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Oh nice, thanks!  I hadn’t realised it was one of the survivors in the Prerogative will books.

I’d come across the T/737/27 reference on the PRONI name search and wondered whether the will might be buried in the “Memoirs of the Chesney family” (T737/1).

I don’t think the T/9915 reference has anything to do with the PRONI reference, but I may be wrong.  I need to find another example…

Thanks for the details.  I found the 1849 shipping record you referred to.  Interestingly William is recorded as a miner from England which does put a question mark over whether it is the right family.  But if the names and ages of the children all line up with the records you’ve found in the US then maybe that is them.

I also came across the shipping record for the son Andrew Dickey (20yo schoolmaster from Ireland) when he travelled in 1852.  The next passenger on the list was James Todd (also 20yo, shoemaker) who might have been from Ballyclare too.

The 1911 census record for Ellen Nevin shows 4 children born and 3 alive. The two children listed with Ellen and John Nevin were his children born after they married in 1901. So it looks like one of Ellen's two children Sarah and Robert Bryson  born before 1901 was still alive in 1911. I can see one Sarah Bryson aged 14 listed as a visitor in Owensland in 1911 who would be a possibility.

Thanks.  I’d miss-read “Nivin” as “Nixon” the other day for some reason.  The child who had died by 1911 was John James Nevin (1903-1906). 

They seem to have counted Ellen’s first two children (Sarah in 1896, Robert in 1898) as being born to the 1901 marriage, which suggests John James Nevin (senior) was their biological father.

I agree that it is probably Ellen’s daughter Sarah aged 14 in Owensland in 1911.  It is interesting that she is still a Bryson though, which contradicts my previous point.

Anyway, if that is Ellen’s daughter in Owensland with the Andrew family, that could be significant for the Bryson connections.  William Andrew’s wife Margaret (d. 1908) was a daughter of Robert Bryson of Ballyvoy.  From the will of Robert’s brother John (1859), we know they had a brother James (in America at the time) who had a son called Robert.

James Bryson d. 1861 was 27 when he died and his father James d. 1835 was still alive and married to Martha Ann.   John W was aware of his son's death in 1836 and left a bequest "to the children of my son James, deceased".

James Bryson d1861 is listed singularly on the ship manifest to Australia.  I thought it was a different James until it popped up on the headstone.

There’s no reason to attach James Bryson (c1834-1861) to John W. Bryson's family.  The headstone shows that he was not a grandson of John W. Bryson.