RootsChat.Com
Research in Other Countries => Australia => Topic started by: ValJJJ on Friday 13 March 20 09:46 GMT (UK)
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Dear Rootschatters
I'm wondering if there are any birth records for a John Cambell/Campbell in Australia (I know - pretty vague) 4 Oct 1897?
This is for the process of elimination as the John Campbell I'm looking for was born in London, England, but I cannot trace him after 1902 and wondered if he'd been sent abroad as a child emigrant. I can't find him on any passenger lists or the Rootschat database of British Home Children though.
Some DNA comparisons have thrown up a John Campbell born 1897 who lived/died in Australia and is supposed to have been born there. If it is the correct person, he may have later given his birthplace as Australia for simplicity, or because that had been assumed at some point and there was no point contradicting it, or he'd forgotten (although the journey to Australia must have been difficult to forget for a 4/5/6 year old) or wanted to forget.
I'm waiting for the family (they don't live in Australia) who've responded to my DNA questions to send me a photo and a death certificate, but they don't know any more than that.
Please could you let me know the best places to look for birth records and census records?
Thanks.
Val
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There were 3 births registered in London Oct 1897, 2 had a middle name and the one below.
John Campbell 10/1897 St Giles London
Can I assume from your post that you have the 1901 census?
Colin
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Lots of John CAMPBELLS born in Australia in 1897. There are no useful census records, most were destroyed. Civil registration records are kept separately for each State and Territory, you will find the online links on the resources board.
https://www.rootschat.com/forum/australia-resources-offers/
I'm waiting for the family (they don't live in Australia) who've responded to my DNA questions to send me a photo and a death certificate, but they don't know any more than that.
Surely if they are related to him they know where and when he died and who he married.
Debra :)
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Thanks ColC but I do have John Campbell's birth cert and know it's the right person, born in England, and also have relevant census records. I'd be interested in Australian census records or any other records showing someone with this name and date of birth.
My query is to see which John Campbells were actually born in Australia, rather than saying they were, but as Debra has said - lots of them. It sounds like only the year is available Debra? If the month was available too that might narrow it down?
I'll have to see what the DNA connection says, and look at the death certificate when I receive it to see where he died.
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The NSW and Queensland indexes allow you to search with a date of birth and births for Tasmania are all digitised online. There is nothing showing for any of them.
Debra :)
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Thanks Debra. Hard to know which region to start in isn't it, but that eliminates some.
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Sorry Debra I missed your post about the DNA relatives knowing about him. Well, they don't! Sorry I don't know their story but they don't live in Australia and are waiting for another relative to send them details.
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I now have the death certificate for John Campbell. He died in New Zealand in August 1975 and the info on the cert (so much more than on a UK death cert!) states he had lived in NZ for 59 years, meaning he moved there in 1916 when he would have been 18 or 19 years old. The certificate states that he was born in Australia but no more than that, and that his father was a chemist. Presumably this was the person he regarded as his father in Australia, unless it was fiction. I don't know whether chemist meant a pharmacist or someone in the chemical industry.
So no nearer exactly where he lived in Australia unfortunately, but there might be passenger records between Australia and New Zealand to show where he left from.
New Zealand death certificates have so much info on them, so now I know who he married and when/where, and how many children he had. But that's for the New Zealand spot in the forum.
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His marriage certificate should name both his parents and give a place of birth.
https://bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/dataCollected/marriage
Debra :)
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Some further background info on : https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=827102.0
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Thanks Dundee.
Assuming his death certificate took information from his marriage certificate or info recorded at the time (that is an assumption!), then the parent info is solely surnames i.e. Campbell.
His place of birth is given as Australia, which is not helpful! I think he is the person born in England and probably arrived in Australia as a 5 or 6 year old, with or without a guardian (who could not have been a parent) and it may have been easier later to just say he was born in Australia. Or that could be an assumption on the death certificate or from information supplied at the time of death.
The death certificate does say how long he lived in NZ, which puts him at arriving from Australia in 1916.
I am hoping the DNA linked descendants can put me in touch with direct descendants who may have anecdotes and other info such as the marriage certificate as NZ ones are expensive to order!
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The NZ bdm online index listing for his death also gives his dob as per the topic heading. Does that dob match with the 1897 GRO birth cert?
NZ bdm printout option for the marriage will have plenty of details, far more than scant English ones. :)
ADD so the marriage cert will have first hand info given by John himself, whereas the d.c. clearly cannot. The dob was not usually recorded on m.c..
His marriage certificate should name both his parents and give a place of birth.
https://bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/dataCollected/marriage
Debra :)
JM
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Yes dob matches so along with the DNA evidence, pretty sure it's him.
Have to wait now for info from his descendants.
British marriage certs from that era are often full of fiction as no-one checked so his might be similar...
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I now have the marriage cert which gives confusing details, as you'd expect if a child was shipped abroad.
He's given his mother's name as Maud Campbell nee Matthews, but I don't think this was his mother at all. Maud was an aunt and Matthews the surname of his remarried grandmother.
The birth cert states born in Sydney, Australia, so if there is a birth record for John Campbell, 4 Oct 1897, to a Maud Campbell nee Matthews, then he is not the person I'm trying to track down and I'm just trying to make facts fit!
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4 Oct 1897
NSW bdm online
Birth date for John, son of Florence CAMERON ... no father's name displaying on the index.
Ref 9166, registered Sydney.
I have not checked further, sorry, but one finger typing into NSW bdm dialogue search box is even more difficult than one finger typing into RChat dialogue box.
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I have not searched for Florence, either. BUT it is likely this infant's mum was not married to his father at that time. Baby may have been fostered out, formal adoption did not come to NSW until the 1920s.
JM on e reader
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Thanks - I need to take a look at this online info and delve further.
So far looking promising. Now I just need to find him on a passenger list but been looking for a few years although not recently. As more become digitised I might succeed.
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I've edited this post as I have just double checked my names and sources, and realise that I have muddled up a few Maud Crook records resulting in adding up 2 + 2 to get 5. So if any of you read the original about Alice Maud Mabel - ignore!
John Campbell moved to NZ before he was old enough to vote, but his aunt, born in 1882, Maude Crook may have gone to Australia herself. She was in the 1901 UK census but might have emigrated later and turn up on an electoral register somewhere.
Because I now realise I have been tracking the wrong Maud Crook, I need to start again with her and see if I can find her UK marriage/death, or on a passenger list perhaps with John Campbell with her.
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Maud's full name is Alice Maud Mary Crook, often abbreviated to Alice MM Crook as there are a few of these in the UK and Australian records for someone about the same age, I've yet to work out which is the right Maud as otherwise she was in two places at once! I'll probably have to buy a few certificates to be certain.
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If anyone reads through this, just to say that most of the mystery has been solved, thanks to Rootschatters help on various threads. He was in London in the 1911 census, with his Aunt Alice Maud Mary (always known as Maud), who married later that year and didn't travel to Australia. I can't find him on any passenger lists, but if the background he gave his family has some grains of truth, he probably left England in 1911 or soon after for Australia, before going to NZ, where he settled.