Morning Tony, thanks for your reply, yes its a hard one alright! We have very little information about great grand father, an actually not at all sure if what he had said was even true! Think he was given to telling porkys now an then
We know absolutely nothing about his parents, an that's what makes it so difficult, all we know is that he came here on a ship... no name for that either, with a Mrs Bramston from Victoria Australia, I have searched for the place he was supposed to come from but couldn't find anything there, an for Mrs Bramston which there were in Victoria an if my memory serves me well, I thing Bramston was a minister of government or something similar, but cant find if a Mrs Bramston died in NZ. As to accent well we are just surmising that maybe his accent was broad an his name was actually Almond but was taken to be Hallmond, I have found a lot of Almonds in Australia.
His sisters name, no idea he didnt mention a name in the paper, it was in past pages, so I dont know if that paper was sent to Australia or just NZ, it was a NZ newspaper. My living Aunt never met him so she didnt know if he had an accent or not. Both grand father an great grand fathers are buried in the Waikumete Cemetary in Auckland, I cant get there as I live in the South Island. However I did find on the internet grand fathers grave, bu not great grand fathers. I dont have a deathe certificate for either. No idea what happened to GGF parents either, its all very up there with very little information to go by. My other GGF we have the same problem with he was supposed have been born in Ruone France but cant find a thing on him either. Mind you its not surprising really given NZ was a new country an a lot of the people that came here were either prisoner's or hiding from something lol. Later came immigrants but they to were very poor people.
Yes I have scanned numerous papers for the sinking however if you could see the number that sank coming into the West Coast you would blown away, hundreds of people drowned when boats sank, the West Coast is notorious for sand bars, an often the captains would take the risk an try to get over them when it was to rough, resulting in the boats sinking, there are hundreds of ships that sunk in various places all along the West Coast of both islands. I haven't looked for any recently one gets eye strain reading to many at a time an quite often there were no passenger lists, they would just have a number of how many on board the ships.
So not very helpful at all really Im sorry, but I tend to think this Mrs Bramston might hold the key, I have searched everywhere for her, there was a Mrs Bramston whose husband was a captain of a ship, but couldn't tie anything together with that either. We don't know how old GGF was when he came here so don't have an accurate age for him either.
Your not wrong my GGF poses heaps of questions!
One day I hope to crack it
So sorry cant give you much to go by, not sure what would be written on GGF grave either, as my Nanny & grandfather separated an she was left with 10 kids to raise on her own an work on her farm, so we didn't know a lot about him apart from the fact he was a scoundrel! I found out most of what I know of him through research, he made head lines on occasions! He was never spoken about in the family.
I will keep looking for GGF grave, because I know its in Waikumete, but for some reason I havent been able to locate it!
Sorry I cant give you more answers, an I know it makes it almost impossible to find him, but I live in hope lol
Many thanks Tony I will keep in contact if I find any more an if I can find the grave.
Regards
Sunny