Hi, Our group of descendants has been researching our convict ancestor Elizabeth Burrell, born Northumberland 1781, arrived Port Jackson 1814. She was assigned to a fellow convict, the widower Isaac Dowse to help look after his four daughters. They had another four children together. There is no indication they ever married but she called herself Mrs Dowse. We have not been able to find her death (she is not the one at Wellingrove, that is an unconnected infant death). Today I have received the death cert of an Elizabeth Dowle (not quite Dowse) who died in the Parramatta Lunatic Asylum on 31 Dec 1869. She was buried at the All Saints C of E Cemetery, Parramatta, on 2 Jan 1870. The cert is missing a lot of detail but there is nothing which proves it is NOT her. I assume that the information on the death cert would have been all they had at the asylum. It has no age but if it is our Elizabeth she would have been 88. Her husband was dead and at least three of her four children had left the Sydney area. The fourth was around Campbelltown until the early 1860s but then headed to the Hunter Valley. So it is possible that there was no family to provide information to the asylum when she was taken in. Even so, I was wondering if there was anywhere to look for more information on inmates of that asylum at that time. Thanks, Geoff
