The best laid plans of ancestry researchers can easily go astray...

There we were thinking we had made some progress and now we are not sure. A little spanner of 'fact' has been thrown into the works.

Luke wrote today:

I am now totally confused I have just found this on a website. What do you think?  Do we have the wrong missing daughters for Edward Atkins after all the work that has been done or could the Edward Atkins that they are talking about below is the right one, but for some reason they have his father name wrong and his date of birth wrong? Edward Atkins could not have come out to Van Diemen's Land in 1851. I am confused.   

www.convictrecords.com.au/contributions/2 - 

 

Edward Atkins

Edward Atkins, one of 250 convicts transported on the Lady Kennaway, 30 January 1851

Known aliases: 
none
Convicted at: 
Convicted at Surrey, Newington Quarter Sessions for a term of 7 years on 05 February 1849
Sentence term: 
7 years
Ship name: 
Lady Kennaway
Departure date: 
30th January, 1851
Place of arrival: 
Van Diemen's Land
Source: 
Australian Joint Copying Project. Microfilm Roll 92, Class and Piece Number HO11/17, Page Number 19 (12)
This record is one of the entries in the British convict transportation registers 1787-1867 database compiled by State Library of Queensland from British Home Office (HO) records which are available on microfilm as part of the Australian Joint Copying Project.

Community Contributions

Cherrielee (nee Costin) Sherriff on 11th June, 2011 wrote:

Edward Atkins was born abt 1822, his father was Robert Atkins, he married and had a daughter Emily Atkins born approx 1854 and we know or a sister, Margaret, Sarah and Ann, they were born on Boolero Station in Mid north South Australia. Emily married Edward Prentice Puddy in 1872, they had Robert Puddy born Wirrabara 1879 who married Alice Sarah Hancock in Bagor SA 1905, they had 9 children, one of which is my grandmother. Ruby Puddy married John F Costin.

Oops! Confused is not the word.  I responded:

I think it is clear that someone has it wrong and I think we need to get in touch with this person and find out all she knows.

Our Edward could not have arrived in 1851.... or could he? We have the missing years from 1843-1857 but we also have births during that time. We think.

There is as good a chance that Cherrielee has the 'sisters' of Emily Atkins Puddy wrong and Emily is not in fact ours and the others are not hers. What we need to do is find out more about this Edward Atkins. He must have been released early.

It is perfectly possible that he returned to England prior to 1849, got into trouble and was sentenced and sent back in 1851. Hannah may still have been alive... the mother of Emily Atkins Puddy is therefore important. If we can find the English court records it should say where he was from. If he was from Gloucestershire it may still be our Edward... if not, it is not. 

What a mystery but also what an opportunity.

I then began a search myself to see what I could find and found an email address for a Bob Atkins which triggered one of a multitude of memories regarding this research that I had been in touch with him before. A search of my ancestry emails revealed that I had. We had however decided that the time-line of his Edward did not fit and stopped our correpondence about 12 months ago. But now I am not so sure.

I have written to Bob Atkins as follows: 

Hi Bob,

Well, I am back again.. I just sent a message on the RootsWeb site and then thought: I am sure I have been in touch with a Robert Atkins and so searched my mail and there you were.

My fellow family researcher, Luke Scane Harris came across this which led me back to you:

Cherrielee (nee Costin) Sherriff on 11th June, 2011 wrote:

Edward Atkins was born abt 1822, his father was Robert Atkins, he married and had a daughter Emily Atkins born approx 1854 and we know or a sister, Margaret, Sarah and Ann, they were born on Boolero Station in Mid north South Australia. Emily married Edward Prentice Puddy in 1872, they had Robert Puddy born Wirrabara 1879 who married Alice Sarah Hancock in Bagor SA 1905, they had 9 children, one of which is my grandmother. Ruby Puddy married John F Costin

In the past few months we have established believable links between Emily Puddy and the Margaret, Sarah and Ann to whom Cherrielee refers. What throws us with this is Edward's father's name being given as Robert and we have Joseph on his marriage certificate to our ancestor, Elizabeth Mashford Lewis, but beyond that there is also the possibility that we might be talking about the same Edward. If your Edward is from Gloucestershire it makes it even more likely. It is also conceivable that his father was called Joseph and known as Robert but a Gloucestershire link with your Edward would be a more substantial clue. Your Edward marrying a Hannah would be even better!

At this point it is a mystery but one we would like to solve.

It is a slim chance but our Edward married Hannah McLeod in Adelaide in 1843 and then disappears pretty much until 1857 when he married Elizabeth. We had wondered if he went back to England and married again after Hannah's death because we now have his death certificate, which omits mention of his still living wife, and we have reason to believe omits mention of his three children by her but he has left behind a large family. However, we now also have birth records in the church and area where our Edward was living which suggest that Hannah McLeod may have still been alive.

Atkins.-On the 15^th November, 1891 at the residence of his son-in-law, Whyte Park, Wirrabara, Edward Atkins, aged 84 years. A colonist of over 50 years, leaving 1 son, 5 daughters, 47

grandchildren and 3 greatgrandchildren to mourn their loss. Gloucestershire papers please copy”

 I have recorded our research to date on my blog : http://roslyn-ross.blogspot.com/

We may have been completely on the wrong track but it is conceivable that our Edward did go back to England, got into trouble and was transported and any light you may shed on the origin and exploits of your Edward will help us ascertain if we have collected relatives which are not ours to collect.

It is a fascinating process Bob. I look forward to hearing from you.

I am beginning to think that there are more Edward Atkins's than one might expect.... the John Smith perhaps of ancestry research! Confused is not the word. It was all looking so good and now it may well have gone to hell in an ancestral basket!

But Kylie as usual has some pertinent points which are worth considering:

Hi folks

I have come across an Edward Atkins from Tasmania before.  I suspect he is the father of Thomas Atkins who married Kate Riechel in Adelaide, Thomas was born in 1866 in Tasmania.   I think this Edward stayed in Tasmania for a while so I think that excludes our Edward.

A few other problems, Edward was a colonist of 50 years at his death in 1891.  That means he arrived by 1841.  He was married in 1843 and has a fairly steady production of children, some of which we know were born in Clare.  There is no time for him to return to England, get arrested in Feb 1849 and shipped out in Jan 1851, during this time he was producing children in South Australia with Hannah.

It would be interesting to know where she got father Robert from.   We have Edward’s father as Joseph from Elizabeth Mashford’s marriage cert.  If Cherrielee is a decendant from the first marriage she may not have accessed that record and know his father’s name, or she may have a record that shows her ancestor was Robert, and there is two Edwards. 

What if the death notice is not our Edward, perhaps there was two.  That would solve the problem of why Elizabeth and perhaps all her children were ignored.  He would have been about 53 when he married her if the age at death is correct, not 44 per the marriage certificate  You both knew of Elizabeth’s children from her first marriage but nothing of Edward’s.  We only went searching for more children after the death notice if I remember correctly.   I would have to go back and see what other tie ins there are between the two marriages.  Either way it is unlikely that the Edward that fathered Emily Puddy is the same as the convict Edward as he appears to be younger, have stayed in Tasmania for many years, been in jail for two years whilst the children were being born. 

There are so few records of Edward that it is hard find out very much at all.  I don’t think this record adds anything to what we know so far.

I am not sure about Luke but in fact my side of the family did not know about Elizabeth's children by Peter Lewis... or rather, did not talk about them although clearly the Atkins/Lewis children kept in some sort of contact because Elizabeth was nursing John Lewis in Gladstone before his death. and George Lewis was a witness at the marriage of Mary Atkins to Charlie Ross.