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Archiver > DORSET > 2002-09 > 1031064382


From: "Geoffrey EVEREST" <>
Subject: [DOR] Ozzie help please?
Date: Tue, 3 Sep 2002 16:46:22 +0200


I should perhaps send this to the Devon list, but I feel a bit guilty about
subscribing for a one-off question. So please bear with me - especially you
Helen!
I have seen lots of messages mentioning websites for emigrants to
Australia. I never noted any of them, thinking that none of my family had
ever gone that way. Lo! I suspect someone on my grandmother's side of
eloping (?) to Australia in the first half of 1881. The details.......
In the 1881 census Mary Watts is a 15 yr old orphan living Stoke Damerel
Devon. In the same village lives Charles Harris, 18, living with 2 unmarried
aunts.
They completely disappear from the face of the earth, until Mary reappears
in England, remarried in about 1889.
Family tradition has it that Mary and Charles went to Australia and either
there or during the voyage my grandmother was born in June 1882, when Mary
would have been 16-17 and Charles 19/20.
Now comes the tough part. How do I go about finding ships leaving England
(probably Devon or Dorset) for Australia (port unknown) in the first six
months of 1882. I don't know whether Charles was a passenger (assisted? They
certainly weren't rich!), or he may have been a member of the crew.
I would be grateful for any useful websites for ship departures, passenger
lists, crew lists etc.. that may help me find a clue.
I know it's a long shot, especially because I come from a long line of
ancestors who couldn't fill out any kind of document without lying through
their teeth.
I sometimes wonder whether family searchers are all adepts of Mr. Masoch!

TIA

Geoff


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