MCNALLY Catharine Christiana - Help please anyone!!

[Wiggy]

Hi there,      HELP!!!   Was she born McNally or married to a McNally??    Can anyone find any reference to her in Ireland please??

Catharine Christiana MCNALLY  was definitely in Tasmania Australia after 1817.

Age at death was given as 68 - making her birth year about 1789/90.

We are wondering if Ireland may have been her birth place - oddly, there is absolutely no record of her being in Australia before she appears in Hobart.   The possibility of her being a daughter of a soldier/marine/convict from the first/second fleet 1788 - 1790 has occurred to us - but research turns up nothing.   Some families of free people coming to the colony weren't named - but the husbands were generally speaking.

We know very little about her as she seems to have swum all the way from the Emerald Isle to our shores!!!!   

She had a child named Anne in about 1817/18 - probably in Tasmania, (and maybe with a Thomas Amos)- though there are no records for this.    Surname for the child was RANSOM -  she was adopted to that name.

She had a son named Thomas McNally in November 1820 in Hobart - baptised in St David's Church of England in December of that year.  This Thomas later took name of Ransom.

She lived with and was faithful partner to Thomas RANSOM Snr with whom she ran several Inns over the years - but she never married him - why, we can't discover, but it seemed to be something on her side which prevented marriage.  Thomas was much older that Catharine.  However,  when Thomas died, she was able to marry Frederick Von STIEGLITZ in 1830 at Green Ponds in Tasmania.   They had no children.    (So maybe Thomas had the impediment to marriage - we just don't know.)

Catharine ( who seems to have been known as Christina after her marriage) died in 1857 and is buried at Cullenswood Historic Cemetery in Tasmania, as Christina Stieglitz aged 68.

ANY HELP would be very welcome.     

Cheers,

Wiggy

[aghadowey]

Australian thread here-
www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,383665.0.html

[Wiggy]

Thanks for the suggestion but . . . .  No!!  That's no help - that's where I've come from!!   'Twas I put that first post up on that board - we were hoping to get back a bit to Ireland - maybe??

Cheers

Wiggy

[aghadowey]

I posted the link to your Australian thread to let others know the background and what's already been found, etc. rather than duplication information you already have been given.
Civil registration of births in Ireland began 1864 so there will be no birth certificate. For earlier dates you need to search for church records (if they exist) but to do so you need to know both the faily's religion and where they lived (parish if not actual townland not just the county or 'Ireland').

[majm]

Hi All

I am NSW Australia based, and I do so hope the Irish RChatters are able to help find the missing link for Wiggy.  It seems to me that MCNALLY would be an  Irish surname.

JM

[aghadowey]

McNally is often an 'Irish' surname but also found in Scotland. To search in Ireland you need to have a location (parish if not townland not just the county or 'Ireland') and even with an exact location (townland) records for such an early period might not exist. 

[majm]

Hi there,

Just wondering if there are any records anywhere in Ireland for the names of families who migrated to the Colony of New South Wales in the period 1788 - 1820.   It is likely that Catharine Christina McNally was NOT transported under a convict sentence. 

Perhaps there's Irish registers of free settlers or ships crews or the garrison forces who were assembled and shipped out to guard the convicts?  I am aware, for example, that the 48th Regiment on Foot was in Cork from around 1814 to Feb 1817 when it then was ordered to NSW as a garrison force. One of my Irish forebears came to Australia as part of the household of an officer in that regiment.  This was not the only regiment that spent time in Ireland before being re-assigned to NSW (which at that time included all of the east coast of Australia, including Tasmania).  Hence my thoughts that perhaps McNally was her  surname through marriage in Ireland to a soldier?

As Catharine Christiana McNally did later marry (in 1830) to an Irishman named Frederick Von STIEGLITZ I wonder if she was born in the same county in Ireland as that family?  It seems he was born was born on 13 October 1803 in Ireland, the eldest son of Baron Heinrich Ludwig von Stieglitz and Charlotte, née Atkinson, and grandson of Christian Ludwig von Stieglitz who had been created a baron of the Holy Roman Empire in 1765.

I do not know where abouts in Ireland this Frederick was born, SORRY I CAN'T BE MORE SPECIFIC, and I am trying to help advance the thread on the Australian boards.

JM
 

[majm]

Bit More,

Is it possible to check " Eglish Parish, Armagh, Ireland" for a possible sighting of Catherine Christina McNally please.  My reasoning:

a) Catherine Christina McNally married in Tasmania in 1830 to IRISH born Frederick.  On extracted IGI records his christening took place at that location in 1803.

b) His younger sister was also christened at that same location in 1806.  Her forenames were Charlotte Christina and her surname was recorded as STIEGLITZ, again her christening - as per extracted IGI

Thanks in advance,

JM

[TF13]

hi wiggy,

i cant help with catherine directly but there maybe something's indirectly to help find out some more on her.

i had a flick through your australian thread, great work , but if i'm duplicating things then my apologises,it's hard to take in 12 pages!

the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland (proni) holds a lot of documents on the von stieglitz family but 2 in particular stand out as perhaps being helpful in your search for catherine; frederick's will and a diary of frederick's brother,robert.

the diary is described as " Journal of events from 1830, when Frederick and Francis Von Stieglitz emigrated to Tasmania . Robert Von Stielglitz followed three years later, leaving Tasmania in 1836 to commence Sheep farming at Williams Town, Victoria, Australia". it would be unlucky not to find something on catherine in the journal? i'm being optimistic anyway

frederick's will might hold some connections back to australia,i dont know,but her children might get a mention in the will.still being optimistic

you can search proni's e-catalogue here; http://applications.proni.gov.uk/LL_DCAL_PRONI_ECATNI/SearchPage.aspx
just type in von stieglitz. you cant view the documents online but you can order copies for a fee or you could see if anyone can go and view them for you.

i hope this is of some help!

tony