Was MAY GRAY actually EMILY MAY (MAY EMILY) DOWSE?

[GeoffTurner]

Hi Dorothy,
Be careful with ThruLines on Ancestry. As I understand it, they are based on people’s Ancestry trees, not on DNA matches. So if there is an error on a tree, it can be reflected in the ThruLines. Others might know more about this.
Geoff

[Dorothycourt63]

Hi
This is why I removed most of the tree. So no errors.
Thank you

[sparrett]

The index to the register of dependent children NSW State Archives gives 2 others with "same parental details"
They are Edna and Gwen.

Sue

I can no longer find the source of tis information . It is perhaps not correct.

There is a point of contradiction in the information provided by the 2 posters GeoffTurner and  Dorothycourt63. with Geoff saying  - 
"We know Bridget was fostered out,"

Dorothycourt63 asserts -
"Bridget stayed in a children’s home. Until the day she was old enough to leave."

Dorothycourt63 tells of her contact with Bridget's daughter. What else does this daughter know?  Any hints of Bridget's early life?

I would like to go back to Bridget GREY in the Dependent Children's Register whom you have rejected as the infant.

Maddy has kindly pointed out in #5 that there is one day's difference in the birthdate of Bridget whose document you have and the girl in the document I have offered. Highly likely, as mentioned, they are the same girl.
Perhaps this  section of the thread is worth a re-read.

And as mentioned, There is not another registered

Albion Park, where Sydney Ross is purported to live, is about 6 kilometers from Jamberoo.

As you will see from the DCR record I have offered, Bridget went to be fostered by Mrs Elizabeth BARRETT.and remained there for many years perhaps until "old enough to leave."

Some information about Elizabeth and husband Thomas of Massey Street can be found in Trove and NSW BMD. 

Could you tell us anything else you know about Bridget whichmay support or contradict  the possibility of the DCR girl  being correct ?
Sue

[GeoffTurner]

My information comes from Dorothycourt63. She approached me because of my knowledge of the wider Dowse family, and I suggested Rootschat as an information source. She has now joined and is posting for herself, so I am taking a back seat. She tells me it is taking a long time for her messages to appear. I don't know if that is because she is a new member.
I think Dorothycourt63 still favours May Gray as being Emily May Dowse. I don't think that can be right, so I am looking for alternative explanations.
The birth certs that Dorothycourt63 has for Leo Gray (1901), Bridget Gray (1902), William H Gray (1908) and an unnamed male child name Gray (1909) all have the mother's name as May or May E, and no father's name.
The transcription of Leo's birth cert says he is illegitimate and his mother, May Gray, was 18 years old, born at Jamberoo NSW.

[Dorothycourt63]

Hi Sue,
I have written down everything you guys have said so I can go back over everything. I am very thankful to you all.
I had to get permission to have May and Bridgets records open from benevolent. Bridget was taken from her at birth. On Bridgets birth certificate it says Bridget mother’s was May Gray single, and 24 years old. Born stoney creek. That was 1902. But in 1901 only 18.
I am not saying it is Emily May Dowse. Yes that was the daughter was looking at but I have looked at all of them. I looked at all the DNA matches with 3rd, 4th cousins to see which bloodline they are.
When I found Ethel May gray I was quite to say it was her. There is no DNA matches at all to Ethel. I then messaged family trees to see if by any chance she could be May gray.
So I printed out the tree on Ancestry and then removed most of the information and I now have more matches to the Dowse family. I don’t get it.
When I talked with Bridgets daughter it was upsetting for her to talk about. Her mother use to say May was a child that was shipped from overseas and given a new name so she had a better life.
I actually shouldn’t have mentioned the boys as now I don’t know if they are from the same may gray.
Unfortunately I can’t share the benevolent records I had to sign on that.
Hopefully I am going to Sydney soon to get the other records from benevolent hopefully has more information . with me being sick has pushed my plans back a little.
So is the DNA wrong ?
I hope this makes sense.

[GeoffTurner]

I got the birth certificate for Ethel May Gray, who I thought might be the May Gray we are interested in. She was born on 26 July 1877 at Jordan's Crossing, which is about 43km from Jamberoo, according to Google Maps (i.e. as the crow flies, over some steep terrain), with the birth registered at Berrima. I suppose it's possible the family moved to Jamberoo when she was young and that's why she put Jamberoo as her birth place. Or maybe she put Jamberoo because she knew the father of Leo Gray was John Thomas Dowse and he was from Jamberoo. But that is a lot of conjecture with little to nothing to substantiate it.

Added to that is the fact that on Leo's birth certificate in 1901, May Gray says she is 18 (perhaps being loose with the truth), and born at Jamberoo, whereas Ethel would have been more like 14, and born at Jordan's Crossing, and I don't think she is the right person. 

This assumes that the same May Gray had all four illegitimate children (the last stillborn and unnamed) at the Benevolent Asylum in the period 1901-1909. But I don't think that is the hardest thing to believe.

I am still a little hazy about what Dorothycourt63 means by DNA matches. I don't think the DNA matches would be wrong. I just hope that what she is looking at are indeed DNA matches, and not Thrulines or something.

Certainly if May Gray was born in Britain (possibly under a different name) and emigrated to NSW, that would explain why we can't find her among the NSW births. And if John Thomas Dowse was the father of the children (explaining the Dowse DNA link), and he was from Jamberoo, that might explain why she said that was where she was born. If she was a child migrant she might genuinely not have known where she was born.

Geoff

[Dorothycourt63]

Geoff
I keep telling you I am using DNA matches and not thur lines. I work on a lot of people’s dna and never been wrong yet. The dowse line is so strong.
Ethel has no DNA matches at all. I have been in contact with that side.

[sparrett]

Hi Dorothy,
Why don't you attach the birth certificate for Bridget which you have.
It might help.

I had understood from what you said that the birth must have been not registered

The only one on the NSW BMD index being stated as incorrect. Reply #5 this thread

Do you have access to the certificate?

What information is on Bridget's marriage certificate

Do you have access to that?

Sue

[GeoffTurner]

This is Bridget's birth from NSW BDM:

GRAY BRIDGET 24962/1902 MAY PADDINGTON

Mother is May Gray, no father given.

Dorothy says (in post in this thread dated 9 Nov 2023): "I had to get permission to have May and Bridgets records open from benevolent (the Benevolent Asylum or its successors, I presume). Bridget was taken from her at birth. On Bridgets birth certificate it says Bridget mother’s was May Gray single, and 24 years old. Born stoney creek. That was 1902. But in 1901 only 18." And in 1901 (Leo Gray's birth) May's place of birth was given as Jamberoo.

And in the same post Dorothy says: "Unfortunately I can’t share the benevolent records I had to sign on that." I presume she means there were confidentiality conditions because of the sensitive nature of the material.

I hope this helps until Dorothy has a chance to reply.

Geoff