I get around to it, and new questions raised.

Images of her probate files can be viewed online for free here at the Public Record Office of Victoria website.

As always, if you have a family connection to the people I mention in the post, please get in touch with me!

Australia Day

Today is 26 January, Australia Day. My idea for this blog post was to list out the events from my family tree that occurred on that date. On searching my family tree there were only two such events!

One was the birth of a still-living person. Happy Birthday, [name omitted to protect her privacy]!

The other was the death of my GGGG grandmother, Christina MORRISON. She died in Latheron, Caithness, Scotland, of bronchitis on the 26 January 1877 at age 74. Her husband, Alexander MILLER, a couper and boat-builder, died of chronic bronchitis just a few months later, also aged 74. Both were paupers at the time of their death.

Although they lived and died in Scotland, Christina and Alexander had a connection with Australia. By 26 January 1877 their eldest(?) daughter, Isabella, her husband Robert COUPER and their son, Daniel, had lived in Oakleigh, Victoria for almost 25 years. Daniel also was born in Scotland, but by 1877 he had eight Australian-born brothers and sisters.


If you see a family connection here, please get in touch. I would love to hear from you.

A chance discovery

Among my grandfather's family papers was a little newspaper clipping. A young man's death notice. According to the notice the young man accidentally drowned in New Guinea, 1978, on his birthday. The notice gave enough information to construct a partial family tree, including a grandparent referred to only as "Couper".

Couper happens to be my grandfather's mother's maiden name, and every other paper stored with this clipping was a family paper. It seemed that this unfortunate young man was a relative, but despite knowing a little about his immediate family, I never knew how he fitted in and I've never tried in any serious way to find out.

Tonight, I stumbled onto a clue! Quite by chance I discovered that he was buried in the same plot as some of my known Couper relatives. Obviously the body was brought back to Australia for burial. The burial details still don't tell me exactly how he was connected, but they give a me a very plausible theory to work on!

Tombstone Tuesday - Leslie Miller COUPER

I wrote a few days ago about the tragic death of young Leslie Miller COUPER. Here is his final resting place in Oakleigh Pioneer Memorial Park, Victoria, Australia.



And here is the headstone which I assume once stood at the head of the grave (as headstones do!) but at the time of the photo (April 1998) it lay across the plot.


The headstone reads:

Sacred

to the memory of
our dearly beloved son
LESLIE M COUPER
accidentally killed 2nd March 1897
aged 9 years
also
DANIEL COUPER
Loved husband of
Mary Couper
died 12 March 1935
aged 85 years
also MARY
His beloved wife
died 31st Aug 1938
aged 82 years
Our loved mother

Oakleigh is now a suburb of Melbourne, about 15 km from the CBD. The "Oakleigh Pioneer Memorial Park" operated as a cemetery from 1859 to 1959. The cemetery was opened as a park in 1988. I was most fortunate that this headstone was still present when I took the photo in 1998 as I understand many were removed when the area was made into a park. So far as I know it's still there, but I haven't been back to check.

Under the white structure on the right of the top photo are bricks inscribed with the names of those known to be buried there. That information is also in the cemetery database. A search on COUPER yields 14 entries, some of whom don't bear the name COUPER. They were people, mostly people connected to the family, whose burial Daniel COUPER authorised.

I must remember to write a post sometime about the diagram I created (using Genbox) that shows Daniel's relationship to each of those people.

Who's missing from this picture?

This is the COUPER family of Oakleigh, Victoria, Australia. Someone is missing, but who?


In the middle is Mary COUPER (nee ALLSOP), wife of Daniel Miller COUPER. Obviously he's not in the photo, that's not the answer I'm looking for!

Mary and Daniel had nine children, all of whom survived infancy. However, there are only eight children in the photo.

The children were:

1. Jessie Isabella COUPER (F) b.1880
2. Robert John COUPER (M) b.1882
3. Lucy Ellen COUPER (F) b.1883
4. Alfred Edward COUPER (M) b.1885
5. Ethel Mary COUPER (F) b.1886
6. Leslie Miller COUPER (M) b.1887
7. Charles Henry COUPER (M) b.1890
8. Ruby Maude COUPER (F) b.c1892
9. Albert Donald COUPER (M) b.1894

The more I look at it, the more convinced I feel that the picture was taken c1893, before the birth of Albert Donald COUPER. That would give an age range for the children pictured of about 1 or 2 to about 13. Four girls and four boys with the youngest, Ruby, on her mother's lap.

That may seem the obvious conclusion, but another possibility is that the photo was taken after the death of Leslie Miller COUPER, who was accidentally killed by a horse at age 9 in 1897. This would make the age range of the children about 3 to about 17. Still four girls, four boys but now it's little Albert in Mary's lap. I'd also have to reverse my assumption about the gender of one of the other children.

So, is the youngest child a girl aged one or two, or a boy of age three or more? I think the former. What do you think? Any other clues or observations?