Treading the water from Australia to Scotland?

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croftangle
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Jan 23, 2013 11:59 pm

Treading the water from Australia to Scotland?

Post by croftangle » Fri Jan 25, 2013 1:53 pm

I am looking for an idea or two on where to start looking for my great great grandfather's family.

John Frances McNamee was born in Ireland around 1839, he died in Mount Perry, Queensland, Australia on 25 April 1923. He married Rosanna Brannigan in 1865 at Black Hall, Durham, England. They arrived in Brisbane, Queensland on the ship "Young Australia" in 1869. He then came to Mount Perry to work at the copper mines as a miner then smelter. Each generation after named all their sons John Frances/Francis no matter how many sons they had. One generation had two, but one was given the third name of Geoffrey. I have their shipping information, his death certificate, Qld electoral rolls, and his son's death certificate. I have ordered their marriage certificate. John Frances's death certificate did not list his parent's names, just that he was born in Ireland.

There are several McNamee families in Queensland, but none connect to John Francis that I can find. He did live near a James McNamee that was a school teacher at Mount Perry, but James was the son of another John McNamee in Brisbane.

On searching through census records, I have found several McNamee families in Scotland that were born in Ireland and worked around the pig iron, copper, and coal mines. There are several that have the same naming patterns, I found this site following a Francis McNamee that did not turn out. His John born around the same time period married another woman. With so many Johns being in the family tree I was trying to follow the mining industry of where McNamee families would be. When Mount Perry started mining they put out a call for all miners in Scotland, Wales, Ireland and England to come for jobs. Queensland was still a colony until 1859 and didn't have the population to run such an operation without more employees coming from elsewhere. Lanarkshire had a large number of men leave for Australia, has several mines, a number of McNamees so searching all men in that area with the name John or Frances. :lol:

Cheers, Kellea

StewL
Posts: 1396
Joined: Sat Dec 11, 2004 12:59 am
Location: Perth Western Australia

Re: Treading the water from Australia to Scotland?

Post by StewL » Sat Jan 26, 2013 1:48 am

Hello Kellea
[TS_welcome]
I wish you all the best with your searching.
I am not sure if it is of any help to you, but I believe Ancestry has free access to Australian records this weekend (Australia day weekend)
I don't have any rellies to check up on myself, all mine are from Scotland.
Stewie

Searching for: Anderson, Balks, Barton, Courtney, Davidson, Downie, Dunlop, Edward, Flucker, Galloway, Graham, Guthrie, Higgins, Laurie, Mathieson, McLean, McLuckie, Miln, Nielson, Payne, Phillips, Porterfield, Stewart, Watson

trish1
Posts: 1320
Joined: Mon Dec 26, 2005 3:38 am
Location: australia

Re: Treading the water from Australia to Scotland?

Post by trish1 » Sat Jan 26, 2013 9:16 am

The marriage certificate should give you the name of John's father - which may help find him in census records so when you get that information it would be useful to add it to the post. Have you seen the detail of the immigration record, or just the index? Some of the images have details of the county of birth and parent names (many, of course, do not).

I did a quick census search and came up with 2 possibles in 1851 in Lanarkshire - one with father John and one with father Francis - you may have seen them both?

Trish

croftangle
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Jan 23, 2013 11:59 pm

Re: Treading the water from Australia to Scotland?

Post by croftangle » Mon Jan 28, 2013 4:00 am

Thank you, StewL. I have been taking advantage of the free ancestry weekend. It is mostly convict information, to which I don't have one that I know of yet. But taking notes for future searching on that side of the family.

The shipping record and death certificate didn't list parents. Just the area they came from in Durham, Durham, England and their ages. I have been tracing around the John and Francis in Lanarkshire because of the names and occupations. Another member here has listed the John son of Francis married there in Lanarkshire, but I am still following their leads. It is the only lead I have at the moment. The head of household John McNamee seems to have disappeared for the 1861 and further but his wife is still listed as married to him. Other researchers are wondering where he went, I wonder if he went to work elsewhere and widening the search for him.

Very interesting history of the mining works in the area of Lanarkshire, Scotland and Durham, Enland. Both areas have McNamee families as well.