Hi all,
Does anyone out there have a Thomas Shiels, Shields or Shiells, born about 1833, who mysteriously disappears from the records before 1856?
My Thomas came to Australia sometime before 1856/7 and said he was born in Edinburgh. He gave his parents as Thomas Shiel/ls and Janet, maiden surname unknown.
My cousin and I have subscribed to Ancestry and Scotlandspeople in an effort to find him. We've also trawled the IGI and the internet, immigration and passenger lists etc., and made a list of all possible Thomases of the right age (+/- 5 years) born anywhere in Scotland, regardless of parents' names. Of about 50 possibles, we have eliminated all but 3 by finding out what happened to them. The 3 who are left don't quite fit the bill either, according to what we've found about my Thomas in Australian records - either the age, birthplace or parents are not quite right. Even if my Thomas was not entirely truthful, we still don't have any way of proving that any of them are him.
Of course, he may have slipped through the net - his birth wasn't registered, he was hiding under the house when the census man came, he lied about his parents... but it seems a bit hard to believe that ALL these things happened. Any suggestions as to what to do next?
We have a HUGE collection of census and vital records for the many Thomases - so if you have a Thomas Shiels who even comes close to this description, we've probably researched him - feel free to ask because you're welcome to anything we have.
Eve