C is for… Cooper

I have joined Gould’s ‘Family History Through the Alphabet’ challenge a little late. I can’t promise to participate for every letter (my track record for sticking with challenges is not good!) but I didn’t want to miss out on the fun. Here is my contribution for the letter C.

C is for…

Cooper: A craftsman who makes and repairs wooden vessels formed of staves and hoops, as casks, buckets, tubs.

"cooper, n.1". OED Online. March 2012. Oxford University Press. http://www.oed.com.rp.nla.gov.au/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/41028 (accessed May 24, 2012).

My ancestor, Robert Couper (1825-1898) was a cooper. Although the surname Couper has occupational origins, he was not from a long line of coopers. His father was a shoemaker; his grandfather a farmer and fisherman.

Robert worked as a cooper both in his native Scotland and in Australia, having immigrated in 1852. As well as working as a cooper, he was also a (c is for) contractor. I suspect that he is the same Robert Couper who supplied timber for some government road contracts. Related to the occupation of cooper, he possessed a beer licence.

In genealogy, the smallest discoveries can make your day

One of the great things about genealogy is that sometimes the smallest of discoveries can make your day. 

As I've been tidying up my database, I've been looking again at many of the first birth, death and marriage certificates that I obtained. I'm spotting details that escaped my notice at the time, but which are are now tying up loose ends, or giving me new leads to follow. Every one of them, although minor, is exciting to me in it's own way.

More children?!

Here's an example of what I mean. In addition to their two living children, Robert Couper (1825-1898) and Isabella Miller (c1826-1908) had two deceased sons and one deceased daughter by 1856. Why did I not enter that into my database? 

As it happens I had already identified two of these young children, born in Scotland, who I supposed must have died before the family came to Australia as they weren't on the ship and don't show up in Australian records. This little piece of information confirms my theory. It also adds a place in my database for the other son who I haven't (yet?) been able to find in records. I don't know if he was born in Scotland or in Australia. While sad to see the level of infant mortality, it is somehow comforting to think that in a small way this nameless child is not forgotten.

Relatives in Australia?!

Another morsel of information that I had somehow overlooked was on the 1867 marriage certificate of my ancestors James Black (c1835-1896) and Frances Gertrude Lewis (c1836-1899). One of the witnesses had the surname Lewis. Did Frances have relatives living in Australia?! To give myself some credit, I had entered that fact in my database, it just hadn't sunk into my mind. When I rediscovered the signature a few days ago I was determined to work it out. This is what it looks like:

Can you make out the first name of the top witness? I sought help on Twitter. I think I must have picked the wrong time of day, or possibly of year, as I had only one reply (thanks Bobby) but no answer. I thought I knew what some of the letters were, and what others could be, but I couldn't make out a name. 

Success came when I started running wildcard searches over the Australian birth, death and marriage indexes on www.Ancestry.com.au. I didn't get it first try, but finally an exact search for Min* Lewis gave me the name. Minchin Lewis. Not a name I had heard of before, but all the lumps and bumps in the signature fit. He doesn't seem to be a brother for Frances as I had hoped, I will have to go back further to find out if he was related. The thing that struck me is that both Minchin and Frances named their first born sons James Abbott. Coincidence? 

Still more work to do, but this little achievement made my day!

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.

Still staying focused - a good result!

I would have skipped World Vital Records' recent offer of a few days of free access, had it not been for the Victorian Government and Police Gazettes. I've been meaning to have a look at them some time. They were tempting... so very tempting... I signed up.

After some playing around to get a feel for the site I decided to focus on a few individuals from my COUPER branch. This family came from Scotland and settled in Oakleigh, Victoria in the mid 1850s. I've got good basic information on them, and a bit more.

I found Robert COUPER in several directories as a cooper, which fits with what I know. Only... one year there was a Robert COUPER in Oakleigh with the word "beerhouse" instead. How odd, I thought, and wondered if it was the same person. It took me a few days before the (now obvious) thought came to me that beer would have been stored in barrels. Coopers make barrels. "Beerhouse" might not be so inconsistent after all. That little revelation was enough to make me think that my time was not totally wasted.

There was another possible lead for the family. I found a reference to a Robert COUPER in the Victorian Goverment Gazette (1858). He had been awarded a government contract for the supply of timber for the maintenance of the plank road from Geelong to Ballarat. Could this be my Robert COUPER? A cooper must have a source of timber, mustn't he? I will have to see if the Public Record Office of Victoria has the tender documents and contract in their archives. Some day. I've put it on my to-do list.

I came away feeling glad I'd taken up the offer. I was able to focus on the families I was interested in and now have some leads to follow when I am ready to do some real work on them.

As for the site itself, I probably will take a paid subscription with them some day, when I'm ready. I found the search interface so-so but the databases on offer had potential. I was going to write a post about the search interface but I think it would be more constructive to send my remarks to the website's feedback form. Unless I run short of blog topics, or there is overwhelming reader interest (=any) on the subject, that is!