Trove Tuesday: Mc Names

Mum had done quite a bit of family history research before handing a pile of notes, photos, letters, etc over to me. Some of this included results from the really tedious searches through microfiche and microfilm – saving me!

A small note in one of her workbooks said:

Melbourne Shipping. Captain John Kennedy Freyer, 495 tons, from London 5/6/1848, arr 25/9/1848. Steerage class  Elizabeth McVey

Mum hadn’t had any training in family research and so wasn’t that great making notes of sources (sorry Mum). I put (proving) this on the back burner until I had time to check further. 

We also always wondered why Elizabeth McVEY (1828-1915) would have come out on her own when only 20 years old.

So, to Trove and the problems associated with OCR, and especially with Mc names.

Lucky break number 1: 1848 is the earliest year, and Sep the earliest month of the digitised Argus.

Elizabeth STONEHOUSE (nee McVEY)

Lucky break number 2: Mum’s notes. At least having the date, I could search the individual newspaper to find the entry and prove Mum’s note.

Of course I couldn’t stop there, I had to look into why she came here.

I found reference to a John McVey, a Tasmanian convict who got his conditional pardon just a few years earlier (The Courier, Hobart Friday 10 November 1843, p4). He was also from Glasgow, was similar in age to Elizabeth’s eldest brother, and had the same occupation. Elizabeth’s eldest brother John did come to Australia and lived in Bendigo. She was close to him and his family...

...and she married a man (although not a convict) from Tasmania in Mar 1850 in Port Fairy, Victoria: William STONEHOUSE (1826-1904).

Looks like I have some more research to do!