Looking for DAVID GILLESPIE, son of Robert

[earlybird]

Hi I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who has a DAVID GILLESPIE in their family tree who disappeared to Australia, anytime between the 1840s to early 1860s, but possibly earlier.

He married my g-g grandmother in 1864 in South Australia but disappeared soon after - possibly to the Victorian Goldfields. He was never seen again.

David's marriage cert lists a Robert Gillespie as his father. David's trade/occupation was listed as shoemaker. We have absolutely no other information about David except we deduce he was illiterate as he marked the cert with an X.

Family legend has it that he came from St Andrews but we have no proof of that. We'll accept all spellings of Gillespie as the name was written as it sounded, "Gellesbuy", on the marriage cert.

Thank you, Earlybird

[MonicaL]

Hi Earlybird

Do you have any estimate on David's age? Any occupation given for his father Robert?

Monica 

[earlybird]

It says on the marriage cet that he was of "full" age so we know he was at least 21. I'm afraid no occuption was listed for his father.
David married in the copper mining town of Kapunda, Sth Aust. Even though his trade/calling was "shoemaker" he possibly took up mining.

[MonicaL]

What children did he have with your gg grandmother? Although from what you say, he may not have hung around long enough for the names to be meaningful on searches back in Scotland...

Added: Got a better idea now from this other post www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,517837.10.html. Hard search for you EB  No David Gillespie (with wildcards) showing as a shoemaker or anything close up to 1861 that I can see anyway. A couple of shipping manifest entries for a David but no age or occupation included so hard to say whether any could be for him.

Monica

[Sandymc47]

Hi there

Its hard to find the connections so I dont know if this
is your David.

David Gillespie born or bapt on 28/11/1824 at St Andrews
only thing is there are no Davids born over many years
with a Father called Robert.  This Davids parents were
David Gillespie and Helen Aikman.
That would make him 40 when he married your ancestor.
Not knowing when he went to Australia, he could have
been married previously in Scotland and then gone to Oz?

Lots of gaps I know but I think the only way you can find out for sure of his age would be his death certificate if you could find that.

I did look for Robert first and did find only one over many decades
born in St Andrews and that was the following

Robert Gillespie  14th February 1777 in St Andrews
parents are James Gillespie and Jean Fortune.

Thinking that Roberts Father might be called David thats
why he might have called his son the same there are two
but they dont live in St Andrews.

Robert Gillespie b 7/8/1768 at Falkirk, Stirling
parents are David Gillespie and Margaret Boyd
Robert Gillespie b 15/02/1775 at Glasgow City
parents are David Gillespie and Janet Livingston

Hope this doesnt complicate the matter but maybe
someone can connect the dots in their tree.

regards
Sandymc

[earlybird]

What children did he have with your gg grandmother?

To the best of our knowledge he didn't have any chn with my g-g grandmother. Interestingly though, her son by an earlier relationship (my g-grandfather) was given the surname Gillespie and that name has remained in the family. Why would a child who's step-father was around for such a short time keep his name?

A GILLESPIE (no first name listed) arrived in steerage on the GRECIAN in 1849. No age given!

My cousin unearthed the following "A David G., single, aged 20,  who arrived as a sailor on the "Alert" in 1853 may or may not be our man; he was admitted to the Adelaide Hospital in May 1853 with "Syphilitic bubo" (!!), and released 3 weeks later."

If this chap survived his bout of the clap then he would have been about 31 yrs of age in 1864 and therefore a possible candidate.

It would certainly be handy to know the names of the fathers of each of these men.

Hoping the names of the above mentioned ships may ring a bell with someone.

[earlybird]

Thank you Sandymc47 & Monica for your imput. I've certainly got my "work cut out for me". You just never know, one little piece of the jigsaw my find the answer for us.

I can tell you Monica, that since my earlier post which you found, we eventually located the resting place of Eliz Jane HARRIS. That was thanks to someone else matching info from my posts with info they had on a death cert. It too a few years, but we got there.

My cousin wondered whether David Gillespie was in fact Irish? Despite protests from family members over the years that he was Scottish I wonder if he was the opposite to what they said he was! Food for thought!

[ourfamilylines]

I don't have much. I have a David Gillespie born to Robert Gillespie and unknown mother about 1830 possibly in Falkirk area.
You can see more of this Gillespie family @ my website : freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ourfamilylines/

and my surname database : http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ourfamilylines/family/fowndx.htm#GILLESPIE

[earlybird]

Sorry ourfamilylines, but I don't think we have the same man. Your family tree shows that your David Gillespie was in Scotland in 1864. "Ours" was in Australia by then and had married my g-g-grandmother in March of that year.

The marriage cert shows his trade as shoemaker whereas your man was a sailor. I wish they were one and the same, it would make life much easier!

I have a suspicion that my cousin may have followed your family tree some years ago until he worked out he had the wrong fellow. Thanks anyway!