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Monday, August 10, 2009

My 16 Great-Great-Great Grands

I'm taking the easy way out with this post and doing the exercise Randy Seaver suggested last Saturday.

The instructions were:
1) List your 16 great-great-grandparents in pedigree chart order. List their birth and death years and places.
2) Figure out the dominant ethnicity or nationality of each of them.
3) Calculate your ancestral ethnicity or nationality by adding them up for the 16 - 6.25% for each (obviously, this is approximate).
4) If you don't know all 16 of your great-great-grandparents, then do it for the last full generation you have.
5) Write your own blog post, or make a comment on Facebook or in this post.

As others have pointed out, if there are 16 they must be GGG Grands, so that's what I'm looking at. If I had to pick a favourite generation of ancestors, it would be my GGG grands. They were the generation (except one) who left their birthplaces and made the long journey to Australia, either as adults or children.

Before I did this exercise, I would have said that I had about the same Scottish ancestry as I have Irish. In fact I have allocated nine to England (56%), five to Ireland (31%) and just one to Scotland (6%)!

I think it’s probably because the Scottish records are so rich, and they are readily available online. It has been very easy to “grow” that part of my tree with little real effort on my part. As a result, I have much more information on my Scottish ancestry than I do for my sadly neglected Irish lines, despite having fewer of them.

To add in a little more mythbusting, there is not one proven convict among them. Yes, Australia had convicts, but we also had many, many free settlers over many waves of immigration. That said, I have no squeamishness about finding a convict ancestor. I'll be a little disappointed if my one current "maybe" is a "no"!

So, without further ado, here they are:
  1. James William FRENCH was born in 1824 in England and died at age 72 in 1896 in Victoria, Australia.
  2. Ann SPENCE was born perhaps in 1825, at Gibraltar and died at age 76 in 1901 in Victoria, Australia.
    I will count this as England as she was there due to her father’s military movements.
  3. William TREGONNING was born between 1824 and 1826 in Cornwall, England and died at age 63 in 1887 in Victoria, Australia.
  4. Elizabeth MARTIN was born about 1827 in Cornwall, England and died at age 33 in 1860 in Victoria, Australia.
  5. James BENNETT was born in 1831 in England and probably died in Victoria, Australia.
    I still have to pin down a death certificate for this one to make a complete set for this generation!
  6. Catherine Lucy DARCY was born in 1830 in England or Ireland and died at age 70 in 1896 in Victoria, Australia.
    Hmmm, obviously need to follow up on pinning down her birth. We'll call her English for now.
  7. Francis MCMAHON was born in 1842 in Ireland and died at age 83 in 1918 in Victoria, Australia.
  8. Ellen KEOGH was born in 1835 in Ireland and died at age 75 in 1908 in Victoria, Australia.
  9. John LEE was born in 1822 in London, England and died at age 82 in 1905 in Victoria, Australia.
    One of my fellow researchers has him as a convict. I'm not convinced, the name is too common and the years don't quite fit.
  10. Susanna BAKER was born in 1840 in Surrey, England and died at age 58 in 1899 in Victoria, Australia.
  11. Daniel Miller COUPER was born in 1850 in Caithness, Scotland and died at age 84 in 1935 in Victoria, Australia.
    Came to Australia as a child and went on to become quite the wealthy gentleman!
  12. Mary ALLSOP was born in 1856 in Victoria, Australia and died at age 82 in 1938 in Victoria, Australia.
    She was the first of my ancestors to be born in Australia. Her parents were born in England, so I will count her as English for this exercise.
  13. William STANNUS was born in 1849 in Antrim, Ireland and died at age 75 in 1925 in Victoria, Australia.
  14. Isabella Kate ROBOTHAM was born in 1858 in Derby, England and died at age 78 in 1937 in Victoria, Australia.
  15. James BLACK was born between 1835 and 1837 in Ireland and died at age 59 in 1895 in Victoria, Australia.
  16. Frances Gertrude LEWIS was born in 1846 in Ireland and died at age 63 in 1899 in Victoria, Australia.
Disclaimer: I haven't double checked any of the facts above before posting. If you are relying on this information, well, that's up to you I guess... but wouldn't you rather get in touch and find out what else I might know?

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