FLUERTY/FLUTEY - help needed please.

[majm]

Yes Please Merlin

That's a very kind offer.

Cheers,  JM

[majm]

http://trove.nla.gov.au/people/604958?c=people

[majm]

My OH assures me the following is in Mr Donohue’s book “The Catholics of NSW 1788-1820”
 
“It is most misleading for a researcher to believe that the Church of England records exclude Catholics.  It does not.  …. Almost a quarter of the early Catholics recorded their baptismal and marriage events in the early Church of England records.   It should be remembered that those registers were never exclusive to the Church of England:”

I WILL SEND PM TO MERLIN thanking Merlin for the kind offer and asking for confirmation of my transcription of my OH’s words over the copper wires from home in NSW to here in the NT.

May I note that some of my forebears worked for the NSW Registrar Generals Office.  May I note that Mr Donohue also worked for the Reg Gen.   I am not related to Mr Donohue.

Cheers, JM

[majm]

May I note that several of my direct lines include forebears who arrived in NSW before Gov Bligh arrived.   Some were part of garrison forces.  Some were free settlers, and only a very few were transported under a sentence of a civil court.

May I note that my interest in family history stems way way back, back to the late 1950s, when genealogy was simply not one of the top of the pops hobbies.   But I could always rely on the rellies ... particularly the generation older than me to give me clues about my favourite question "who am I, where did I come from, who do I take after" etc  )  and then to allow me to cross examine them and to "find the papers to prove it" ...  I haunted the ML in Sydney the doorman knew me quite well  "Hello Miss ..... back again I see, give my regards to your Grandmother" ... 

So may I note that Sayonara's question of me (am I sure) and my response (yes quite sure) is simply a fair exchange of views and is not to be mis-construed.

Cheers,  JM...

[~MERLIN~]

My OH assures me the following is in Mr Donohue’s book “The Catholics of NSW 1788-1820”
“It is most misleading for a researcher to believe that the Church of England records exclude Catholics.  It does not.  …. Almost a quarter of the early Catholics recorded their baptismal and marriage events in the early Church of England records.   It should be remembered that those registers were never exclusive to the Church of England:”
I WILL SEND PM TO MERLIN thanking Merlin for the kind offer and asking for confirmation of my transcription of my OH’s words over the copper wires from home in NSW to here in the NT.
May I note that some of my forebears worked for the NSW Registrar Generals Office.  May I note that Mr Donohue also worked for the Reg Gen.   I am not related to Mr Donohue.

I can confirm that the above is written in the book 

[majm]

Thank you Merlin,

Cheers,  JM (off now to sort out some real life thingys for a family member who is ill)

[keinname]

So may I note that KEINNAME's question of me (am I sure) and my response (yes quite sure) is simply a fair exchange of views and is not to be mis-construed.

Cheers,  JM...

I am dumbfounded that the above clarification needed to be made. I thought it was just understood.

Please understand my next post below in the same vein - a fair exchange of views, nothing more, nothing less.

[keinname]

I know I am going to get cannon balls fired in my direction for this one, but here goes anyway.

Just because Mr Donohue wrote it in his book, does not make it so.

First for the reference to Gov Macquarie required all clergy to transmit records to the NSW Chaplains, the General Orders published in the Sydney Gazette and digitised at Trove. I cannot find the order, and I have searched in every way that I can think of. Can someone else please find them and post a link? As I would love to read them (assuming that the order does actually exist).

Now to the history of the Catholic faith in early NSW. It Is well documented on this web-page of the State Library of NSW:
http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/discover_collections/history_nation/religion/catholics/

Let’s not let Mr Donohue, or anyone else, rewrite history. And I am afraid that “something that I have "known" basically ALL my life” just does not cut it.

In 1788 when the 1st fleet landed the only sanctioned denomination was the CofE.

For the first 20 years (1788-1808) all Catholics were expected to undertake their baptisms, marriages and funerals in the CofE tradition, and all Catholic convicts were expected to attend CofE services. The only exceptions during this time were:
(1) During the time that Fr James Dixon was in the colony. Even though he arrived as a convict in January 1800 the first Mass was not held until 15 May 1803. With the Castle Hill uprising in 1804* Government approval for the public Mass was withdrawn as not only was Governor King suspicious that Dixon’s services allowed Irish convicts to plot against the government, but they did actually do so. Dixon continued to marry and baptise Catholics in private. He returned to Ireland in 1808. Catholics could now meet for prayers, but no Mass, and no Catholic performed baptisms or marriages.
(2) In 1819 when the French ship “Uranie” arrived in Port Jackson. Local Catholics rushed to the Catholic priest aboard the ship to have Catholic marriages and baptisms performed.

[* something that I have previously studied in a great detail – don’t believe me? Read my article about William Hancy on Familypedia, it is still the featured article more than 6 months after I wrote it http://familypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Family_History_and_Genealogy_Wiki  ]

Governor Macquarie arrived in the colony of NSW between the time of (1) & (2) above. Macquarie  stepped off the boat on 1 Jan 1810 when there was no Catholic priest in the colony. He was relieved as Governor on 1 Dec 1821. The only time that there was a Catholic priest in the Colony during the time of Gov Macquarie was while the “Uranie” was in port, and from 1820 when Fr Phillip Connolly and Fr John Joseph Therry arrived.

Gov Macquarie in a letter dated 14 Oct 1820 authorised Fr Phillip Connolly and Fr John Joseph Therry to “Perform “ their “Clerical Duties in New South Wales and Van Dieman’s Land” with “due Regard to the Laws of the Mother Country”. This included the performance of Catholic marriages, even though at that time in “the Mother Country” only marriages performed in CofE rites were legal (in other words Catholic marriages performed in England at that time were not Marriages recognised under the law). They were required to transmit applications for marriages, where required, in the same manner as that of the ministers of the CofE church. They were to keep a register of the marriages (a separate register to any of the CofE church) that could be inspected; and make quarterly return of said marriages to the Governor. No Catholic marriages were to be performed unless both bride and groom were Catholic.

Fr Connolly moved in Hobart in 1821, and Fr Therry remained in Sydney until his death after 44 years.

There was never any need for Gov Macquarie to require “all clergy to transmit records to the NSW Chaplains” until October 1820, and then instead he required that the Catholic clergy to remit returns directly to himself, just as the CofE clergy already did.

(more than 5500 characters so continued in next post)

[keinname]

(continued from previous post)

It is most misleading for a researcher to believe that the Church of England records exclude Catholics.  It does not.  …. Almost a quarter of the early Catholics recorded their baptismal and marriage events in the early Church of England records.

What then with Mr Donohue’s statement above? When it is first understood that until 1820 the only baptism and marriages under Catholic Rites occurred during 1804-1808, and very briefly in 1819, then it is indeed true that the early Church of England records did not exclude Catholics. They did not exclude Catholics as the only way to have a baptism or marriage performed was under the Cof E rites by a CofE minister. They were not “their baptismal and marriage events” but CofE ones. As concerns marriages, at the time this was no different to marriages in England where for Catholics since 1753 (until 1849) the only legally recognised marriage was a CofE one, and all Catholics (and those of other faiths as well) had to undertake a CofE marriage ceremony. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_Act_1753

In 1820 Catholic ceremonies received official approval in NSW. From 1820 in NSW Catholic records were kept for Catholic baptism and marriage services, but not all have survived. These records for the Catholic rites, however, were Catholic records and not records that ever became part of the registers that were kept by the Church of England.

It should be remembered that those registers were never exclusive to the Church of England.

What then of Mr Donohue’s statement above? I am sorry, but I would have to disagree. Show me the historical proof and I will change my mind.