Tag Archives: Milne

G is for . . .

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G is for George. George Cole Milne was my 4th great grandfather and is one of the naughtiest ancestors I have come across.

George was born in 1814 in Kent, England and arrived in NSW as a free immigrant in 1839. During his time in Sydney, George worked as a clerk for the colonial government and got married. But the marriage certificate is the first and last record of the marriage in the archives. There have been no children found to be born to the marriage and the death of his wife has yet to be confirmed, although there is a big clue pointing to when it occurred.

Whatever the case with this marriage, by 1853 the marriage had obviously begun to break down as his first child to Margaret Blakeney was born in Sydney in that year. By 1857, George has relocated to the Goulburn area and was working as a school teacher along with Margaret (also a school teacher). In the years following, from 1857 to 1867, the couple had a further five children. It’s important to note here that these births all occurred out of wedlock. Legally, George was still married to his first wife and Margaret also was married to someone else at the time.

I have been unable to find a record of the death of either George or Margaret’s previous spouses but presumably both had died by 1869, when George and Margaret were at last married after having six children together. They were married in the manse of the Goulburn Presbyterian Church, which was about 20km away from their usual residence of Kippilaw. Following the marriage, there was a mass baptism of all the children, barring the eldest.

The Kippilaw Schoolhouse today (image courtesy of stayz.com.au)

What interest me is the level of secrecy they would have had to had about the fact that they weren’t married. Especially being employed as a school teacher, George would have been expected to be above reproach so it would have been essential that no one find out that he was not legally married to the woman he claimed to be his wife. In keeping with staying under the radar, none of the couple’s children born before their marriage were registered at any time with the NSW Registry of Births Deaths and Marriage. I presume that this was so the wouldn’t have to provide a marriage date for a non existent marriage and be caught out by the local community.

Week 4 – Invite to Dinner

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The week 4 prompt for the #52ancestors challenge is ‘Invite to dinner’ and I have thought long and hard about who I would invite to dinner and what I would ask them. I thought about all the people in my tree who I still don’t have answers about and thought about one of them: but which one? I finally settled on my 3rd great grandmother, Adeline MILNE. Adeline has been very elusive and a lot of questions about her life remain unanswered and to this day still largely remains a very mysterious ancestor.

Adeline first appeared in my tree when in the course of my research I ordered the marriage certificate of Adeline and my 3rd great grandfather Robert NICHOLS. The marriage certificate states that the couple were married 6 November 1871 at the Wesleyan Parsonage in Goulburn NSW. It was obviously a rushed marriage as their first child was born 13 December 1871, just over a month after their marriage! On the certificate, Adeline’s parents are stated as George Cole MILNE and Margaret BLAKENEY. Her birthplace is given as Sydney, NSW and her age as 17 which would put her birth date at around 1854.

So logically, my next step was to search for a birth certificate, and a marriage certificate for her parents. No birth certificate has been found, but imagine my surprise when I found her parents marriage certificate: their date of marriage, 1869 in Goulburn, NSW. This means they were married when Adeline was 15 years old, if the age she gave on the marriage certificate is correct. So, obviously she was born illegitimate. Was she registered under her mother’s maiden name perhaps?

But wait, the plot thickens even further: according to the marriage certificate of George Cole MILNE and Margaret BLAKENEY (on which Margaret’s name is listed as MILLER) and she is a widow. The parties list their professions as Schoolmaster and Teacher respectively. Interestingly, Margaret signs the registry with an ‘X’ mark, If she is a teacher, why can’t she sign her name? Digging further into the MILLER name I found that Margaret that Margaret had been married before, in 1852 shortly after arriving in Australia from Ireland. Upon connecting with an individual researching the same family, I found that George Cole had also been married previously to an Amelia BRIDGET OR TAYLOR in 1840. No death has been found for either of the previous spouses, but Margaret and George Cole had 7 children together before their marriage and two after the marriage. None of the children are registered except for the two born after the marriage and the younger children were all baptised en masse in 1870. Except for Adeline, who according to my math would have been about 16 years old at the time.

Adeline continues to be missing from the certificates of her father’s death and the certificates of her siblings who were registered in 1870 and 1872 respectively. The NICHOLS family continued to live in Goulburn for some years, and there is reference to an Adeline NICHOLS in the Goulburn newspaper in the 1890s who is a nurse. Is it possible that this is my Adeline?

The family moved around later in the 1890s before ending up in Sydney where Adeline died in 1940 at The Home of Peace in Marrickville. On her death certificate, it is noted that she had been known as ‘Adeline SHUTES’. What?? Again her father is listed as George Cole MILNE but it is noted that she was born in England, not Sydney as noted on her marriage certificate and her children’s birth certificates.

 

 

So, Adeline please come to dinner, I have many questions for you!!

  • Where and when were you actually born: where you born in Sydney or in England?
  • Who was your father, really? Was it George Cole MILNE as is noted on your certificates or was it Henry MILLER or someone else entirely?
  • Were you a nurse when you lived in Goulburn?
  • Was your mother really a school teacher? If so, why did she sign her marriage certificate with an ‘X’?
  • If George Cole MILNE was your father, why aren’t you mentioned on his death certificate?
  • If Henry MILLER was your father, what happened to him? Did he die, where/when?
  • When/Where did you mother Margaret die?
  • Why did you and your family move from Goulburn?
  • Where were you and your family between 1895 and 1930?
  • Why are you not mentioned in any newspaper accounts of your brothers/sisters deaths and your husband’s death?
  • Why were you living in ‘The Home of Peace’ (a nursing home of sorts) when you died in 1940?
  • Why were you known by the name of SHUTES at the time of your death?

 

So, Adeline I would love to know a bit more about you as you have been a mystery to me for so long.