Author Topic: Catherine Brennan, emigrated to Australia on the Kapunda 1875  (Read 4592 times)

Offline wivenhoe

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Re: Catherine Brennan, emigrated to Australia on the Kapunda 1875
« Reply #9 on: Tuesday 06 November 18 06:12 GMT (UK) »

Can you please list all the information on this marriage certificate -

BDM QLD marriage
1876   C430   Catherine   BRENNAN / William TURNER

What names do you have for their children?

Offline GeoffTurner

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Re: Catherine Brennan, emigrated to Australia on the Kapunda 1875
« Reply #10 on: Tuesday 06 November 18 07:40 GMT (UK) »
Sure.

1876 District of Kennedy Colony of Queensland, registered by William Samwell.
No 145 (No. 430 in margin)
3rd April 1876 Millchester [now a suburb of Charters Towers in north Queensland]

William Turner (Bachelor, South Australia, miner, age 33) Parents James Turner, gentleman, Mary Seymore [William's mother's maiden name was actually Rounsevell]

Catherine Brennan (Spinster, Mullingar Ireland, no occupation, age 22) Parents Dennis Brennan, Schoolmaster, and Catherine Newman.

Place of residence for both:  Millchester

Married at Beggum's Hotel, Millchester, under the Rites of the Presbyterian Church.
This marriage was solemnised between us
William Turner
X Catherine Brennan (her mark)
In the presence of us John Chalmers and Sarah Ann Williams
by me James Carson Officiating Minister

I have just found a funeral card which gives their ages at their deaths in 1908 as 66 and 60, so on that basis Catherine would have been born about 1848 and would have been about 28 years old when she married in 1876.

The Kapunda list in 1875 has her as 25, and her birth date as about 1850.

So there are several ways to estimate her birth year and in this case, the marriage cert seems the least reliable of all.

Offline GeoffTurner

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Re: Catherine Brennan, emigrated to Australia on the Kapunda 1875
« Reply #11 on: Tuesday 06 November 18 07:48 GMT (UK) »
William Turner and Catherine Brennan had five sons.

James Rounsevell b 1877 Charters Towers Qld.
John Joseph b 1879 Donald Vic
William Henry b 1884 Birchip Vic
Charles Gordon b 1886 Birchip Vic
Alfred Horace b 1889 Birchip Vic.
In 1893, after 19 years in Victoria, they sold up and moved to Lockhart in NSW, where they died together in the house fire in 1908.

Offline wivenhoe

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Re: Catherine Brennan, emigrated to Australia on the Kapunda 1875
« Reply #12 on: Tuesday 06 November 18 08:59 GMT (UK) »

"..In 1893, after 19 years in Victoria, they sold up and moved to Lockhart in NSW,"

This doe not fit with other information about this family. Where are you seeing this....from a death certificate?

Can you give all the information from the certificate please?

Why did they move to NSW?

Charles Gordon TURNER, WW1 #2258,  is not literate, even at 1933. And his BRENNAN grandfather, Dennis, is a schoolteacher?

You often see children named to suggest paternal / maternal grandparents, so you might expect TURNER sons born to Catherine BRENNAN to have name Dennis as first or second given name.
Not so with the TURNER sons.   

I wonder if Dennis BRENNAN, schoolteacher, is husband of Catherine's mother, but not her father?



Offline GeoffTurner

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Re: Catherine Brennan, emigrated to Australia on the Kapunda 1875
« Reply #13 on: Tuesday 06 November 18 10:42 GMT (UK) »
Death certificate for William Turner, husband of Catherine Brennan.
The places to write are numbered but this is what I assume they mean
2 Mar 1908 Brookong, Lockhart (that would be date and place of death)
William Turner, farmer
male 66 years
Deceased bodies found in building that had been destroyed by fire .... etc. H Barnaby Coroner.
Parents James Turner, carpenter/wheelwright; Mary Rounsevell
Certified by John J Turner Son, Lockhart, witness's name obscured.
Methodist (religion, but there would not have been a Methodist section of the cemetery) 7 Mar 1908 Lockhart (burial date)
Rev J Hoonborn (?) Church of England (I know William is buried in the C of E section of Lockhart cemetery)
R. V Griffin
John Wallis (witnesses?)
Willunga Sth Aust (place of birth; the following would be where he had lived)
Sth Aust  16 years
Qld 17 years
Victoria 19 years
NSW 14 years
Queensland 33 years Catherine Brennan (where married, for how long, to whom)
A list of the 5 sons living, none deceased.

The wife of a cousin, Pauline Turner, has been researching the family for many years and produced a booklet, "Cornwall to Australia: James and Mary Turner and family". Some of the documents and the reference to them selling up in Victoria and moving to NSW are in that. I remember my grandfather telling me his parents had died in a house fire on Brookong station.

Pauline must have seen Catherine's death certificate, although it was not reproduced in her book. She says it lists her religion as Catholic, her son was the informant (probably John since he was the informant for William at the same time).

Pauline says that William and Catherine moved from Queensland and took up a selection at Narraport in Victoria, not far from Birchip, in 1880. Droughts crippled his crops, rabbits were moving into the area and there was an outbreak of pleuro-pneumonia in 1892 which she thinks might have been killed some of his stock and been the last straw. So he sold his land and held a clearing sale without reserve in 1893. He moved to Brookong Station and took a labouring job and was living in a cottage on the station when the fire engulfed their house.

Pauline has done an excellent job so if you have an interest in the family I could put you in touch with her if you like.

Offline GeoffTurner

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Re: Catherine Brennan, emigrated to Australia on the Kapunda 1875
« Reply #14 on: Wednesday 07 November 18 13:04 GMT (UK) »
I now have the death certificate for Catherine Brennan. I will quote it in full, it explains some of the things I wasn't sure of with the cert for her husband William Turner.
2nd March 1908 Brookong Lockhart Catherine Turner female 60 years.
Charred bodies found in building destroyed by fire. No evidence to show how fire originated.
Inquest held at Lockhart on 3 and 4 Mar (signed) H Parnaby Coroner.
Name, occupation of father; name, maiden name of mother, all unknown. (in a transcription this is changed in hand-written note to mother's maiden name Brennan)
Informant John J Turner, son, Lockhart.
Buried 5 Mar 1908, Lockhart
Undertaker James Nolan and Sons
Minister M J Sheahy
Roman Catholic
R Griffin John Wallis witnesses
born Westmead, Ireland (in transcription this is changed to Mullingar, Westmeath, Ireland)
4 yrs Qld, 19 yrs Vic, 14 yrs NSW
Married in Qld, age at marriage 27
Spouse William Turner
List of 5 sons all living, none deceased.
Inquest Lockhart 3 and 4 Mar 1908.

Offline Marcello

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Re: Catherine Brennan, emigrated to Australia on the Kapunda 1875
« Reply #15 on: Wednesday 07 November 18 23:09 GMT (UK) »
Are there any other names listed from Mullingar on the ship's manifest. It might help narrow down things or point to some outlying parishes?

Offline GeoffTurner

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Re: Catherine Brennan, emigrated to Australia on the Kapunda 1875
« Reply #16 on: Thursday 08 November 18 00:03 GMT (UK) »
Good thought. But the Kapunda manifest I have lists only names and ages, not places of birth.

Offline Marcello

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Re: Catherine Brennan, emigrated to Australia on the Kapunda 1875
« Reply #17 on: Thursday 08 November 18 10:52 GMT (UK) »
That's a pity...just a thought.