For the letter I, I have chosen to write about an individual called Isaac Trueman. Now, Isaac is only very tenuously related to me as the husband of my 5th great aunt. So why would I choose to write about him? Well, this is the story.

Many years ago, I was researching 3rd great grandfather, who at the time was going by the surname of Trueman. Turns out, that wasn’t the surname he was born with but that’s another story. It was in the course of researching the parents that were recorded on the marriage certificate of my 3rd great grandfather that I cam across Isaac. According to the certificates, I was looking for a Romeo Trueman who was married to a Harriet Flear. Well, it turned out eventually that Romeo didn’t exist but Harriet did. Like any good researcher, having hit a brick wall I did some research on collateral relatives to try and find a way around the wall.

I started by researching Harriet and her life but found no traces of a Trueman. So, I researched all of her siblings and when researching her younger sister Elizabeth Harrison Flear I hit pay dirt: she had married an Isaac Trueman. Perhaps a relative of Isaac’s had married Harriet? So, I enthusiastically researched the life of Isaac Trueman.

Isaac was born around 1805 is Ilkeston, Derbyshire. Not much has been found about his early

life and his parents remain unnamed at this point in time, but by 1831 he was living in Newark on Trent in the neighbouring county of Nottinghamshire. It was here on 2 May 1831 that Isaac married Elizabeth Harrison Flear. The couple had three children: Michael Flear Trueman; Frederick William Trueman; and Thomas Flear Trueman. Isaac and his wife along with their three children appear on the 1841 and 1851 English Censuses, with Isaac’s occupation listed as a corn factor.

Still, I found no relatives of Isaac’s and no link to Harriet Flear beyond that of sister-in-law. But out of curiosity, and perhaps just for something to do, I started doing some basic research on Isaac’s sons and this is where it started to get interesting. All three of Isaac’s sons ended up in Australia. Now, this might not sound unusual but Thomas Flear Trueman caused a bit of a wild goose chase for me as this was a name that my 3rd great grandfather had been using. I managed to trace the arrival of Thomas and Frederick in Australia in 1886, but it soon became obvious that they had been in Australia prior to that.

So back to Isaac, who by all guesses had been living a routine life working as a corn merchant up until his death in 1876 at the age of 71. According to his obituary, none of his sons were in England at that time and it indicates that they are living in Australia. So, it’s obvious that it was known that Isaac’s sons had related to Australia but what happens next is somewhat sad. After Isaac’s death, numerous advertisements were placed in a wide variety of Australian newspapers  which identified his sons as missing persons.

For a period of two years, the advertisements appeared in Australian newspapers. As time went on, there was more detail added to the advertisements; like the information that they hadn’t been heard from since 1872. It seems inconceivable to us nowadays, with modern technology making possible to contact people all but instantly no matter their location, but it wasn’t unusual in those days for individuals to leave for far flung countries and lose contact with family left behind. Letters were the only form of communication, and not only was it a long process to get a letter form Australia to england it was also costly.

Perhaps Isaac’s sons did write letters and they got lost in the mail or maybe they simply got caught up in their new lives in Australia. Whatever the case, they did lose contact with their father in England and he died before making contact with them again. It’s sad to think that Isaac built himself a career as a corn merchant, married and had a family only to die alone with no family around him.