... Pauline didn't originally ask for our help with her research so she has been very gracious about us all gate-crashing ...
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Ros, I have not gate-crashed this thread. In fact, I am still waiting to learn the name and identifying details of the ancestor that our OP shares with the Thomas Lockley who married Ellen Hunter in 1891.
I am quite sure that some of her grandchildren did not ever refer to her as Grannie although our OP has used that word and spelling. Perhaps some other of her grandchildren were encouraged to address her as
Grannie but the grandchildren I am aware of simply did not. You may draw your own conclusion as to how I ‘know’ that some of her grandchildren did not refer to Ellen as Grannie, but I am not a grandchild.
I am quite sure that many RChatters familiar with NSW researching will agree with me that a farm with 2 horses, 5 cows and 230 sheep in the 1890s and 1900s at Boree would provide only a subsistence level of living for a family. Some of the properties in that district were running 15,000 head of sheep in that era.
The Thomas Lockley listed on the PROV passenger list arriving October 1879 is shown there as English, farmer aged 43. If the passenger provided accurate information about himself, then he was likely born 1835, 1836 or 1837, but our OP has recently posted 14 September 1839 as date of birth of her ancestor.
Ancestry has uploaded a lot of Western Australia’s convict records. One clearly shows that the official record for the convict Thomas gainfully employed from as early as 1868, and was on conditional release in 1871. His eight year sentence was completed in 1872. The same digitised official record notes he embarked on the Charlotte Padbury, and my earlier post shows the date he left WA as 5 January 1878. May I note that many learned family history buffs across decades would share the following
“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence”. So to me, the dots between the convict departing WA in 1878 and the passenger arriving Sydney in 1879 are simply not yet joining up. Has the ship’s log been checked for any mention of him, where did he disembark etc. Just because the OP has not found him on the UK 1881 census does NOT mean the chap marrying in NSW in 1891 is him, and just because a chap arrived in October 1879 does not mean he is either the convict or the one who married in 1891. Nor does it disqualify those chaps as candidates. Simply put, the research is not yet joining the dots.
Earlier in the thread I effectively wrote about each family history buff being responsible for setting their own standards of ‘proof’ when determining who to include in their own tree, and that it is not my concern what standards our OP has set for her own research. I am concerned though when there’s information shared on public forums particularly when I see the chance of a shared ancestor. So when I ask fairly standard family history questions about the ancestors named in there, and I indicate I have further information, and I am not given answers that make good sense my sense of concern heightens. I become concerned about the method of research ... For example, I offered an alternative to Robert Hughes The Fatal Shore when researching WA convicts, and I noted that Hughes book addresses NSW, Norfolk Island and Tasmania and like you also noted, I noted a different timeframe. I contrast our OP’s lack of acknowledgement of that contribution (the 106 page pdf) with her acknowledgement of my armchair check of the NSW BDM online index sighting of Ellen and Edward HUNTER’s son born 1886.
To me, family history researching is about striving to obtain the primary records and in doing so, to learn about the context, so while it is good that our OP found Hughes book, it is also important to note that his book should not be considered a reliable authoritative book on WA convictism. Researching history (family, local, convictism or any other 'classification) does not commence with the introduction of the Internet. The first Challis Professor of History at Sydney Uni was appointed back in the 1890s. He researched and wrote on the then existing resources he found for Australian History. From memory his name was Arnold Wood. Fred Wood (his son) wrote the 1930s text book used in schools ... it was titled A Concise History of Australia. He migrated to NZ taking up a history professorship there.
I wonder if the WA convict records were filmed back in the 1940s as part of the AJCP (Australian Joint Copying Project) and if so, then these would likely be available in England. A quick Google search seems to show that it is so.
https://www.nla.gov.au/microform-australian-joint-copying-project http://cms.slwa.wa.gov.au/dead_reckoning/other_material/australian_joint_copying_project There are other factoids but I have much more enjoyable things to do that spend time on my PC typing replies on a sunny Sunday midday. I certainly do not make a habit of reading threads and posting at about 3 a.m. on a Sunday morning and then possible adding to a post in the pre-dawn hours. I am turning off notifications to this thread.