Lilian's Tree

 Continuing from  Part 1   I would sometimes look at the document and try and figure out what it said, I have even looked at the reel it was on, with no luck in working it out. I concentrated on building Thomas' family, from his marriage in 1854 to Mary Torpy to today. FASTWORWARD TO 2022. In the past two years, while Covid-19 has kept us very close to home, I've continued my family history research and this year though I'd try and crack the mystery of 'Catherine's' arrival. Now Ancestry have digitised the New South Wales, Australia, Assisted Immigrant Passenger Lists, 1828-1896,  Catherine   This is what I found. While it is a better copy than the one I have, it is still hard to read, so I downloaded it and tried to lighten it. Still not the best but I can now see that Patrick paid for his brother and two sisters to come and that a Margaret Hickey took Catherine's place. Why?  Still no closer to the answer. A discussion with friends, lead to the suggestion...

 Back in the 1980's, I like so many others started researching my family history. My wonderful surprise was a cousin, Joan,  who lived eight houses away from me and was very willing to share information and help me with my research. One day she handed me a passenger list from the Joseph Somes, this lead me to discovering the arrival of my great-grandfather Thomas Abberton and his sisters, Anne and Catherine.  Well we though it was Catherine but... This is part of the page Joan, gave me with a very interesting margin note,  As you can see it is a photocopy of a printout of a microfilm, from the New South Wales State Archives and Records and is very difficult to read.* From what we could decipher Catherine Abberton DIDN'T arrive on 3 February 1852 and that a Margaret Hickey had taken her place!  Why???? That question was put in the 'To Hard Basket' and I concentrated on Thomas and his family. FLASHBACK. In researching Thomas, I had to take in the whole family and ...

 Ancestry has released their new Ethnicity updates and added a new tool for us to use. Now I don't usually dissect my results to closely but today, and with the new tool, I thought I would.  I first looked at my Ethnicity results and this time there was a change, interesting but I'm still more Scottish than Irish.  Now in September 2021, I was Scotland   - 47% Ireland      - 41% Sweden & Denmark   - 7% England & Northwestern Europe - 5% So what has changed, not much except I've 'lost' my England and Northwestern Europe bit but I can see where its gone.                                                                                                              ...