linswad on Family Tree Circles

John was apparently born 2 March 1813 at Windsor, NSW, one of six children born to Thomas GREEN and Catherine McLAUGHLIN. I have very little information about him, except that

he was admitted to the Male Orphan School in Sydney after his father's death
he became a mariner
he married Sarah Bryant in Sydney on 13 October 1834
they had a child Frederick, born 25 December 1837, died 8 December 1838

After this I have lost track of John and Sarah. John Green is unfortunately a common name!

In early 2019 I bit the bullet and had a DNA test done through Ancestry, and took advantage of a discounted 1-year subscription at the same time. A few weeks later I received my results, and began to look through my 30,000 connected trees (the number of close matches is only 300, so I started there). I found connections with the names I expected - Swadling, Barnett, Lane, Mudie - but there were several trees connected as 4th cousins which I could not make sense of. The owners of some of these trees are located in New Zealand, which was another surprise.

I spent a week going through these trees and was able to connect various names (Royal, Bills, Cook) back to common ancestors Thomas Cook and Ann Catherine Green in Majors Creek, NSW, in the mid 1800s. I can't find a marriage for Thomas and Ann, or baptisms for their four children, and Ann's death entry in 1861 has no parents listed. Despite all this, however, there is a definite connection to these trees - eleven of them and counting.

Now for the other side of the story: I have two convicts, Thomas Green and Catherine McLaughlin, who had six children in NSW between 1804 and 1816. They also didn't marry, and none of their six children were baptised - probably as Catherine was Irish Catholic and refused to be married by an Anglican priest. I have been able to trace what happened to only three of these six children - William (my gt-gt-grandfather), Mary Ann and Margaret - plus the two other children, Susannah and Martha, that Catherine had with Patrick Bambridge after Thomas died in 1815. This leaves Catherine, John and Thomas, and I have kept trying for 40 years to find these three with no success. Catherine married (as Caroline) in 1828 to Everitt Summons, and in 1840 ran away from her husband and their five children:

Sydney Herald Friday 21 August 1840 p.3
CAUTION-The Public are hereby Cautioned against giving credit to my wife, Caroline Summons, she having left her home and family in a clandestine manner, as I will not pay any debts she may contract.
EVERITT SIMMONS [sic]
Newcastle, 20th August, 1840

(this notice was repeated in April 1841)

I have looked for further traces of her (and her brothers) for years with no success, until now. It appears that my Catherine became Ann Catherine and took up with Thomas Cook, having another four children with him. One of the four died in 1888 in a mining accident, and the coroner's inquest gives his age as 46, and birthplace as Wollongong. Ann died unpleasantly in 1861, which was reported in the newspapers of the time:

Empire Sat 11 May 1861 p.3
DEATH BY BURNING. - The Braidwood Observer says:
An inquest was held at Major's Creek, on Friday, before Dr. Codrington, and a respectable jury, on view of the body of Ann Catherine Cook, of that place, who was found by their verdict to have met her death from having been accidentally burned by falling into the fire, on Thursday last. It transpired from the evidence of the husband and the daughter of the deceased and other witnesses that she lingered until Friday morning, last, from the injuries received, when she expired. On the morning of the previous day she had sent for her husband who was out at work to come in and take a glass of rum, she then being in good health. He lay down on the sofa up to one or two o'clock, when he went out, and upon his return found her sitting in the fire-place with her clothes smouldering on fire around her. He got a dish of water and threw it over her, she being insensible at the time, and subsequently got some oil to apply to the burns of the deceased, from a neighbour. No medical advice was called in, as he alleged he was not able to pay for it, and the deceased died as described. One of the witnesses deposed that the skirts of the clothes of the deceased were burnt to a cinder up to the waist. There cannot be a doubt, but that the unhappy woman was helplessly intoxicated at the time of the accident.

Of those eleven trees which connect to this Cook/Green family, four also connect to Catherine McLaughlin, my convict ancestor mentioned above, which makes it conclusive for me. The NZ connection comes about because a grand-daughter of Thomas Cook moved there and married in 1908. So for me the DNA test has been worthwhile in tracking down this one collateral ancestor, although I'm hoping her brothers may turn up one day as well. With their names being John and Thomas, I have had little success in all this time using traditional methods.

And then there's my mystery man, William Williams - he lived in Hobart in the 1850s and 1860s, but I have no place or date of birth or death for him. I really hope to find connections to him via DNA at some stage.

John arrived in Sydney via Hercules in 1832, aged 14. He had been convicted at the Old Bailey in London for stealing a handkerchief.

In 1842 he married Mary Ann BAKER, a convict via Henry Wellesley in 1836. She was also convicted at the Old Bailey, aged 15 in 1835, for stealing a pair of shoes. Both were sentenced to seven years transportation to NSW.

John and Mary Ann had seven children in Sydney: John, Thomas, James, Emma, Edward, Mary Ann, and Martha. John ran a successful blacksmithing business in Sydney until his death in 1858, aged about 40. Mary Ann lived until 1890.

Unfortunately, many trees on ancestry show John as being part of the family of William Swadling and Elizabeth (nee Watson), which is incorrect. This is probably in part because the marriage of John and Mary Ann was omitted from the NSW marriage index for many years. It has now been reinstated.

William WILLIAMS has been my brick wall for over 35 years. I know that he was born about 1810, and lived in Hobart between 1852 and 1867, but I don't know where he came from or went to! Without a death event and parents' names it's not possible to say that any particular baptism in Wales around 1810 is the right one. I had hoped that the name of his son, William Fenwick, would provide a clue, but this seems to be the name of a British war hero who died in 1883.

I'm open to suggestions or help on William.
This is his page on ancestry.

and this is his Familysearch page.

These are the facts I do know about him:

* 1852 16 Sep: Transfer of land from David Dunkley and his wife Elizabeth of Sandy Bay to William Williams of Watchorn St, mariner, and William Williams of Argyle St, carpenter [wasn't one William WILLIAMS bad enough!!]
* 1862 9 Jun: William Williams heretofore of Argyle St Hobart Town in Tas, carpenter, at present residing in North Wales, and William Williams of Watchorn St Hobart Town aforesaid mariner, sold some of their land
* 1862 18 Jun: Power of attorney from William Williams of North Wales, Great Britain, farmer, to Evan Jones
* 1863 15 Jan: son William born Watchorn St Hobart
* 1864 18 Apr: married Eliza BRITTON Presbyterian Free church manse, Hobart
* 1864 6 May: dau. Eliza Jane born Watchorn St Hobart
* 1865 25 Nov: son Richard Thomas born Watchorn St Hobart
* 1866 23 Apr: son Richard Thomas died
* 1867 13 May: son John Samuel born Bathurst St Hobart
* 1867 25 Jun: William Williams of Watchorn St Hobart Town in Tas, mariner, sold his land
* 1873 31 Dec: power of attorney from William WILLIAMS of 5 Brynteg Tce, Upper Bangor, Carnarvon, UK (which William is this??) to Evan Jones
* 1890 20 May: son John Samuel married at Wollongong, William Schenck(?) WILLIAMS is a witness (is this the father, or yet another William WILLIAMS??)

William married Eliza BRITTON on 18 April 1864, when Eliza was 18 and William 54 years old. They had one child before this, and another three after their marriage:

1. William, b. 15 Jan 1863 Watchorn St, Hobart, TAS
2. Eliza Jane, b. 6 May 1864 Watchorn St, Hobart, TAS
3. Richard Thomas, b. 25 Nov 1865 Watchorn St, Hobart, TAS, d.23 Apr 1866
4. John Samuel b. 13 May 1867 Bathurst St, Hobart, TAS

The next record I can find of any member of the family is in September 1887, when John Samuel became a ship's engineer, in NSW. He married Mary Jane BATE in Wollongong NSW in May 1890. Their son William John died in Leichhardt in 1913, and the funeral notice mentioned his relatives:

* Mr and Mrs W. WILLIAMS and family
* Mr and Mrs BRITTON and family

So one of Eliza's BRITTON family, and probably John Samuel's brother William WILLIAMS were living in Sydney at that time!

I then looked in the NSW death index, and found Samuel BRITTON, son of Samuel and Ann, had died in Sydney in 1916. Looking at the Rookwood index again I found a date of death for Samuel, 16 July 1916.

The Sydney Morning Herald carried a funeral notice on 17 July 1916:
The friends of Mrs Mary BRITTON and family are invited to attend the funeral of her beloved husband and their father Samuel to leave 55 Edward Street Pyrmont this day at 1 pm for Church of England Rookwood.

Searching back through the NSW indexes revealed Samuel's marriage in 1866, and the births of their children. So Eliza's brother Samuel had moved to Sydney from Tasmania in the 1860s.

In 1998 I was looking through the SAG Rookwood Index for Eliza or William WILLIAMS and found an Eliza J., much too young to be her. But then I realised the date was right for their daughter, Eliza Jane. There was little information given except that she died 29 Oct 1882 aged 18, and there was also a John BENHAM d.10 Mar 1880 aged 75 in the grave.

I checked the SMH and found the funeral notice put in by Joseph BENHAM for his step-daughter Eliza WILLIAMS. The NSW index lists a marriage between Joseph BENHAM and Eliza BRITTEN (her maiden name!) in 1879 in Sydney. At that time she claimed her parents were Samuel WESTWOOD and Ann (unknown). There's also a death in Redfern on 24 Sep 1885 for Eliza BENHAM, father John BRITTON, which is also her). She might have kept quiet about her parents because they were convicts of course. Her sister Priscilla (POPE) was one of the witnesses to the marriage - when I checked the NSW marriage index for POPEs I found Priscilla and her children marrying in Sydney during the 1870s and 1880s.

Then I checked for BENHAMs in Rookwood and found another grave containing:

1. Eliza b.5 jul 1848, native of Tasmania, wife of Joseph BENHAM, died 24 sep 1885 aged 37. Eliza was b.4 July 1845 according to the Tasmanian records (sounds like she lied about her age when she remarried).
2. Mary Sybina, d.11 aug 1919 aged 61
3. Joseph d. 16 dec 1940 aged 90

So, now it looks like most of my BRITTON and WILLIAMS families moved to NSW from Tasmania, probably to escape their convict background, as many did at that time. William died sometime after Nov 1873 (when he was in court with his son William in Hobart).

Where he died is still unknown - as a mariner, he may have died anywhere in the world.

Mary Ann GREEN was born about 1806 at Green Hills NSW (later renamed Windsor by Governor Macquarie). There is no mention of her birth (or those of her five siblings) in the records of the NSW Registrar-General.

She spent time at the Female Orphan School, along with her sisters Margaret and Catherine, while their brothers John and Thomas were in the Male Orphan School. William, the eldest child, was apprenticed as a shipwright at the Government Dockyard in Sydney. Margaret was apprenticed to Francis Greenway as a house servant. He later threw her out of his house for stealing from him. The Orphan School Committee

were unanimously of the opinion that Mr. Greenway has betrayed the trust reposed in him with regard to the said orphan apprentice inasmuch as that he should either have prosecuted her for the theft, or have retained her in his house under his protection, and therefore it is resolved that Mr. Greenway has forfeited any future claim to an apprentice from this institution.

By 1822, Mary Ann was a domestic servant for a Mr. Wright of Sydney. Late 1823 saw her marriage to William WORTH, master mariner, at the age of 17. Their daughter Grace was born in February 1824. Mary Ann's sister Catherine (Caroline) was married in October 1828 to Everitt SUMMONS. Both William of the Schooner Elizabeth and Mary, and Mary Ann, were witnesses to this marriage.

William died in Sydney in June 1834, at 45 years of age. His widow remarried to Christian HUBE, in August 1837, witnessed by Catherine GREEN (probably her mother) and a John DELANEY.

Catherine TIERNEY arrived in NSW with the rest of her family aboard the Queen Victoria on 26 July 1841. The ship's papers listed a large family:

* Michael TIERNEY, a 37 year old labourer, son of Roger TIERNEY and Catherine KILLEEN, of Dunmore, Galway
* his wife Judy (later referred to as Julia), a 34 year old dairywoman, daughter of Patrick CONNOLLY and Mary SIMES, also of Dunmore

and their children

1. Catherine, 16 years old (but an inquiry was held into her age to determine the bounty, because of her small stature)
2. Roger, 12
3. Mary, 10
4. Bridget, 8
5. Honor (Hannah), 6
6. Patrick, 4
7. Bernard, 2


A further three children were born in NSW:

8. William, b. 13 Dec 1842, Bathurst
9. Ann, b. 24 January 1845, Tongy
10. Ellen, b. 9 January 1847, Weetalabla

The family settled in the northern part of NSW. Michael died in 1873 at Wollombi, west of Newcastle, where his gravestone still stands. Judy died at Bendemeer, in the New England region, on 10 February 1881. Their daughter Catherine married James COLEMAN on 4 July 1849 in Sydney.

Everitt SUMMONS arrived in NSW via the Brothers. The 1828 Census of NSW lists a SUMMONS family group of six:

* Everett - 35 yrs, came free Brothers in 1825, protestant, servant, working for Australian Agricultural Company at Port Stephens
* Caroline - 18 yrs, born in the colony, protestant
* John - 28 yrs, came free Brothers in 1825, protestant, servant, working for Australian Agricultural Company at Port Stephens
* Elizabeth - 20 yrs, came free Brothers in 1825, protestant
* E.R. - 18 mths, born in the colony, protestant
* infant - 1 mth, born in the colony, protestant

Birth, death and marriage records show this to be two families. Everitt had married Caroline (or Catherine) GREEN in Sydney on 28 Oct 1828, and they had five children:

1. Eliza b. 7 Jan 1829, bap. 14 Apr 1829 Newcastle
2. Everitt b. 17 May 1830, bap. 25 Jul 1830 Newcastle
3. John Australia b. 9 Sep 1831, bap. 30 Oct 1831 Newcastle
4. Edward b. Nov 1832, bap. Dec 1832 Stroud
5. Sarah Ann b. 22 Dec 1835, bap. 13 Apr 1836 Stroud

I have found several notices in the Sydney Herald around 1840-41 from Everitt, cautioning people not to give credit to his wife Caroline, who has run away from home (at the age of 25 she had been married for seven years and borne five children!). See this page for more on her.

Everitt died in Newcastle on 28 Jan 1870, and was buried at Christ Church CE Newcastle the following day. His death certificate records his parents' names as Everitt SUMMONS and Mary Ann LITTLEWOOD, his age as 77 years, and his place of birth as Bentley, Essex, England.

John and Elizabeth were married before arrival, and had two children recorded in the NSW records:

1. William bap. 1828 Newcastle
2. James bap. 1833 Sydney

John died in 1834 in Sydney, and Elizabeth remarried to Nicodemus DUNN the same year. It is not known whether John and Everitt were brothers, although this seems likely.

Cornelius O'NEAL seemed an unusual name, until I started researching the man who married my gt-gt-grandfather's sister. Sarah SWADLING came to NSW with her brother William and his wife and children via the James Pattison in Dec 1838. Six months later, she married this Irishman, Cornelius, at St Philip's CE in Sydney. He was a widower, she a spinster. Her brother William was one of the witnesses to the marriage. I assume my great-grandfather, William's son Cornelius, was named after his uncle, as his is the earliest occurrence of the name in the SWADLING family.

They lived at and ran the Darling Harbour Inn for some years, and had two sons:

1. Patrick Francis O'NEAL, b. ca. 1840
2. Stephen O'NEAL, b. 1846

Sarah died in October 1852, as detailed in the Sydney Morning Herald on 20th Oct 1852, page 3 column 6:

On the 19th instant at her residence, Darling Harbour Inn, Sussex St, after a short and painful illness, Sarah, the beloved wife of Mr Cornelius O'Neale [sic], aged 41 years, leaving a husband and two children and a large circle of friends to deplore their irreparable loss.

Sarah was buried at the Devonshire St cemetery on October 21, with a simple inscription:

Sarah wife of Cornelius O'Neal
died 19 October 1852 aged 41 years
leaving a husband and two children.

Cornelius remarried on July 2 1853, to Eliza HANLY. This couple had three daughters:

1. Mary O'NEAL, b.17 Aug 1854 Sydney
2. Eliza L O'NEAL, b. 1856 Sydney
3. Catherine O'NEAL, b. 1858 Sydney

Cornelius was the licencee of the Odd Fellows Arms in Dowling St Sydney in 1858. Eliza died in early 1859.

Cornelius remarried yet again to Amelia STACK, in Sydney in 1859. They must have moved soon after this to the Shoalhaven, where they ran the Royal Hotel. Cornelius is shown as the licencee there in April 1860. He died there in December 1863:

Sydney Morning Herald 30 December 1863 page 1
On the 17th instant at his residence, Royal Hotel, Greenwall Pt, Shoalhaven, Cornelius O'Neal, aged 55 years.

The details on his death certificate state that he was a native of Bantry Bay Ireland, and had been in NSW for 32 years. The only marriage mentioned is the last, to Amelia, who probably supplied these details. He was buried at the Nowra cemetery, but there is no stone on his grave. I haven't yet discovered when he arrived in NSW. There was a Cornelius O'NEAL, storekeeper on Norfolk Island, on a list of those in Government employ in 1810, appointed by Governor Macquarie. I have no evidence of a connection with "my" Cornelius as yet.