Earl Grey’s Irish Famine Orphans (90): Mapping with John Moon

A while back when i asked people to think about how discovering a famine orphan in their family had affected them, I had no idea how rich and varied their response would be. The magnetism of Peter’s Ann Trainer, Brenda’s giving her Julia the dignity and protection she lacked in life, Kaye’s desire to know and understand her Bridget, are now joined by John’s mapping and IT creativity. I’m chuffed that he found something useful in my blog. Here’s John’s suggestions not just for his own orphan and the Earl Grey orphans generally but for all genealogists and family historians.

Part 2: A foray into Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

by John Moon

A GIS Approach (with a little bit of Genealogy)

In his #37 of 24 July 2016 our blog host, Trevor McClaughlin, asked the question “Can we create interactive digital maps?” 

He continued, Let me demonstrate how this map business might work. Here is a map of the orphans in Queensland c. 1861. I’ve entered a few numbers. If we had an interactive map, what might appear if we clicked on numbers 1 and 2, at Ipswich?

https://earlgreysfamineorphans.wordpress.com/2016/07/24/earl-greys-irish-famine-orphans-37/.

Could we do something …, such as clicking on the dots in the map to bring up all the information we have about the orphan who resided there at that particular time? Maybe there are some probate records? [or maybe a photograph?]

The short answer is “yes”, as is demonstrated in the following screen shots taken from an application of the free GIS software package QGIS for the nine orphans in Trevor’s example.

In earlier blog posts #12 and #17 Trevor asked further questions related to maps, “scattering” and “family reconstruction”.

<#12.> “In the last post <#11> I mentioned a possible use for completed family reconstitutions viz. maps showing the location of the orphans at particular times in their lives. Here’s a couple I used in Barefoot 2–the location of the orphans in Victoria in c.1861. This one is based on the birth records of their children. The second one is the location of the orphans in Victoria at the end of their lives c.1890-1901; this one is based on their death certificates.” In # 17 similar maps for Queensland and NSW were shown. Towards the end of this blog is Trevor’s map of the three states for 1861.

<#17> Under the title Orphan “scattering”, Trevor mentions that I’ve already mapped the origin of the orphans based on the workhouses they were from (see blogpost 4). Could maps be drawn which show their more precise origins in Ireland, as well as their place of first employment in Australia”, and makes the plea “Is there not a computer programme that would allow us to map their movements over time? We could follow them between places of employment, and through marriage, birth and death records for much of their life.

Again, the short answer is “yes”, as is demonstrated in the following screen shots taken from another application of QGIS. (In fact some of the above maps would be relatively easy to develop if the relevant data, including latitude and longitude of the towns, were available in an Excel spreadsheet. Although there may be a – solvable – problem of displaying an orphan’s details when more than one orphan has the same latitude and longitude).

The following map shows Jane Hutchinson’s movements (as discussed in part I of this blog), numbered 1-7, from her arrival at Melbourne to her death in Wangaratta. As a base map an old geofererenced Map of Victoria, including the Pastoral Runs has been used.

As with all “short answers” there is a “BUT”, in fact many buts.

Some of the “buts” relate to the following questions:

(a) “do you want to develop the map for your own use”?

In Trevor’s post 17 of 25 May 2015 he notes that Barbara Barclay has made excellent use of maps in her study of Famine orphans from County Mayo. (see <http://www.historicalballinrobe.com/page/the_mayo_orphen_gilrs?path=0p3p&gt; http://mayoorphangirls.weebly.com/ ). In a comment on the post Barbara noted that I did my two simple maps with my basic grasp of ArcGIS. Any proficient user of GIS mapping software could easily produce the types of maps you suggest – given the data.

Barbara suggests that to answer this question there is a prerequisite of being a proficient user of GIS mapping software. Whilst not wishing to discourage anybody from using say QGIS (free) or ArcGIS (paid) there is a “learning curve” for them that can be steep. However, there are a lot of good YouTube tutorials available to help going up the curve.

(b) “do you want the map as part of a website (e.g. Trevor’s WordPress Site)”?

This is possible but has resource implications. These include the costs (monetary and person-power) of setting up and maintaining the data bases and software as well as those of hosting of a website.

Concerning WordPress Trevor, in a reply to a comment in blog #37 noted that wordpress.com is different from wordpress.org. The latter is where the map plugins are. (In other words, Trevor’s blog is on wordpress.com so the map plugins can’t be used).

(c) “do you want something inbetween (i.e. a map that is not connected to a website but be can displayed in your web browser).

Many GIS software packages have the facility to publish GIS data to “the web”. In QGIS, the plugin is QGIS2Web. Whilst I haven’t used it, I understand that it generates a set of files and folders that can be zipped and shared with others. Once unzipped, it has an index.html file which, when clicked, displays the map in your browser. This map has all the features included by the developer for example the ability to click on the dots in the map to bring up the information on an orphan.

A major advantage such an approach is that one does not need to be a “proficient user of GIS mapping software” to click on the dots in a web browser. Presumably one could have a link to the zip file in Trevor’s blog.

Whilst this approach makes it easier for the user it still has the person-power costs of setting up and maintaining the data base. I also suspect that the size of the zipped file may become quite large as the number of images of orphan’s information increases (if there was only text data associated with each orphan, then the zipped file size would probably be acceptable – one would have the same facility to click on dots however, it would only be text that is displayed).)

A Genealogical Approach (with a little bit of GIS)

In another blog (#11), Trevor mentions that “One of the research tools I used for the Earl Grey Famine orphans was a modified form of what demographers know as ‘family reconstitution‘.

Family reconstitution is the technique of linking records of demographic events, usually of an ecclesiastical nature, within and between individual lives, in order to recreate individual life histories and the histories of families. While genealogists have always pursued such linking, the intent of demographers is not simply to record chains of descent and marriage but rather to compile information on the demographic rates pertaining to the population of which the individuals and families were a part. E.A. Hammel, in International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2001. (Most social scientists invent new words for the old ways of doing things in an attempt to differentiate their “new” product.)

I pick-up Hammel’s phrase “genealogists have always pursued such linking” and ask myself whether a genealogical software package (with a – limited – GIS capability) may be a better alternative to a full-blown GIS package. Such an approach should in fact have a gentle learning curve as I presume that many readers of Trevor’s blog are familiar with genealogy websites such as Ancestry, My Heritage, Findmypast, Familysearch or WikiTree. I am however thinking of something like the free genealogy software package “Gramps”.

The following screenshots show the output of “Gramps” for Jane Hutchinson, her husband and their children (“family reconstitution” and “scattering”).

The first screenshot shows Jane’s movements from her arrival in Melbourne, employment in Merri Creek and Campaspe River, marriage in Melbourne and movements to Taminick and North Wangaratta. If one clicks on any of the pins a pop-up box appears with details of the events at that pin.

The second screenshot expands the movements to all of Jane’s family including the deaths of two of her children, one in Queensland and the other in New Zealand. Again, clicking on a pin gives details of the event at the location of the pin.

The third and fourth screenshot shows the pop-up box of events at Wangaratta and North Wangaratta.

Jane’s family Wangaratta

Jane’s family North Wangaratta

Further, Gramps can produce various reports and charts and reports including family trees and fan charts as illustrated below.

So, returning to the question “Can we create interactive digital maps?”

As indicated above the answer is “yes”. However what we can display in the maps depends upon the data available. Further, the the development time of such maps depends upon the format in which the data is presented, the preferred format being electronic such as a spreadsheet or other readable database (hard copy printed data, in tabular form, can also be scanned and extracted then read into a database).

An example of a database is that at the Irish Famine Memorial which includes the fields: First Name, Surname, Native Place, Age on Arrival, Parents, Religion, Ship Name and Details (although there are some spelling issues for Surname and Native Place and it is not clear whether the Details field is a text field or a concatenation of other fields such as Employer, Marriage etc.).

Similarly, if the original data from which Trevor drew the maps frozen at specific points in time (1848-50, 1861 and c.1890-1900) for Barefoot vol.2 were available, then these data could be recombined with that at the Irish Famine Memorial to produce a set of general statistics such as age on arrival, age at first marriage, age at death, number of children etc.

They could also be used in a map to view questions such as:

Show me all the girls who arrived on <name of ship>

Show me who married a convict “exile”

Show me which girls were married in <church name>

Show me which girls came from <county or workhouse> in Ireland

Show me first employers and their location

“Family reconstitution”.

The “modified form of what demographers know as ‘family reconstitution‘” that Trevor used for his orphan data cards (see example below) can equally well be represented in a genealogical software package such as “Gramps”. The added advantage of such a package is that various charts and reports can be generated including family trees and fan charts as well as being able to follow the movements of orphans and their families.

Given that such packages are “user friendly”, perhaps their use could also encourage descendants of orphans to provide data on their “family reconstitution”.

John’s suggestions are inspirational. Have a look again at his paragraph just before the last map. A couple of nights ago, about 3am, I even found myself thinking about the possibilities. (It’s an age thing. No it’s not. I spent a lifetime, going through the next day’s teaching in my head during the night.)

One of the interactive digital maps that set me off in this direction some years ago was about the spread of North American railways. The Stanford university interactive map was captivating. I imagined the lives of the orphans could be displayed like that too. Look at the map above. Can you see how the discovery of gold in Victoria has affected where the orphans spread?

Maybe a simpler map to begin with is the way to go. Can we map the movement of the orphans during their lifetime? We have one of the workhouse origins of the orphans already. As John suggests, I’m sure we can also draw one representing where exactly they were first employed.

Kiss (keep it simple stupid). By happy circumstance my 1991 Barefoot & Pregnant? became part of the Untapped research project out of the University of Melbourne. One result of which is that all the books in the project are being republished by Booktopia. That hard copy should be easier to work with and be the means of identifying the Port Phillip orphans’ first employer. We can then place them on a map of Melbourne and its surrounds, or further afield.

To repeat what John suggested above, thereafter, using my family reconstitutions and the work of family historians, it may be possible to identify where the orphans were, at two or three year(?) intervals, via the birth registration of their children. There are drawbacks of course. How do we find where the married orphans went after their child-bearing years? Maybe their descendants via the Port Phillip Orphans FaceBook page would provide the necessary information? The other most important go-to place, and most up-to-date, is the Irishfaminememorial database.

You may wish to say, ‘Tell him he’s dreamin’.

A reminder, https://irishfaminememorial.org/invitation-to-attend-commemoration-ceremony/

Earl Grey’s Irish Famine Orphans (89): Jane’s story by John Moon

Some time ago I asked John Moon would he like to write something for my blog, something about his orphan ancestor, Jane Hutchinson, and something about how finding ‘his’ orphan has affected him. He very kindly sent me the following. I’ll keep the two parts he sent, separate. The second one I’ll put up a little later; it’s a little gem of creativity.

Part 1: Jane Hutchinson, Earl Grey Irish Orphan, “Derwent”, Melbourne, 25 February 1850

The basic facts about Jane Hutchinson are contained in her summary at the Irish Famine Memorial Website (which incorporates data from Trevor’s Barefoot and pregnant?). Given the dearth of accessible information about Jane’s life it is difficult to expand upon this summary without repeating some of the more general experiences of other Orphans. Thus all we can do is add some observations and speculations by considering two people living around her which by association adds to her story. These two people are Thomas Buckler, the man she married, and to a lesser extent Michael Madden, her first employer after “disposal”.

Name: Jane Hutchinson Native Place: Londonderry [Derry] [Desertmartin]

Age On Arrival: 16

Parents: Not recorded

Religion: Roman Catholic

Ship Name: Derwent (Melbourne Feb 1850)

shipping: house servant, cannot read or write;

Magherafelt PLU PRONI BG23/G/1 (3032), Jane Hutchinson, aged 13, single, RC, servant, from the Union at large, deserted, no means of support, came in with her mother, Ellen, aged 50, widow, mendicant with William 15, Nancy 11 & John all healthy but no means of support, entered 31 Oct 1846, left 6 Jan 1847; (6670) Jane Hutchinson, 15, single, RC, healthy, Desertmartin, labourer, entered 9 Jun 1848, left 30 Oct 1849

empl. by Michael Madden at Merri Creek, £9, 6 months;

married Thomas Buckler (seems to be convict to VDL per Maitland Jun 1846) on 25 Oct 1852, St James CofE Melbourne; 12 children; died 25 Jan 1908 Wangaratta, Victoria. (source https://irishfaminememorial.org/details-page/?pdb=7582

Great Irish Famine Monument, Hyde Park Barracks, Sydney

Jane and Thomas were the “guinea pigs” of two different nineteenth century socio-political experiments. In the case of Jane, it was Earl Grey’s Irish Orphans scheme, and in the case of Thomas it was the “separate system” of the 1839 Prison Act , implemented at Pentonville prison.

Thomas was born in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, England on 3^rd December 1826.

From the available records and newspaper reports, it appears that the Bucklers were a “family in distress”. At the age of 12, Thomas’ second sister Rebecca died in the Chilvers Coton Workhouse and by the age of 15, the 1841 Census suggests that his mother and two sisters, Elizabeth and Mary, were resident in the same Workhouse. Neither Thomas nor his father appear to be in Nuneaton at the time of this Census which raises the question of where they were, or did they not take part in the 1841 Census.

After a a number of run-ins with local magistrates, Thomas, in December 1844, was tried, along with Joseph Martin (alias Randle), at the Coventry County Assizes for stealing 17 pairs of boots and shoes (value £3. 10s.), a small quantity of cheese and butter and a pair of scissors (value 10d.) and sentenced to 10 years transportation.

He arrived at Pentonville 23 December 1844 and was subjected to discipline under the “separate system”.

“The distinctive characteristic of the discipline was the COMBINATION of severe punishment with a considerable amount of instruction and other moral influences. The elements relied upon for severe punishment were, rigid separation , and a protracted term of eighteen months’ imprisonment, followed by transportation. The moral or reformatory elements were, frequent visitation by superior officers, a considerable amount of moral and religious instruction, combined with industrial training [in Thomas’ case shoe-making], and a reasonable prospect of earning an honest livelihood in the colony, upon the sole condition of steady good conduct. At that time, these elements of severity and kindness were combined at Pentonville in a higher degree than they have ever been combined in any other prison in Great Britain”. See Results of the System of Separate Confinement: As Administered at the Pentonville Prison – available for download in Google Books.

After around 18 months at Pentonville, Thomas boarded the Maitland as an exile, bound for Australia, arriving Melbourne 6 November 1846.

Thomas has the distinction of appearing in a House of Commons Parliamentary Paper, not by name but by number (#741), for the offenses he committed whilst on route to Australia. These included:

17 June 1846 Selling his clothes to a seaman in the prison for a chew of tobacco – put in irons five days.

10 August 1846 Chewing tobacco in the prison and spitting on the deck after bed-time. The second time he has broken through the rules – Bread and water, and made prisoner below for fourteen days.

So much for the intended behavioural changes of Pentonville – or was it a reflection of the severity of the punishment for what would now appear to be minor infringements?

As an exile, Thomas stepped on the shores of Port Phillip as a free man, “on condition that they do not return to “Our United Kingdom during the remaining term of their respective Sentences of transportation”. Initially, he went to work for a well-known auctioneer, founder of Kirk’s Bazaar and prominent turf club member, James Bowie Kirk of Bourke Street Melbourne.

We hear no more of Thomas until his marriage day in 1852.

Whilst I do not have a copy of Thomas and Jane’s marriage certificate (at $20.00 per certificate genealogy can become an expensive hobby), I understand that it states that they were from Campaspe River. So the question arises as to ‘how did they get there?’

For Thomas, as indicated above, we have no information. For Jane, one speculation is that she went there with the Maddens family (her first employer). In this respect, an obituary of Patrick Madden (son of Michael) in the McIvor Times and Rodney Advertiser, Thursday 7 June 1906 reported that:

The late Mr Patrick Madden, whose death was reported in your last issue was the oldest resident of Mia Mia and district. He was born at Campbellfield [Merri Creek], near Melbourne, on the 15^th March, 1843, and came to Mia Mia with his parents on 1^st February, 1851. … His father (the late Mr Michael Madden) was travelling with his stock from Melbourne to Mia Mia on 6^th February 1851 (Black Thursday) and had some trouble to save them from being burnt.

Michael Madden perhaps rented some land from a pastoralist/ squatter in the area to keep his stock. In January 1854 (after Jane was married), Michael Madden and his wife had taken over the license of the Mia Mia Inn. Michael died a couple of years after purchasing the license to the Inn and is buried in Kyleton Cemetery.

The speculation here is that Michael Madden’s farm, where Jane may have been living, was located somewhere between Kyleton and Mia Mia on the Campaspe River.

Jane and Thomas were married on 25 Oct 1852 at St James CofE Melbourne [I notice from Trevor’s blog #58 a contributor stated that “St James in Melbourne was both Catholic and Anglican in the one church” – does anybody have any details of this arrangement?]. Following their marriage, it would appear that they went to Wangaratta, working for the pastoralist/ squatter Benjamin Warby Jnr. on his 23,000 acre run ‘Taminick’ (estimated grazing capability 700 cattle or 4,000 sheep).

It was at Taminick that Jane’s first two children were born – Sarah Jane in 1853 and William 24 March 1855 (details of the births of her remaining ten children are shown in the family tree below…see part 2).

Their third child Abraham was born in North Wangaratta in 1857, suggesting that they moved from Taminick to North Wangaratta some time between 1855 and 1857.

The obituary of William Buckler (son of Thomas Buckler) in the Wangaratta Chronicle, Saturday 1 September 1934, reported that:

The late Mr. [William] Buckler was born at Taminick and at the age of three [maybe two, as Thomas’ second son Abraham was born at North Wangaratta in 1857] he was taken to North Wangaratta by his parents, to property which was afterwards known as the “Old Buckler homestead”.

Here his father was first to grow wheat in the district, and the first year there there was obtained just one ear, and in the following year the whole of the previous year’s production was planted, to gain about one bushel of wheat [probable a little poetic/ journalistic licence]. The ground was tilled by a wooden plough made by Mr. Thomas Buckler.

Details of Thomas’ land acquisition are probably held in the bowels of the Public Record Office Victoria (PROV) the location of which could possibly be identified in Nelson, P. and Alves, L. “Lands Guide: A guide to finding records of Crown Land at Public Record Office Victoria”, Public Records Office Victoria, Melbourne, 2009. However, without access to PROV we rely on scattered newspaper reports.

The Ovens and Murray Advertiser (Beechworth, Vic.: 1855 – 1918), Saturday 27 October 1866 http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article198659284 reports that:

A commission of enquiry into applications for land under the forty second section of the Amending Land Act, was held on Thursday (25 October 1866), at the Plough Inn, Tarrawingee. The commission consisted of Messrs Gaunt, P.M., and Mr H. Morris, District Surveyor. The proceedings commenced shortly before eleven o’clock [one of its decisions being]:

PARISH OF CARRARAGARMUNGEE

Thomas Buckler applied for eighty acres. He has a wife and six children. He has seventy-one acres of purchased land, but none leased – Recommended.

Thus by 1866, Thomas had purchased seventy-one acres and had been recommended for the lease of a further eighty acres.

On his death Thomas had 302 acres of which 282 acres were transferred to Jane and 20 acres sold to his son Abraham (blacksmith) for £70.

By 1879, Jane had had twelve children, eleven of whom lived long lives.

Whilst Jane could neither read nor write (even her will dated 20 December 1907 was read to her before witnesses and signed with her mark), the education of the children was not neglected. In 1867, the Ovens and Murray Advertiser, reported on the examination of pupils attending Wangaratta National School. The subjects examined included: reading, writing and spelling, arithmetic, grammar, geography, history, English composition, Latin, and mental arithmetic as well as a prize for girl’s needlework.

The impact of this education was passed down through two generations where Jane’s Daughter Louisa insisted that during her annual six week Christmas holiday visits, her granddaughters could recite by heart a poem. Two of these were Ella Wheeler Wilcox’ “The Two Glasses” http://www.ellawheelerwilcox.org/poems/ptwoglas.htm and George Webster’s “The Story of Rip van Winkle” https://ufdcimages.uflib.ufl.edu/UF/00/08/54/12/00001/UF00085412_00001.pdf (Louisa was a teetotaler).

Jane died on 25 January 1908 and is buried with Thomas at Wangaratta Cemetery.

Jane, who in her adolescence was a pauper, lived to the age of 75, bore 12 children and owned a farm of 282 acres. This must have been beyond the wildest dreams of the adolescent Jane. When I look at this brief sketch of Jane’s life, I cannot but think “very brave girl and a true Australian pioneer”. When I look back to the Magherafelt Workhouse, I also cannot help thinking that she took advantage of the third Earl Grey’s Irish Orphans scheme, and was not a victim of it.

Thomas on the other hand did not have much choice. He grew-up in a family under stress and once he was caught for stealing the boots and the cheese the system of the day determined his future. After arriving in Australia however he rose to the challenge and through hard work was able to make a success of his life – another true pioneer.

(As a footnote, it is observed that while in Wangaratta he seems to have had only two run-ins with the law: one for being drunk for which he was cautioned and discharged and the other a traffic infringement “leaving a horse and dray unprotected in the public streets” for which he was fined 2s 6d, with 5s costs).

Just a reminder about this year’s annual gathering at the Famine monument.

Invitation to attend Commemoration Ceremony