RootsChat.Com

Thanks for your response. Unfortunately this is all I have - don't have the original. No worries if nothing can be done. 

Thank you everyone for your comments, suggestions and attachments. I have found them to be of great help in getting a better picture of my G-GM's life in Ireland. She married my G-GF at 20yo (he was 29 & German) and they went on to have 8 children - 1 son and 7 daughters! My aunt gave me a framed portrait of Margaret & Ferdinand nearly 30 years ago, so for some reason I've always felt close to her. This recent search prompted me to finally take a photo of the portrait...She was nothing if not adventurous arriving in Melbourne in 1866 at 15yo then by 1870, getting married in Brisbane at 20. That's a long way! Aghadowey you seem to have found quite a lot of facts and figures about your Irish relatives and their travels! That publication was helpful.
Janelle when I think of the different parts of the world my g-parents and g-grandparents came from independently of each other yet coincidentally culminating at Brisbane, it has made me thankful I am even here on this planet! Sharonkai that link was great, thanks so much! Siann, since I started this thread recently there was a TV show about several UK rebels - English, Irish & Welsh transported to Australia in the 1800's and the Irish one - he was of the upper classes but fought for the rights of the poor - and there was a bit about the conditions at the time of the famine. Of course I've read fictional books set in that time, but I always thought my G-GM came after that and wondered why. But I'm realising from the large numbers, what an emigration took place over decades around that time.

Thanks Barry - I'm sure I don't know where I got that idea of having seen something confirming that people could come to Aus via America but thanks for your imaginative options. I've searched the internet and the clipper routes from Liverpool to Melbourne turned R. at Africa and kept going straight across to Melbourne.

Ruskie I do have the names of Margaret & Mary's parents, Patrick was a plasterer on Margaret's marriage cert. The parents remained in Ireland and I'm sure you're right - the girls came for the work, both named as Dom. Serv. on the passenger list. Actually a similar thing happened to the older sister Mary as with your Irish ancestor, she got married in Australia to someone also born in Co. Tyrone and had 3 children living near Sunbury. They returned to Ireland in 1876.

It is ironic how much access to information we have nowadays, but in certain quarters such a lack in the recent past, such as with our Irish ancestors. 

Thanks Ruskie, of course 30 years ago when I found out about my Irish G-GM I thought the famine was the reason, but coming so young and some years after the worst of the famine confused me. In the link to Wiki the part below seems relevant, though my G-GM was not even born until 1851. I guess the effects would have lasted for many years after.

Families did not migrate en masse, but younger members of families did, so much so that emigration almost became a rite of passage, as evidenced by the data that show that, unlike similar emigration throughout world history, women emigrated just as often, just as early, and in the same numbers as men. The emigrant started a new life in a new land, sent remittances "[reaching] £1,404,000 by 1851"[109] back to his/her family in Ireland which, in turn, allowed another member of the family to emigrate.

I was confused about my aunt's story that 3 sisters set out for America from Ireland, and her GM (my G-GM) didn't want to get off there and came on to Australia. From the shipping records, it was clear that 2 sisters did arrive in Melbourne in 1866, but I thought I read something recently - possibly on RootsChat - that coming via America was quite usual. It must be the early onset dementia  So scrap that bit of info.