Two for One

Several years ago whilst undertaking my Diploma of Family Historical Studies with the Society of Australian Genealogists I was searching for certificates of family relatives in Victoria. I was able to locate several marriages that occurred within that state, by using the Victorian marriage index on CD-ROM. Having the registration numbers in hand, I proceeded to the Births, Deaths & Marriages Victoria website.

Using a reference number (VICBDM Marriage Reference 1885/4665) and names for one of the marriages I had on file, I proceeded to pay for and download the PDF document containing the scan from the original register. Within five minutes I had an A3 printout of the certificate (shown below). With marriage certificates received this way, there are two additional entries on the page besides the one that you ordered and in rare situations, such as this, you strike it lucky.

On this particular occasion I had hit the jackpot in that on the bottom of the page was the marriage of the brother I had just searched for, the marriage that occurred six weeks later at the same venue. (VICBDM Marriage Reference 1885/4667)

Source: Online image of Victorian Marriage certificate for Peter William Auld and Rose Mitchell, married 11/07/1885, registered in the Registration District of Bourke (Victorian Births, Deaths and Marriages, Marriage 1885/4665) and Marriage certificate for James Wallace Auld and Harriett Stevens, married 20/08/1885, registered in the Registration District of Bourke (Victorian Births, Deaths and Marriages, Marriage 1885/4667)

Transcription of certificates

The following is a transcription of the first Victorian marriage shown in the image above between Peter William Auld and Rose Mitchell. Peter and Rose were married 11 July 1885, with the marriage registered in the Registration District of Bourke.

VIC MARRIAGE REGISTRATION TRANSCRIPTION - REF NO 1885/4665
GROOM	Peter William Auld
STATUS	Bachelor
PLACE OF BIRTH	Melbourne
OCCUPATION	Iron Moulder
AGE	23
PRESENT RESIDENCE	1 Nowry Street North Carlton
USUAL RESIDENCE	1 Nowry Street North Carlton
FATHER	John Auld
OCCUPATION	Baker
MOTHER	Jane Auld M.S. Fair
BRIDE	Rose Mitchell
STATUS	Widow 1883 (2 living children from previous marriage)
PLACE OF BIRTH	Gippsland
OCCUPATION	Hotel Keeper
AGE	24
PRESENT RESIDENCE	Castlemaine
USUAL RESIDENCE	Castlemaine
FATHER	William Halstead
OCCUPATION	Farmer
MOTHER	Mary Jane Halstead M.S. McCauthy
DATE OF MARRIAGE	11 July 1885
PLACE OF MARRIAGE	Erskine Manse Carlton
RELIGION	Presbyterian Church of Victoria
WITNESSES	Thomas Fair, Jane S. Yule
MINISTER	Alexander Yule

A transcription of the third Victorian marriage shown on the page image above between James Wallace Auld and Harriett Stevens follows. As above, the marriage was registered in the Registration District of Bourke, with James and Harriett being married on 20 August 1885.

VIC MARRIAGE REGISTRATION TRANSCRIPTION - REF NO 1885/4667
GROOM	James Wallace Auld
STATUS	Bachelor
PLACE OF BIRTH	Beechworth
OCCUPATION	Brickmaker
AGE	27
PRESENT RESIDENCE	Northcote
USUAL RESIDENCE	Northcote
FATHER	John Auld
OCCUPATION	Baker
MOTHER	Jane Auld M.S. Fair
BRIDE	Harriett Stevens
STATUS	Spinster
PLACE OF BIRTH	Brentwood England
OCCUPATION	Tailoress
AGE	22
PRESENT RESIDENCE	Drummond St Carlton
USUAL RESIDENCE	Drummond St Carlton
FATHER	George Stevens
OCCUPATION	Tailor
MOTHER	Sarah Stevens M.S. Appleby
DATE OF MARRIAGE	20 August 1885
PLACE OF MARRIAGE	Erskine Manse Carlton
RELIGION	Presbyterian Church of Victoria
WITNESSES	John Auld, Jane S. Yule
MINISTER	Alexander Yule

This article first appeared in the Hawkesbury Crier, June 2006 edition, pp. 25-26.

Trove Tuesday: Finding Peter Auld

This post relates to my great great uncle Peter Auld, who was also known by the name of Peter William Auld and William Peter Auld.

Peter William Auld in Victoria

John Wallace Auld and Jane Fair’s third son Peter was born 10 September 1861 at their home in Cardigan Street, Carlton, Victoria. Peter Auld has proved one of the hardest in my family tree to track down and this may be in part due to his early childhood. One wonders if the loss of his mother at the early age of eleven and subsequent remarriage of his father four days before his twelfth birthday might have affected his early life.

At the age of twenty three, Peter, now known as Peter William Auld, was living at 1 Newry Street in North Carlton and working as an iron-moulder. An iron-moulder was employed at an Iron foundry pouring the hot molten iron into prepared moulds. Often working in close proximity to furnaces it was a hot, and at times, dangerous occupation.

On 11 July 1885 at the Erskine Manse in Carlton, Peter William Auld was married to widow Rose Mitchell nee Halstead by the Minister of Erskine Presbyterian Church, Alexander Yule. Witnesses for the event were Jane S. Yule, a possible relative of Minister Alexander Yule, and Thomas Fair, who also witnessed Peter's brother, John Wallace Auld’s first marriage in 1884 and a possible relative to their mother Jane. Unfortunately the date of this marriage is the last time the name Peter William Auld appears on official documents...and Peter effectively disappears off the genealogy radar.

South Australia, a change of name and a new family

The search for Peter Auld continued with the next clue to his whereabouts surfacing in the neighbouring colony of South Australia. Five years passed before a marriage between a William Peter Auld and Nellie Wallace is recorded as having taken place on 30 January 1892 at the All Saints Church in Hindmarsh. Although less information is recorded on South Australian marriage certificates than in Victoria, there is enough information to confirm that William Peter Auld is in fact our Peter Auld. William Peter Auld was now thirty years old living in Kent Town, a surrounding suburb of Adelaide; his father was recorded as John Auld; he was still working as an iron-moulder; plus the comparison of the signatures on both marriage certificates prove with an extremely high degree of certainty that it is the same person.

Nellie Wallace was the youngest of nine children to parents Robert Wallace and Martha Rodd and born in Port Elliot, South Australia, on 19 June 1871. At the time of her marriage to William Peter Auld, she was a twenty year old spinster living in Adelaide, whilst William was recorded as a bachelor, despite having married Rose Ann Mitchell nee Halstead previously. William and Nellie soon settled down in Adelaide and by mid 1895 they had two children, Janet Millicent Victoria Auld born 5 April 1893 and Dorothy Adelaide Auld born 3 August 1895.

William, Nellie and the family move to Western Australia

Two additional children were born in Perth, Western Australia, a daughter named Nellie Muriel Auld born about 1898, and a son named William Peter Auld born about 1900. Unfortunately William and Nellie’s son, William Peter Auld, died in Perth in 1901. William Peter Auld, aged one year, died on 30 September 1901 from pneumonia.

At seventy two years of age and just over four years after his wife passed away, William Peter Auld died on 1 September 1934 at the St John of God Hospital in Subiaco, Western Australia, having suffered from Cirrhosis of the liver for six weeks and Cardiac failure. Two days after his death, on 3 September 1934, William was buried in the same plot as his wife and son at the Karrakatta Cemetery.

How did Trove help?

The archived newspapers on Trove proved invaluable in the research of Peter Auld. By finding mention of a William Peter Auld in the Western Australian newspapers, somewhere I was not looking for him, I was able to work backwards from there and eventually found a South Australian marriage and children. The death and funeral notice that unlocked the mystery follow:

Family Notices. (1934, September 3). The West Australian (Perth, WA : 1879 - 1954), p. 1. Retrieved June 18, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article32935117

Family Notices. (1934, September 3). The West Australian (Perth, WA : 1879 - 1954), p. 1. Retrieved June 18, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article32935117

Confirmation was achieved through the purchase of Western Australian death and South Australian marriages certificates.

Trove Tuesday : A brick wall falls

As a genealogist we all face brick walls during the course of our research. One particular brick wall I faced was with tracing my great-great-uncle Peter Auld. This post recalls how Trove helped me in my research to break down this particular wall.

The Wall

John Wallace Auld and Jane Fair’s third son Peter was born 10 September 1861 at their home in Cardigan Street Carlton (VIC, AUS). At eleven years of age, Peter's mother Jane passed away and by his twelfth birthday his father had remarried Elizabeth Lithgow. At twenty three years old in 1885, an iron moulder by trade, Peter is known as Peter William Auld. It is at this time that he married widower Rose Mitchell nee Halstead at the Erskine Manse in Carlton.

Following the dead ends

Unfortunately the trail of Peter went cold after his marriage to Rose. All subsequent research indicated that Peter Auld had changed his name to Frank Gresham. Purchasing certificates for the death of Rose Gresham confirmed I was on the correct path and that I had found Rose Halstead, but the Auld name was not mentioned. To muddy the waters even further, Rose was also known by the names of Grace Gresham, Grace Halstead and Rose Grace Gresham! Rose's marriage in 1885 was listed...but to a Frank Gresham.

Thinking that Frank Gresham could be my elusive Peter Auld, research found that Frank was also known by the name of Frank Jones and that he was a stage manager and theatrical producer.Unfortunately research also proved that Frank Gresham was not Peter Auld...so what happened to Peter?

Trove to the rescue

The first clue happened by coincident whilst looking for another Auld branch in Western Australia. What was found was a memoriam that listed a Peter and Nellie Auld who had lost a son the year prior: 

Source: Family Notices. (1902, October 1). The West Australian (Perth, WA : 1879 - 1954), p. 6. Retrieved March 18, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article24844808

The question now was, could this be the Peter Auld from Victoria that I had been looking for? Further investigation on trove found a death notice printed the year prior in the West Australian newspaper:

Source: Family Notices. (1901, October 1). The West Australian (Perth, WA : 1879 - 1954), p. 4. Retrieved March 18, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article24760317

Interestingly the name listed in the death notice is W.P. Auld...Peter William / William Peter, not an uncommon scenario switching first and second names around. With further investigation of the WA BDM indexes and Trove, the death of a William Peter Auld was tracked down and confirmed in 1934:

Source: Family Notices. (1934, September 3). The West Australian (Perth, WA : 1879 - 1954), p. 1. Retrieved March 18, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article32935117

...and on the same page a funeral notice was also listed:

Source: Family Notices. (1934, September 3). The West Australian (Perth, WA : 1879 - 1954), p. 1. Retrieved March 18, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article32935117

The wall crumbles

With the clues found in the above Trove archives, continued research and purchasing of certificates confirms that this was indeed the elusive Peter Auld from Victoria. The marriage of William Peter Auld and Nellie Wallace (daughter of Robert Wallace and Martha Rodd) was recorded as having taken place on 30 January 1892 at the All Saints Church in Hindmarsh (SA, AUS). William Peter Auld's father is listed as John Auld and his occupation is also confirmed as an iron moulder. Another clue is that the signatures that appear on both the 1885 and 1892 marriage certificates prove with an extremely high degree of certainty that it is the same person. The couple had two daughters in South Australia before moving to Western Australia where another two children are born, the only son unfortunately dying at a young age due to pneumonia. The children of the marriage are:

• Janet Millicent Victoria Auld (1893-1951)
• Dorothy Adelaide Auld (1895-1956)
• Nellie Muriel Auld (1898-1967)
• William Peter Auld (1900-1901)

What can we learn from this experience?

A valuable lesson learnt is that no matter how frustrating your research can get and no matter how many brick walls you come up against, never give up in trying to knock your research walls down. The smallest clue can sometimes bring a whole wall tumbling down. Don't give up, just tackle the problem from a different angle.