Hi all,
It could be that Catherine Rook and James McGuire's possible baby girl was born a) at sea, b) in the West Indies or c) on Continental America .... perhaps he was a) Royal Navy or b) soldier anyways, around the time Britain was at war with her colonies and with the French for control of the plantations where the slaves that Great Britain was transporting to the SUGAR growing areas worked. St Kitts, any of the Carribean Islands. ..... James McGuire's info on the Peter Maybery website indicates he had previous convictions and the records are extant and can be made available. .... perhaps a deserter ... hence 14 years for stealing a cow (ie previous convictions taken into consideration at the sentencing).
If the MCGUIRE=ROOK had a daughter (possibly named Catharine Christiana) then she should have been vitualled and noted on the Secretary of War's records at I think from memory "Whitehall". These could be at the UK's National Archives. I think I have the WO file numbers for same era, but back at my home (which I will be returning to later today .... five hour drive though).
I think there would also be similar info on the 1815 pay list, however, CC Mc N was most likely no longer vitualled against his pay list, as she had become crew in 1811 on the Perserverence. I am suggesting though, that the Catherine McGuire, free woman on the 1818 VDLmuster, could well be her. McGuire would be her maiden name, but if he regularly used his known alias of McNally, then she may have, at times, chosen to use that instead. IT WAS NOT ILLEGAL TO BE KNOWN BY AN ALIAS, the word has a much more unsavory meaning NOW, but it was not so in that era.
I will try to write out a likely "fictional" history of what I think MAY have occurred, but that will not get done until I am at my own 'puter, and so it will be late tonight.
I think it very very likely that Captain William ROOK and Thomas RANSOM were CC McN's protectors, and that Catherine Kearney, alias McNally was protecting her too. I think the problem occurred in 1814, when James McGuire came to VDL as part of the 46th regiment (as McNally etc) and thought he could push his way back into his daughter's life. I think Roger Gavin was a threat to CC McN and that it was he, who in 1825, to impress Gov Arthur, "ferretted" out any gossip he could on any of the NI settlers. It would be to get his promotion to Chief of Police to Gov Arthur's newly formed police district.... which happened to be down the road, passed his step sons farms and Roger Gavin only knew a part of the story.
Of course, I could be so far off track, but .... its worth a try. It seems to be the closest yet to finding the origins, and the key to Wiggy's puzzle.
Cheers, JM (excuse any typos, I'm typing without much screen, and with electrical interferences ...
