Friday, December 28, 2012

More Fair Dinkum Grandmothers

Dermot MacMurrough  
Mor O'Toole (Mor Ni Tuathail) (c. 1114 - 1191), wife of King Dermot MacMurrough (Diarmait MacMurchada) (1110 - 1171) of Leinster in Ireland, is another of my grandmothers (28 generations).  MacMurrough was a son of Donnchad mac Murchada, King of Leinster and Dublin, whose grandmother Dervorgilla (Derbforgaill) was a daughter of Donnchad, King of Munster and therefore she was a grand-daughter of Brian Boru.

Sometime about 1140 in Loch Garman, County Wexford, Mór was married to King Diarmait Mac Murchada of Leinster as his second wife, making her Queen-consort of Leinster.  One of Dermot and Mor's three children, Eva,  Aoife MacMurrough (1145–1188), married 29 August 1170, Richard de Clare, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, known to history as Strongbow, by whom she had two children, including Isabel de Clare, Countess of Pembroke, who became the heiress to her father's titles and estates.

Isabel Marshal, nee de Clare, was the mother of Isabel de Clare, nee Marshal, who in turn was the mother of Isabel Bruce, nee de Clare.   The last mentioned Isabel was, of course, the grandmother of Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland.

28:  Mor MacMurrough (nee O'Toole) was one of two wives of King Dermot, Irish men at that time in history allowed more than one wife, under Brehon Law.

27:  Eva (Aoife) de Clare (nee MacMurrough) married the leader of the Norman invasion force on 29 August 1170 at Reginald's Tower, Waterford, at the request of her father.    Under early Irish Law, he was not allowed to give his daughter away, and Aoife (or Eva) had the choice of whom she married.   She agreed  to follow her father's advice.

26:  Isabel Marshal (nee de Clare), Countess of Pembroke, was the wife of the famed Lord Marshal of England to four successive kings, William Marshal, 1st Earl of Pembroke.  

25:  Isabel de Clare (nee Marshal) (9 October 1200 - 17 January 1240), one of ten offspring of William Marshal and Isabel de Clare, married Gilbert de Clare, Earl of Hertford and Earl of Gloucester.  Prior to their marriage, Isabel and Gilbert were related via eight steps.  

Although Isabel married Gilbert, 20 years her senior, at Tewkesbury Abbey on her seventeenth birthday, the marriage was an extremely happy one, despite the age difference, and the couple had six children.   Isabel's husband Gilbert joined in an expedition to Brittany in 1229, but died 25 October 1230 on his way back to Penrose, in that duchy.  His body was conveyed home by way of Plymouth and Cranborne, to Tewkesbury, where he was buried at the abbey where they were married.

Isabel was a young widow, only 30 years old. She had proven childbearing ability and the ability to bear healthy sons; as evidenced by her six young children, three of whom were sons. These were most likely the reasons for both the proposal of marriage from Richard, 1st Earl of Cornwall, and Isabel's acceptance of it, despite the fact that her husband had just died five months previously. The two were married on 30 March 1231 at Fawley Church, much to the displeasure of Richard's brother King Henry, who had been arranging a more advantageous match for Richard.   Isabel and Richard got along well enough, though Richard had a reputation as a womanizer and is known to have had mistresses during the marriage.  They were the parents of four children, three of whom died in the cradle.

Isabel died of liver failure, contracted while in childbirth, on 17 January 1240, at Berkhamsted Castle.  She was 39 years old.   When Isabel was dying she asked to be buried next to her first husband at Tewkesbury Abbey, but Richard had her interred at Beaulieu Abbey, with her infant son, instead.  As a pious gesture, however, he sent her heart, in a silver-gilt casket, to Tewkesbury.

24:  Isabel Bruce (nee de Clare) (2 November 1226 - 10 July 1264), one of six offspring of Gilbert and Isabel, married Robert Bruce "the Competitor", fifth Lord of Annandale and the grandfather of Robert  Bruce, seventh Lord of Annandale, Earl of Carrick and King of Scotland.


Thursday, December 27, 2012

Why do they call it a "tree"?

de Quincy coat of arms
 Margaret (also known as Marjory) de Quincy (1218 - 1280), the daughter of Roger de Quincy (1195 - 1264) second Earl of Winchester by his first wife Helen of Galloway, was the second wife of William de Ferrers (1193 - 1254) fifth Earl of Derby, 25 years her senior.

Eleanor de Ferrers (? - 1274), the daughter of William de Ferrers (1193 - 1254) fifth Earl of Derby by his first wife Sibyl Marshal (1201 - 1245),  was the second wife of Roger de Quincy (1195 - 1264) second Earl of Winchester.

Each woman therefore was both the step-mother and step-daughter of the other!

de Ferrers coat of arms

Saturday, November 10, 2012

St. Vincent

Below deck on the emigrant ship St Vincent.
The 'Illustrated London News' engraving above shows life below deck on the emigrant ship St Vincent (built in 1829). Once used as a convict ship, the St Vincent, under Captain John Young, sailed from Deptford on 8 April 1844 with 157 emigrants (8 single females, 20 single men, 30 married couples and 69 children) to Sydney.  She stopped in the West Country and at Cork, Ireland (known as Queenstown while under British rule) to take on additional migrants (38 single females, 22 single men, 13 married couples, and 21 children).  Most of these emigrants had received special government grants that subsidised settlement in the colonies. The offer was open to families, single men 'of good character' and a proportion of single women between eighteen and thirty, who had been in domestic or farm service.  The Illustrated London News stated 'The future well being and respectability of the colony [Australia] mainly depends on the good conduct of the working classes'.

St. Vincent 1844
 The St. Vincent arrived at Port Jackson on 1 August 1844, with five infant deaths and four births having occurred during the voyage.   One of the five infant deaths was Maria Willett, born 1842 at Shenley Brook End, Buckinghamshire, England and the younger sister of my great-great-grandmother Jane Aldis (nee Willett) [born 28 February 1839 Shenley, Buckinghamshire, England and died 10 March 1916 Killarney, Queensland, Australia].   Maria and Jane's parents (my great-great-great-grandparents George E. Willett (born 10 September 1804 Shenley, Buckinghamshire, England and died 9 May 1883 Warwick, Queensland, Australia) and Sarah Maria Willett (nee Thompkins) (born October 1811 in Buckinghamshire, England and died 11 January 1902 at Warwick, Queensland, Australia)) were free settlers, looking to make a new life for themselves and their family in New South Wales.   They settled on the Southern Darling Downs, when this was still New South Wales, before the Colony of Queensland came into being.

Also aboard the St Vincent, were George William Verrall (born 10 November 1806 at Hailsham, Sussex, England and died 12 April 1879 at Redbank Plains, Ipswich, Queensland) and his wife Sarah Phoebe Verrall (nee Keach) (born 1 January 1821 at Bridport, Dorset, England and died 6 December 1913 (at age 92) at Riverview, Ipswich, Queensland).   On 6 May 1844, on board the ship St Vincent, their son Charles St Vincent Verrall (died 28 June 1923 in Ipswich, Queensland) was born.

Family history research reveals that my wife is a granddaughter of a brother of the wife of a grandson of George William Verrall.   George and Sarah's son Thomas Verrall was born 4 June 1847 at Richmond River, New South Wales and died 14 May 1908 at Ipswich, Queensland.   Thomas' son Herbert Verrall (born 16 February 1878 in Ipswich, Queensland and died 17 October 1958) married Nina / Vinia / Venia Annie Hansell (1884 - 13 March 1918), an older sister to my wife's maternal grandfather.

 To add to the tangle of family connections, another of my great-great-great-grandfathers, Jeremiah Diplock (born 19 August 1798 in Linfield, Sussex, England and died 18 June 1885 at Cockfighter Creek, Wollombi, New South Wales) was transported as a convict to New South Wales as a 21 year old in 1820.   The "Australian Royalty" website advises, "In 1819 he burgled the house of Richard Verral in the tiny village of Falmer. He was tried in Sussex, England on 1 Aug 1819 and sentenced to seven years. He arrived in the colony on board the ship 'Coromandel'. He received an absolute pardon on 10 Aug 1826."

 It certainly is a small world!   George William Verrall's father, Charles Verrall (born 1 June 1783 at Ninfield, England and died 21 March 1867 (at age 83) at Hailsham, Sussex, England), was the brother of the said Richard Verral(l), whose house Jeremiah burgled!

Sunday, October 28, 2012

The List Family

Mindeparken

 

I have written previously about my great-great-grandfather Paul Hansen List (born 3 December 1836 in Haderslev, Denmark and died 28 August 1885 at The Mountain, Pialba, Queensland, Australia) and his family migrating from Haderslev to Queensland.  They left Hamburg, Germany aboard the Fritz Reuter on 15 October 1878 and arrived in Brisbane (after being quarantined in Moreton Bay for typhoid fever from 20 January 1879) on 7 February 1879.   My great-grandfather Jacob Hansen List (born 3 April 1858 in Haderslev, Denmark and died 7 January 1911 at Mount Perry, Queensland, Australia) and his family, including my grandmother, at the time a 4 year old, joined them in Queensland, arriving 12 November 1888, aboard the S.S. Dacca from London.

 

Through contact with a fourth cousin in Denmark recently, I learnt that Paul Hansen List arrived in Queensland, following his brother John (Johan) who had emigrated five years previously.   Johan Petersen List ( born 3 February 1829 in Haderslev, Denmark and died 21 May 1896 at "High Hill Farm", Pialba, Queensland, Australia and buried at the Cemetery at Denman's Camp, Pialba) departed Hamburg, Germany on 14 April 1873 aboard the Reichstag and arrived in Maryborough, Queensland on 18 July 1873.  With 44 year old Johan, listed in Queensland Death records as "John", were his 41 year old wife Christine Sorensen List (nee Schmidt) (1829 - 1908), their 11 year old daughter Ingeborg Petersen List (born 3 May 1862 in Haderslev), their 8 year old son Anders Christian List (born 6 September 1864 in Haderslev), their 6 year old son Martin Petersen List (born 27 December 1866 in Haderslev), their 3 year old daughter Marie Catherine List (born 3 January 1870 in Haderslev) and their infant son Christian Petersen List (born 9 October 1872 in Haderslev).   Johan and Christine's first born, Christian Andersen List (born about 1859), was not listed as a passenger aboard the Reichstag, and it is presumed that he died before the birth of his younger brother Christian Petersen List.

 

The Lists were Danes, but Haderslev at the time was German, so one of the reasons the family migrated to the British Colony of Queensland, was to avoid having their sons conscripted into the German Imperial Army.   Hans Peder Nielsen List was not so fortunate.

 

Jorgen Petersen List (born 21 April 1823 in Haderslev) was an elder brother of both Paul Hansen List and Johan Petersen List.   Jorgen (George) married Mette Marie Brink (nee Frank) on 29 May 1875 in Haderslev, and they had two children, Hans Peder Nielsen List (born 26 June 1876 in Haderslev) and Anne Marie List (born 25 March 1879 in Haderslev).   Hans P. List is one of 4140 names of the fallen, Danes conscripted into the German Imperial Army and killed during the First World War.   Hans was killed on 2 October 1914 in France, and his name is #2324 on the Marselisborg Monumentet.


Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Grandmother Mariota Home (nee Sinclair)

Wedderburn Castle, Berwickshire, Scotland.
Sisters, Mariota and Margaret Sinclair, had the world before them.   Their grandfather John Sinclair of Herdmanston was a man of means, and their father John Sinclair of Polwarth was his heir.   Their mother Katherine Sinclair (nee Home) had handsome kinsfolk George Home and his brother Patrick Home, of whom the girls were enamoured (respectively).   Their father died in 1466, and they "fell into the hands of an uncle, who, anxious to prevent their marriage, that he might succeed to the estate, immured them in his castle in Lothian."   They sent a message to the young men of Home via a beggarwoman, and were dutifully rescued, "the two youths soon appeared at the castle gate at the head of a strong body of Merse men. The uncle made all possible resistance, but could not prevent his nieces being carried off before his face in triumph to Polwarth.   The marriage was immediately celebrated, and part of the nuptial rejoicings consisted in a dance round a thorn, which grew in the centre of the village.  In commemoration of that affair, all marriage parties thenceforth danced around the thorn, for which purpose an air was composed, called "Polwarth on the Green," to this air many words have been adapted."


At Polwarth on the green / Our forbears oft are seen / To dance about the thorn / When they got in their corn. - Also: At Polwarth on the Green / If you'll meet me in the morn / Where lads and lasses do convene / To dance around the thorn.

Mariota, my direct ancestor (15 generations; great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother), married Sir George Home, 2nd Baron of Wedderburn, son of Sir David Home and Elizabeth Carmichael, before March 1468.   Sir George Home, 2nd Baron of Wedderburn, was born in 1432 in Wedderburn Castle, Berwickshire, Scotland and died on 18 May 1497 near Wedderburn Castle, Berwickshire, Scotland.   Mariota's younger sister, Margaret, married George's younger brother, Sir Patrick Home (Hume) of Polwarth, born in 1434 in Wedderburn Castle and died in November 1503.

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Sir George Home, 2nd Baron of Wedderburn (1432 - 1497), the father of Sir David Home, 3rd Baron of Wedderburn (1457 - 1513), was killed by the English, near his own house, Wedderburn Castle, in 1497 (as reported by David Hume in his Family History).  In 1496, Percy, Earl of Northumberland (although English, actually a relation of George) came with five thousand men to rustle the Home's cattle and plunder their property.   With insufficient force to resist the initial attack, George lead eight hundred Scots to block the Englishmen's return.   The battle ended in favour of the Scots, who retook all the plunder.   George however did not long survive his victory, for the following year, he came across more English about to attack his home.   Snatching up his spear and not waiting for any of his attendants, 65-year old George attacked the English.  He drove them back initially, but when they realised he was alone, they rushed him and killed him, shamefully mangling his body.

A month after George's murder, an army of three thousand Englishmen under Lord Neville insultingly marched past the castle of Wedderburn and burnt the town of Dunse and wasted the surrounding countryside.  Enraged, George's widow (Grandma Mariota) offered her servants a reward of ten pounds for each Englishman they should kill; they sallied forth and killed four.   Meanwhile, George's brother Patrick and George's son David (Patrick's nephew) gathered together five hundred friends and vassals at the conflux of the waters of Blackadder and Wedderburn, by which way the enemy must return.   Cockburn of Langton. my direct ancestor (16 generations; great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather), was in such a hurry to come to their assistance, that he didn't wait to arm himself.   His vassals pleaded with him not to expose himself, to which he replied, "he would turn his coat inside out, for as it was white inside, the enemy would think it a coat of mail".   He fought desperately, as did his comrades, despite being outnumbered six to one.   They killed many Englishmen, with revenge for the murder of George Home a motivating factor.   The remnants of the invading Englishmen escaped into the Castle of Blackadder, where the laird received them.  This was the cause of repeated quarrels between the Homes and the Blackadders, until the latter became completely exterminated.   David became so formidable (until slain at the Battle of Flodden in 1513) that no man of the same name as those who caused his father's death dared appear within fifty miles of the border.

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Let's not allow facts destroy a good story, and we'll ignore the fact that Grandma Mariota (1435 - 1496) died a year before her husband's death.   Ralph Neville (1456 - 1499), 3rd Earl of Westmorland and ancestor of both 2nd U.S. President John Adams and 6th U.S. President John Quincy Adams, was a captain of the English Army sent into Scotland in 1497 after James IV supported the pretensions of Perkin Warbeck.  James IV provided a ship called the Cuckoo and a hired crew under a Breton captain which returned Perkin to Waterford, Ireland in shame in July 1497.  James IV made peace with England by signing the Treaty of Ayton at St Dionysius's Church in Ayton in Berwickshire.   Neville's purpose was not especially to insult the Homes.  Andrew Blackadder's brother Robert was Archbishop of Glasgow and the trusted friend and counsellor of King James IV and the godfather of the Prince of Scotland.  Perhaps Laird Blackadder may not have wanted to offend the Earl of Westmorland, with James IV of Scotland suing for peace with Henry VII of England.

Blackadder family history reports, "George Home, laird of Wedderburn being pursued by a party of English Borderers and hardly pressed in the vicinity of Blackadder Castle, sought admission there but was refused and before he could reach Wedderburn he was caught and stabbed. This was in May 1497. The spot where he fell, near his own door at Wedderburn, is marked by a cross surrounded by a stone wall and holly hedge. Hence the feud between the two families. David Hume however in his history of the house of Wedderburn gives another version of the quarrel. He does not mention the fact of the laird of Wedderburn seeking refuge in Blackadder Castle but says that after his murder by the English, his son David with Cockburn of Langton raised a force and had an affray with the English at Kelloe in which the latter were worsted. The Blackadders not only took no part in this to help the Homes on their act of retribution but they received as many of the English fugitives they could into Blackadder Castle and sent them away afterwards in safety without ransom. For this reason he says the Homes determined that their quarrel with the Blackadders should be to the death. At this time however there was a quarrel or feud between the laird of Blackadder and the laird of Wester Nexbit and the Homes appear to have taken the part of the latter. This would account for the Blackadders refusal to give any to the Homes."



Saturday, September 29, 2012

Grandmother Coffin

Ann Dunsford (born Coffin) is my direct ancestor (5 generations; great-great-great-grandmother). She married William Dunsford, and together they produced my great-great-grandmother Jane Ann (1829 - 1900) who married William Hewlett (1825 - 1892) from Poole, Dorsetshire in England.   Their daughter (my great-grandmother) Emma Louise Hewlett (born April 1851 in Poole, Dorsetshire, England and died 1 September 1948 (at age 97) in Bowen, Queensland, Australia) married Alexander Hardie Cockburn (born 24 April 1837 in Coldinghame, Berwickshire, Scotland and died 2 September 1917 at Queensland, Australia).

Emma's sister Ellen married James Armstrong in 1885.   Their daughter Pearl Lillian married Reginald Ferguson Scott in 1924, and were the parents of one of Queensland's favourite sons, Glynn Scott.  

Glynn Scott
What a treasure trove "Trove" is!   It advises that the Brisbane Courier-Mail of Saturday 6 April 1940 reported:

Released From Gaol
After Reginald Ferguson Scott, dentist, of Brisbane, had paid £17 to his wife, Pearl Lillian Scott, of Bulimba, and filed an apology for not obeying an alimony order, Mr. Justice Macrossan directed yesterday that he should be discharged from custody. His Honour adjudged Scott guilty of contempt of Court on February 29 for not paying £17. arrears of alimony to Mrs. Scott, and sent him to Boggo Road Gaol.

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 Reginald F. Scott did not have a good year in 1940, with The Australian Dental Mirror [Vol. 6, No. 6], journal of the Australian Dental Association (Queensland Branch) reporting:


Recently the Dental Board of Queensland made loca ental History. It held its first sitting as a court and heard evidence in a case where a dentist was charged before it with unprofessional conduct in that he advertised otherwise than in the manner prescribed. After hearing extensive evidence and speeches by counsel, the Board recorded its finding as follows: "The Board adjudges Reginald Ferguson Scott guilty of misconduct, in a professional respect, in that he advertised otherwise than in the manner prescribed under The Dental Acts, namely, that in or about the month of December, 1940, he caused to be printed, issued and delivered to members of the public an illustrated pamphlet commencing, "Introducing the Staff of R. F. Scott, Dental Surgeries." "In view of his undertaking not to contravene the advertising By-Laws at any future date, the decision of the Board is that he be severely reprimanded." This action of the Board was the first of its kind held under the powers conferred upon it by the Amending Dental Act of 1939. The Board, under this Act, has wide powers given it to enforce any of its regulations, and also it has a wide discretion in the use of its powers. It is decidedly the duty of the Board to exercise that discretion in an appropriate manner when dealing with the circumstances of any particular case. When any dentist has been found to have committed a breach of the Board by-laws.



Bedstemoders

Denmark
My great-great-great-grandmother Sill Marie (Cecilia Marie) Sandholdt (nee Holm) was born in Denmark in 1800.   She married Jacob Sandholdt (born 1798), with their daughter Anna Marie Sandholdt (my great-great-grandmother) born 3 July 1838 at Haderslev, Denmark.  Anna Marie married Paul Hansen List (born 3 December 1836, the son of Christian Petersen List and Marie Catherine Hoier List (nee Jorgensdatter or Jorgensen), in Haderslev in 1860.   Anna Marie and Paul Hansen List had nine children:
  1. Jacob Hansen List (born 3 April 1858 in Hadeslev, Denmark; died 7 January 1911 at Mount Perry, Queensland, Australia);
  2. Marie Catherine List (born 6 June 1859 in Hadeslev, Denmark; died 24 December 1930 in Queensland, Australia);
  3. Christian Petersen List (born 15 February 1862 in Hadeslev, Denmark);
  4. Lauritz Hansen (Lars) List (born 23 November 1863 in Hadeslev, Denmark; died 23 August 1934 at Pialba, Queensland, Australia);
  5. Cecelia Maria Hansen Coomber (nee List) (born 1867 in Hadeslev, Denmark; died in floodwaters at Glastonbury, Queensland, Australia on the fateful night of 13 January 1890);
  6. Anna Mary List (born 1871 in Haderslev, Denmark; died 22 July 1908 in Queensland, Australia);
  7. Annie Christina Lewis (nee List) (born 3 February 1872 in Haderslev, Denmark; died 5 November 1917 at Maryborough, Queensland, Australia);
  8. Jens Hanson List (born 1873 in Hadeslev, Denmark; died 21 July 1937 in Queensland, Australia); and lastly
  9. Paul Hanson List, Jr. (born 20 November 1879 in Queensland, Australia; died 21 June 1959 in Queensland, Australia).

Why the cross-outs above, one might ask?  Prior to the Second Schleswig War of 1864, Haderslev was situated in the Duchy of Schleswig, a Danish fief.  From 1864 it was part of Prussia, and as such part of the North German Confederation, and from 1871 onwards, part of the German Empire.

Family oral history has it that the Lists considered themselves Danish and were averse to having their menfolk conscripted into the Imperial German Army.   Eldest son Jacob moved to Ribe Denmark, where he married my great-grandmother Cecillie Marie Jensen on 30 November 1883.   My grandmother Annie Margaret Cockburn (nee List) was born on 6 April 1884 at Varde, Denmark, with her sister Pauline Hickey (nee List) born 12 February 1885 at Esbjerg, Ribe, Denmark.

Great-great-grandfather Paul Hansen List, his wife and four of their children, took the German Ship Fritz Reuter departing Hamburg 15 October 1878 and arriving in Brisbane, in the British Colony of Queensland, on 07 February 1879.   


Fritz Reuter


Their eldest son, my great-grandfather Jacob Hansen List, his wife and two daughters, joined them in Queensland a few years later, arriving on the S.S. Dacca in 1888.


S.S. Dacca
Jacob and great-grandma Cecillie Marie (born 11 December 1859 at Skads Mark, Skads, Denmark; died 6 February 1953 at Maryborough, Queensland, Australia) had a further four children, born in Queensland:

My grandmother, Jacob and Cecillie Marie's eldest daughter Annie Margaret (6 April 1884 - 10 December 1970), married Robert Alexander Cockburn (16 July 1876 - 17 July 1943) at Gympie Queensland on 6 September 1906.

Annie Margaret List