TonyV
He who cleans up after his ancestors...
So I visit my favourite genealogy site ( those of you who've borne my rants in the past will recall the one I mean - clue: first letter is the first letter) and find a public tree with an ancestors name and dates on it and I find one document that is actually new to me. Good so far. But this is the bit I find I need an Aussie expert to help me with.
The story so far is that an Englishman born in Buckinghamshire goes to Adelaide to make his fortune in he late 1850s. No planes; no time machines; just on a good old fashioned sailing ship. There he meets another emigre from Oxfordshire, likes what he sees and marries her. The stork visits one night and a baby is born, their first, in 1860. According to the public tree they also have another baby in 1860 this time in what is now a suburb of Birmingham, which last time I looked was some distance from Adelaide. I was a bit confused because it seemed such a long way to go to have another baby especially when you don't know anyone in Birmingham.
Then they have two more children, one in Adelaide and you've guessed it, another one in Shropshire.
Then the family return to England where they are picked up by the 1871 census but they had clearly decided to leave the two West Midlands born offspring in Adelaide presumably to give them the benefit of an Aussie education.
So my questions are.....did this sort of thing happen often in Australia in those days? How long did it take to sail to and from England in those days and finally what was so special about Birmingham that would persuade two people who'd just had a baby to have another one so quickly near that city?
The story so far is that an Englishman born in Buckinghamshire goes to Adelaide to make his fortune in he late 1850s. No planes; no time machines; just on a good old fashioned sailing ship. There he meets another emigre from Oxfordshire, likes what he sees and marries her. The stork visits one night and a baby is born, their first, in 1860. According to the public tree they also have another baby in 1860 this time in what is now a suburb of Birmingham, which last time I looked was some distance from Adelaide. I was a bit confused because it seemed such a long way to go to have another baby especially when you don't know anyone in Birmingham.
Then they have two more children, one in Adelaide and you've guessed it, another one in Shropshire.
Then the family return to England where they are picked up by the 1871 census but they had clearly decided to leave the two West Midlands born offspring in Adelaide presumably to give them the benefit of an Aussie education.
So my questions are.....did this sort of thing happen often in Australia in those days? How long did it take to sail to and from England in those days and finally what was so special about Birmingham that would persuade two people who'd just had a baby to have another one so quickly near that city?
