Tasmanian BDM lookup please

[judb]

Thanks, Merlin - this thread has had my eyes popping so I had forgotten to look at the boring bits like mundane BMDs which seem to have been overtaken by worms, inventions and astounding marriages.  Wonder how long Mr Hancock had to wait for his dowry.........

Oh, Neil - you must hone your techniques! 

Judith

[Ken24]

Hi Shally and others

I'm interested in the Lamb-Hancock / Hancock-Lamb family who were descended from Richard Lamb, "worm doctor". His son John (1806-1881) is my g-g-grand father and in the past two weeks - after many years of hunting - I've connected John to Richard (Hancock) Lamb and Sincere (Butterfield?).

John and his wife Catherine were witnesses to the 1841 Melbourne marriage of Francis Lamb to Amelia Vickers, and Francis met up with William Hancock Lamb in Adelaide in the 1850s (while John was travelling the world before returning to Melbourne and then Adelaide). John, Francis and William were, it seems, brothers. Richard and Sincere seem to have had at least eight boys and three girls. I'm also interested in descendants of John's siblings. This line of research is very new to me so I'm wondering if others have any information which may assist.

Thanks

Ken

[Dundee]

Hi Ken,

I am not related but just helping Shally out.  I don't seem to be able to modify my posts at the moment to add a child to the previous list, but I did find the third daughter, Matilda, living with her mother and brothers in Montgomeryshire in 1841 (as HANCOCK) and then with her sister Sarah Ann in 1851 in London (as LAMB).  Matilda was born c1825.  Sarah Ann had married William BETTS and their marriage cert gives her father Richard's occupation as Druggist.

Did John use HANCOCK or LAMB?  I hadn't really looked for him as it was hard enough to sort the others.  I did find that Richard Jnr. married a Martha and had a daughter Rosa Maria LAMB.  When the daughter married in 1859 she gave her father's occupation as Patent Medicine Vendor, though  I think he was already deceased, there is a possible death in 1848.

If I do come across anything else I will add it to this post.

My way of thinking is, Hancock was their actual name but the name "Lamb" came about because of the doctoring. It then became part of the family name (just to confuse things!!). The Sincere Amelia Lamb I'm tracing is the daughter (I think) of Francis Augustus and Amelia Temperance Lamb. Sincere also had a sister named Amelia. Shally

.

Shally, I believe that LAMB was the original surname.  Richard Snr. consistantly gives an age which approximates to a birth year of c1778, and a birthplace of Worcester.  I think this would be his baptism:

Name:    Richd. LAMB
Christening Date:    08 Jun 1778
Christening Place:    All Saints, Worcester, Worcester, England
Parents:  Richard and Sarah

Richard and Sarah also had other children, and amongst them was a William Handcox LAMB baptised in 1782.  There is a marriage in 1777 for a Richard LAMB and Sarah KEEPAX, same church as the baptisms, so perhaps this is them. 

I know that Francis is given the middle name of "Augustus" on his wife's death record, but he married and was baptised as Francis Hancock LAMB.  I think that the informant was aware of  Augustus being used in the family and thought that it was his name.

Debra 

[Dundee]

Links to Francis' convict records:

Conduct Record
http://search.archives.tas.gov.au/ImageViewer/image_viewer.htm?CON31-1-28,206,140,L,80

Description List
http://search.archives.tas.gov.au/ImageViewer/image_viewer.htm?CON18-1-22,248,41,L,80

There is a second description list available.  Go to http://portal.archives.tas.gov.au/menu.aspx?detail=1&type=C&id=41005 and click on the link CON23/1/2, when the image viewer opens it is on the page L840 - L858 (left hand menu).

Debra 

[Dundee]

YEH what diyamean she not to young? What about the 85 year old bride and the 22 year old husband with a douury of $30,000 dollars. I meant to put a "W" in dowry

Why can't I find a wife like that

Neil

Neil it was £30,000, not dollars, and in today's money it would be about a squillion    The bride died two years later and there are documents showing in the UK Archives which might indicate that there was a bit of a stouch over the money.

What about Rose Porteus?  Possibly a bit young, but I believe she is looking for husband number 5   
No worms, but I think you would need to like poodles.

Debra 

[Neil Todd]

I think this has been one of the most intriguing families with some really weird going's on. Debra I don't know how to put up pounds on this keyboard, but how weird is that. 30K your right squillions in today's currency.

Rose can afford five husbands, I just wonder if the husbands can afford Rose

Neil

[Ken24]

Thanks Debra

I just found your list of Hancock Lamb children born to Richard and Sincere (as you can see I'm very new to Rootschat, this is the first chat site I've ever used, and I'm still groping my way about trying to digest the information!).

The children I have located so far are, I think:
Richard 1805-1848? (1841 census as Richard Lamb Honack in Wales)
John 1806-1881 (my ancestor)
Sincere c1807-? (1871 census as Sincere Lamb, unmarried, sister of Sarham or Sarah Betts)
Francis 1808-1873
Robert c1810-? (Robert Lamb, medical man, 1841 census; hawker, 1851 census)
James 1812-?
Frederick 1813-1888
Sarah c1817-? (married William Betts)
William 1821-1896
Harriet 1822-?
Matilda c1824-?
Charles c1826-1903
Charlotte 1828-1829 (thanks for your information Debra - I had missed this - what a sad story)

Re Francis and Amelia, I copied their Melbourne marriage record at NLA last week from near the end of AO Reel 5006:
Francis Hancock Lamb, bachelor and Amelia Vickers, widow
married by License 9 May 1841
by AC Thomson, Chaplain
witnessed by John Lamb and Catherine Lamb

Francis was a fibber! In his TAS convict conduct record it states "Transported for stealing from the person. Gaol report sober man. Hulk report, Hulk report, good. Married. Stated this offence, robbing a man in Beverley of ₤15. Tried with William Jones. Sentenced 7 years. I don’t know where he is. Married, wife Julia at Liverpool." FamilySearch records a marriage between Francis Lamb and Julia Anne Breward on 28 Nov 1831 in Newcastle Under Lyme, Staffordshire.

He also, in 1857, had an illegitimate child to Mary Jane Young. This is from Trove, and I'll try to find out more on my next NLA visit. Francis found himself the subject of several claims for maintenance of the child and his subsequently estranged wife. Nov 1863: "Frank Lamb was charged by his wife, Amelia Lamb, with deserting her, and leaving her without any means of subsistence. ... He kept a woman. He sent her [Amelia] vegetables and a few sheeps' heads occasionally." I'm not surprised she took him to court!

Francis was definitely in Tasmania in the early 1840s before going to Adelaide (as was his brother John). John regularly raced the horse Plenipo in 1843, Francis advertised the "services" of Plenipo in 1845 and John again had Plenipo in 1846 just arrived in Adelaide from Tasmania. Therefore the birth of Amelia in Tasmania is likely, but I haven't found the birth in any Australian records. Trove shows Francis in VIC in May 1841 receiving a stolen mare, then in TAS in Sept 1841 receiving a hawkers license. In SA, Feb 1853, Sincere Amelia Lamb, dau of Mr F Lamb is stated to be aged 11. If she turned 12 in 1853, this means she would have been born in 1841, about the time her parents moved from VIC to TAS.

As background for my interest in this family, my great grandfather Richard Butterfield McElroy(1874-1912) was illegitimate but the informant as an "authorised friend" was John Lamb. Richard Butterfield changed his name to Lamb and the family strongly maintained that John was his father, despite the distasteful knowledge that John was also Richard Butterfield's step-great-grandfather - very ugly and messy! I have been trying to confirm as much as I can whether this was ever acknowledged by John. Last weekend Peterborough Library (Northamptonshire UK) kindly did a lookup for me to confirm that a Sincere Butterfield was baptised in Peterborough on 1 Jan 1789, coinciding with Sincere Hancock/Lamb's census information. If this is related to me then it would explain why John named his unacknowledged son Richard Butterfield, after his father Richard and mother Sincere Butterfield.

John Lamb was arrested in Dublin in 1828 for picking pockets. It seems he was part of a group of young gentlemen who gained access to society gatherings and fleeced other patrons. He told police his occupation was a chemist and that his father was a doctor in Fish Street, Hull. In his convict records, John was noted to be well educated, considered an oracle by his fellow convicts, had the nickname "The Doctor", and received 50 lashes for exploiting a legal loophole to evade chain gang work, while tying up senior bureaucrats in trying to close the loophole. He eventually served 10 years of a 7 year sentence, ran racehorses, operated hotels, travelled to America, was shipwrecked, returned to Australia by 1860 and was one of Australia's acknowledged champion billiard players. He even travelled to NZ to win a 500 pound bet playing billiards. He died destitute in Adelaide in 1881.

In San Francisco c1855 his step-daughter Emily bigamously married the champion American prizefighter "Yankee" Sullivan who died a year later while incarcerated by vigilantes (who claimed it was suicide, but I'm not convinced as there's plenty of evidence to the contrary). Emily and Yankee had a daughter who in turn had a son Richard Butterfield McElroy/Lamb. And with all the aliases and name changes no wonder it's taken me 20 years to find answers on this branch!

I am very interested in finding other descendants of the Hancock Lambs, and building my knowledge about the various connections.

Ken

[shally]

Hi Ken and Debra
Well Ken it appears we have a connection in this amazingly interesting family. Francis Hancock Lamb is my gg grandfather. His daughter Sincere Amelia Lamb is my g grandmother. Sincere and Henry George Barrett (my g grandfather) had a son Charles Barrett (my grandfather) in 1874, Adelaide, South Australia. I don't think they married and I'm still trying to trace what happened to Sincere after Charles was born. Henry George Barrett married another woman in 1881 and then he died in 1883 in Adelaide, South Australia. I'm still trying to absorb all the info on the Lamb/Hancock saga as well. Where did you find all the info on Francis and his brothers. I rely on the internet for all my info, but I'm afraid I'm not the best at finding my way around some of the sites. This family gets more interesting every time I get on line. Great to meet you Ken!!

A big thankyou to you Debra for all the info you keep finding. I'm getting a longer list of research and links to search. You may be right about the "Lamb" being the correct family name. (I hope so, otherwise I have a different connection to follow)!! Thanks again and can't wait to see what else pops up. What a bottler of a family!!

Sue (Shally)

[Ken24]

Hi there Cousin Sue!

Sorry it’s taken me a while to respond. I’ve had to spend some time catching up with all my notes and information, so I can understand how the family fits together: I think we’re 4th cousins. I also spent time today at the National Library exhausting all avenues regarding the birth of Sincere Amelia Lamb or Vickers. I definitely cannot find her birth in VIC or TAS.

I’m not convinced that Francis and Amelia had two children. They arrived in South Australia on 5 Feb 1847 on the barque Cygnet: passengers included “Francis Lamb, wife and child”. So if they had daughters born in about 1842 and 1844, then only one travelled with them to Adelaide, and this appears to have been Sincere Amelia, born 1841-2 (based on the 1853 newspaper report).

Regarding the name Hancock / Lamb, I agree with Debra that it looks like Lamb was used with Hancock as a middle name. However, after John and Francis were transported it looks like the names switched to Hancock, with Lamb being a middle name, but also Lamb was the medicinal trade name. Based on newspaper ads, there was also a bit of an intellectual property stoush between Richard, snr and one of his sons in the 1830s though it eventually all got sorted. This may have been a cause for the name switch.

Regarding my sources, most of my Australian-based information is from Trove. In addition, for John’s time in Melbourne in the 1830s I relied on “Historical Records of Victoria” and also copies of old newspapers in the NLA stack. I also have read the three 1840s Melbourne newspapers (Port Phillip Gazette, Herald and Patriot) on microfilm as these are not on Trove. Much of the convict–related information is in Ancestry.com, with some additional material in the AJCP microfilms. I had to pay for some materials (Colonial Secretary’s Correspondence) directly from NSW State Records. The Tasmanian stuff I’ve found for Francis was all freely available online – it just takes a bit of time to search through it. I think Debra provided the links to this in a previous post.

The English information such as baptisms, marriages and census I’ve accessed using Ancestry.com, FamilySearch and FreeBMD. For the newspaper articles – which I discovered only two weeks ago and finally led me to some answers – I use my NLA Readers Card to access 19th Century British Library Newspapers, and also Gale Vault. I think all the state libraries have these subscriptions, but you need to get a readers card or something similar to access them from home. Because I live in Canberra I can only use NLA.

John purchased a ship and sailed it from Adelaide to San Francisco in 1850, and to find out more about him I discovered a few good American newspaper sites which have given me the precious proof linking my ancestors and explaining their different names.

I’m more than happy to share my material, but it would have to be by email as there’s a fair bit of it. I’m not sure how we go about exchanging emails privately, or if there are other options available to send multiple files.

Ken