St Aubyn Burke family from Cork, Ireland

[battista]

I'm trying to find out more details about the birthplace of my grandmother. She came from County Cork, Ireland to Australia when she was young with her parents. When she was a young adult, she moved to New Zealand. I'm attempting to find as much information as I possibly can about this family, so I have more to work with in my Irish record searches.

Given names: Eileen Gertrude St. Aubyn
Surname: Burke
Birth: approx. 1858, County Cork, Ireland (birthplace found in obituary and death certificate)
Marriage: 23rd of December 1884, St. Thomas Church [illegible], Petersham, New South Wales, Australia
Husband: Henry John Murray (born in New Zealand)
Death: 4th of September 1926, Christchurch, New Zealand

Father: John St. Aubyn Burke
Father's occupation: Squatter (as far as I know, this is an Aussie specific profession)
Mother: Stella Chester

Moved to Autralia: Unknown, "The daughter of an Army officer, Mrs Murray was born in County Cork, Ireland, and at an early age came with her family to Australia." - Obituary
Moved to New Zealand: A few years prior to 1884 "a few years after her arrival [in NZ] she married..." - Obituary

Not known whether Eileen had any siblings, can't find a mention of any.

Her marriage record: https://i.imgur.com/bZEQHfH.png
Her death certificate: https://drive.google.com/file/d/13RAKhJJuQi6RImoktYAM_S9ihDdywuiv/view?usp=sharing
Her son's enlistment paper: https://i.imgur.com/058nZam.jpg
Obituary: https://i.imgur.com/DNPm4QZ.jpg

The lady transcribing the original record for the death certificate got a few relationship(s) section wrong, she was new and in training. Why they let her do such an old record, I'm not sure...

I looked on Trove to try and find some entries for the family, it doesn't seem as easy to use or as comprehensive as the NZ equivalent PapersPast (which I'm more familiar with). I couldn't locate any information on a "St Aubyn Burke" family, couldn't seem to find a John/Eileen/Stella St Aubyn/Burke record of arrival. I tried to see if there was a newspaper entry for Eileen's marriage to Henry Murray in 1884, no luck there either.

Looked for the death records of John/Stella St Aubyn/Burke in all the AUS states that would let me search for them. No John St Aubyn Burke, but plenty John Burkes. Unfortunately, couldn't find any relevant newspaper entries for a John or Stella Burke death. John Burke is a pretty common name, I suppose Stella is less so.

I thought if John St Aubyn Burke was a squatter, there might be some records of a farm? Not sure where to locate that.

Unsure of where to go from here really. I'm not sure whether Trove is the definitive location for Aussie Newspapers, nor where else I could look for information on this family.

There's another thread about this in the Ireland board, I posted a while ago: https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=810585.0

[hallmark]

https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=810585.msg6706710#msg6706710

[majm]

I think St Thomas Church,  Petersham NSW would be a Roman Catholic ceremony.  ....

  do you have the witness names?  Perhaps family members. 
  what info is recorded on the marriage cert  about  the bride and her parents ..... are there some blanks or has the NSW BDM any endorsement notes showing they have reconciled their registry with the Church register/s 

If you dont have the cert,  dont rush off to order it just yet. 

JM

[battista]

I think St Thomas Church,  Petersham NSW would be a Roman Catholic ceremony.  ....

  do you have the witness names?  Perhaps family members. 
  what info is recorded on the marriage cert  about  the bride and her parents ..... are there some blanks or has the NSW BDM any endorsement notes showing they have reconciled their registry with the Church register/s 

If you dont have the cert,  dont rush off to order it just yet. 

JM

Thanks JM for the response.

Yes that is an RC marriage.

Her NSW marriage cert is here: https://m.imgur.com/bZEQHfH

Witnesses were J. Murray and E. B. Ward (I believe, hard to read the surname). John Murray is Henry's father. The other witness I'm unsure of.

All the details from my original post are from the marriage, death, obituary and her son's enlistment papers. Only her parents names and father's occupation is present. I'm not sure what endorsement notes are.

[majm]

.....

Thanks JM for the response.

Yes that is an RC marriage.

Her NSW marriage cert is here: https://m.imgur.com/bZEQHfH

Witnesses were J. Murray and E. B. Ward (I believe, hard to read the surname). John Murray is Henry's father. The other witness I'm unsure of.

All the details from my original post are from the marriage, death, obituary and her son's enlistment papers. Only her parents names and father's occupation is present. I'm not sure what endorsement notes are.

Thanks,  now I am on my desktop computer (instead of e-reader). 

I can see the image of the m.c.

The word is Rectory  (St Thomas Church Rectory)

The endorsement notes show that NSW BDM has reconciled the information in columns 7, 9 and 10 with the Church Registers .... but NOT column 5 ... perhaps that was recorded in a different church register.  Most denominations used two or more registers and stored them separately (fire, flood, safe keeping etc).    So column 7 is 'age' and '9' is parents and '10' is parents occupations.   That information was NOT sent through to NSW BDM at the time the clergy transmitted the information.  And NSW BDM commenced the reconciliation process in around 1911 and it stopped due to WWI, and basically has not ever been finalised.  So you are fortunate that at least columns 7, 9 and 10 are on the document.

I will have a close look at my offline NSW resources in the morning and if I can help further I will.

Trove is a fantastic resource, but it does have funding issues, and of course it covers the newspapers from across the entire continent and then some, and basically in the 19th century it covers SIX colonies whereas NZ was just one colony.   But I do agree that Papers Past is a great resource and its keyword function is easy and comfortable to use. 

JM

[sparrett]

I see the first witness as J. Murray WHITE.
Second E B WARD

Sue

[majm]

Yes,  I agree with Sue,  that's WHITE as the surname for the first witness.  The endorsement notes are in the right hand margin.  I recognise the wording and initials and etc in the endorsement as typical for that style of endorsement. 


JM

[majm]

SQUATTER

I think you will find that Squatter in the sense of an occupation may well have been used in several of the colonies, including NZ ... perhaps as an alternative word to 'pastoralist' ...  Occupying land for farming pursuits in NSW has a long history of political intrigue and poor administrative processes particularly in the mid 19th century.   There were land reforms in the 1860s to try to provide better processes, but squatting on land was one way to gain occupancy.

The marriage cert is first hand information, but it does not give any birthplace.  Have you considered contacting the Roman Catholic Diocese for Sydney to see if they have the original parish register which will likely give ALL the details that Eileen provided to the clergy when marrying.... including her baptism info .... although it was a marriage in the Rectory rather than in the main church building...

https://www.sydneycatholic.org/

Re her father ... the obit for Eileen mentions he was in the military.... perhaps it was that service that brought the family to NSW?  The British military provided regiments etc to protect their colonies in the Antipodes ... stationed them in Sydney NSW to protect not just NSW but the British interests in the South Seas ... including Fiji, NZ, Qld, Vic, Tas, etc etc etc  So, have you the details for his military service ... that may help you move back to generations earlier ...

JM

[battista]

Thanks Sue for the transcription, yea I would agree with those two names. If it's J Murray White, I have no clue who that is (other than simply John Murray).

Thanks @majm. RE: RC sydney No I haven't, I was going to contact them, but was told (can't remember who) they wouldn't have anything of interest that wasn't already on the marriage record. It sounds like there's a chance though, so I'll send them an email.

Quote from my thread in the Ireland section, RE army record of John Burke.

Source   Gro Regimental Birth Indices (1761 To 1924)
Archive reference   REG1
Record set   British Armed Forces And Overseas Births And Baptisms
First name(s)   John
Sex   Male
Last name   Burke
Birth year   1828
Regiment   74th Foot
Type   Armed Forces
Country   Ireland
Place   Cork
Page   44
Archive   
General Register Office
Record's year range   1828
Volume   1304
Line number   102
Category   Birth, Marriage & Death (Parish Registers)
Subcategory   Civil Births
Collections from   Great Britain, UK Other

There's another one with the same details, but on page 48 instead of 44. Used findmypast for that, not sure if that's the best one to use for these records? Too bad John Burke is such a common name, it's hard to figure out who is who. This one would've been 30 when Eileen was born.