Australia
Main Page - Mostly Cathcart connections
General Notes | Census/Records | Other Data
Solving the mysterious Bible entry
One of my favorite anecdotes from more than a decade of genealogical research involves solving the mystery of an entry in a family Bible. The Bible in question belonged to John Cathcart (1812-1862). As you can see from the entry -- if you go to the linked webpage -- John Cathcart was the son of Matthew Cathcart, Sr. John had moved from County Antrim Ireland to Monroe County Indiana. One of his descendents had transcribed the various entries in the Bible. One of them however, did not make much sense at first:
Go to Samuel Thompson Sutherland's Creek Care of Putee Cameron, Geelong
The Bible entry (written next to Ann Cathcart) made no sense because one extremely important piece of information was missing... the country! I have been collaborating on my genealogical research with a distant cousin in Australia (Peter Cuffley), who after a while, finally recognized the meaning of the entry and put things together for me. The locations were all in the southern part of the state of Victoria in Australia. Once we knew that the entry referred to a geographical location in Australia, we were off and running. We now understood that Ann Cathcart had married Samuel Thompson, sailed to Australia, and settled near Geelong in Victoria.
Here's more information from Peter's research:
Samuel Thompson and Ann Cathcart. It seems they sailed from Greenock
(Scotland) on August 14th 1841 and arrived Melbourne, Victoria, November
27th 1841. One daughter, Jane, was born in 1841, at sea on the barque 'Alan
Ker' in the 'Atlantic Ocean'. I will send a proper file, but they also had a
son James Henry born c1837, Antrim, Ireland; also Robert John, born c1839,
Antrim, A daughter Eliza Jane, born c1843, Victoria, and another son,
William Cathcart, born October 9th 1848, Moonie Ponds, Victoria.
'In Loving Memory of Our Dear Mother/ Ann Thompson/ Who Died 10th July 1896/
Aged 88/ and Father/ Samuel Thompson/ Who Died 14th Decr. 1896/ "Be ye also
ready for in such an hour as ye think not the son of man cometh"/
Connecting Ann with Australia was an important milestone in our Cathcart research. We were now able to definitively match several of our County Antrim Cathcarts with Cathcarts in Australia. In addition, because of the Australia connection we've been able to take advantage of Australia's excellent census/birth/marriage records; which showed that Matthew Cathcart, Sr. was married two times (his first marriage, about 1800 to Matilda Henry; his second, in about 1810 to Martha ???) and that there were two sets of families to track. John Cathcart (the owner of the Bible) descends from Matthews second wife, Martha (last name unknown).
Click on the links below to see more of Peter Cuffley's research:
- Notes on County Antrim, Ireland
- Matthew Cathcart
-
Macbeth Genealogical Services
- includes searchable databases for immigration and divorce for Victoria.