Jane (Henderson) Romanis .....

[Moonwatcher]

Hi!

Jane ROMANIS b.13 Nov 1899 Galashiels, Selkirk. d. 2001 Australia.

Jane (Jeannie) Henderson ROMANIS, aged 20/21, left these shores sometime around 1920 for Australia. She was going to meet her wartime sweetheart, who she had met when he was in the uk during the war. Shortly after she arrived and got married, her mother, Jane (m/s Henderson) ROMANIS followed her out. Accompanying her mother were her brothers and sisters; John, Mary, Alexander, Euphemia (Effie), and Agnes.

I know that Jane (Jeannie) ROMANIS's descendants adopted the surname DE BAKKER. Whether this was the surname of Jane's husband, I dont know.

I've checked out StewL's links on Australian research but could be doing with some advice on how to approach this. Basically, I'm wanting to know how I can find out more about Jane and her family's life in Australia and, if possible, by what means they travelled out there.

Ironically, I know a little of what became of Jane in her later years. She died, possibly in New South Wales aged 101 years. Trouble is, those who knew her over there, like so many of us have done, left it too late to record the details of this grand old lady's life. So, any help anyone can give me in bridging the gap between her leaving Scotland and her centenary year, would be most welcome.

Thanks

Bob.

[HK]

Hello Moonwatcher,I had a look in the searchable records for Unassisted Immigration to Victoria but no luck.Firstly they might have landed elsewhere or they might have arrived after 1923 in which case immagration became a commonwealth responsibility and the records are held in National Archieves of Australia:
http://www.naa.gov.av

I'll keep a look out while I'm searching for my own lot just incase.
HK

[Moonwatcher]

Thanks Heather. Much appreciated.

Bob.

[DavidWW]

DE BAKKER sounds Dutch or South African/Afrikaans.

Davie

[Moonwatcher]

Hi Davie,

You wrote; 'DE BAKKER sounds Dutch or South African/Afrikaans.'

Yeah I realise that. Dutch seems to be the most common usage. The thing is, although the present, living, grandson of Jane Romanis has the surname DE BAKKER (I need to respect his privacy and keep his full name and details private at this stage), there is no guarantee that was the surname of the man Jane married. If she had married say... John SMITH, and they had a daughter, who then went on to marry a DE BAKKER that would account for the present day use of that name, but it wouldn't help in identifying Jane's married name after she arrived in Australia in 1920/21.

Bob.

[Moonwatcher]

Stew,

Go order yourself a large malt whisky (or whatever your poison), on me, and accept my thanks and appreciation of your recent posting of Australian links. I've just found Jean ROMANIS, her husband, and their daughter on the NSW website! How I missed them first time round is a classic case of jumping to conclusions and not thinking straight.

From the information given by my present day Australian contact (Jean’s grandson), I was assuming, that the name I was looking for was De Bakker(ie.his surname). It was only in replying to DWW yesterday that I realised that that wasn't necessarily the name that would have travelled from Jean’s marriage to the present ie. a daughter would have involved a surname change. So I did a search on the Australian NSW BDM site for a ROMANIS marriage 1919 – 1930 and bingo! Along with a handful of others (which I’ll chase up in due course) there at the top of the list was Jean H ROMANIS marrying an Eric C James 1920 in the district of Hornsby NSW.

A further search of JAMES births from 1938 – 1945 (’45 being the limit of available searches) found Jean Lynette JAMES marrying Christian DE BAKKER in 1945 (just made it!) in the district of Marrickville.

It was only after this that, in checking through e-mails, I re-discovered a reference from my contact to his grandfather being called James. I assumed at the time that he was referring to a given name here, and discarded it as fairly useless information. In actual fact if I had not been so stupid and had realised that he was actually referring to a SURNAME I would have been able to pursue it from there. The vital clues were there but I just couldn’t see the wood for the trees! There’s got to be lessons here for everybody.

Okay, thanks again Stew for the links. I’m off now to write up the data and decide where I’m going from here, with more care this time not to jump to conclusions or discard vital clues.

Bob.

[Andy]

The DeBakker/James marriage is posted on IGI so there is at least one other person tracing these lines.

[StewL]

Thanks for the Malt Whiskey Bob

I am glad those links have come in handy, and that you found who your were looking for.

Good advice also on not jumping to conclusions about names.