Dawson

What a challenge!

Miss W. #52ancestors, Allen, Dawson, Smith, Wyatt , ,
Mohamed_hassan / Pixabay

My parents and I had often spoken about our family history. Three of my grandparents were alive when I was born but none of my great grandparents. In fact four of my grandparents were alive but I didn’t know that until my parents, my brother and I did DNA tests.

Mum’s DNA matches were lots of her cousins that she knew or who we knew of from family reunions I had helped run back in the 1980’s and were on my database. But there were a few unknown names in Dad’s DNA matches.

Now came the challenge – how were they related to my dad?

Dad’s paternal line should have been the surname WYATT and his maternal line should have been SMITH.

From what I knew of dad’s paternal side, his father had deserted him and his mother when dad was two and there were no other children from the marriage. But his father had been married before and had two children from that marriage. I could find no matches relating to them. Another person with the surname Wyatt but living in New South Wales had been in contact with me and thought her grandfather and my grandfather were the same person. So we had her dad test DNA as well – another half brother for dad. But all my research on the Wyatt name from the paper work we had was getting us nowhere for 20 years until suddenly another DNA match with the surname ALLEN came up as a close match. We worked out he was a half nephew to my dad. His father had the surname Allen and he was older than my dad.  Over 20 years research to work out dad’s father was actually William Elvis Allen and not William Allen Wyatt.

Now Dad’s other challenge was the surname Smith. I had done a lot of research on dad’s supposed grandfather and his father who was a half Samoan whaling captain. But dad’s DNA had no Samoan ethnicity.  So I asked a few of the Smith relatives to test. They all had Samoan and they all matched each other. But Dorothy, who I had met on a bus tour and while chatting worked out we were related through Captain Smith, did not match my dad at all. She matched the other Smith cousins. From this we worked out dad’s grandfather was not the son of the whaling captain but someone else.

The close unknown matches on dad’s DNA came back to the surname DAWSON. After more researching, I worked out dad’s grandfather had been a miner on the west coast of Tasmania at the same time as the Smiths were there woodcutting and whaling.

Below are links to posts I’ve already written about these families.

William Elvis Allen

Alexander Dawson

Captain William Smith

Readers: Have you had both a bigamist and a NPE (non parental event) in your family tree?

Overlooked

Miss W. #52ancestors, Chandler, Davey, Dawson, Smith , ,
RitaE / Pixabay

This past weekend I took part in the WikiTree Connect-a-thon. Adding new profiles to the tree, I noticed there were many cases of infant or child mortality. In some families, 5 out of 10 children died before age three. Then when I searched newspapers for the death of parents, I found many of these infants were not mentioned as deceased children in the family.

These children had been overlooked by their siblings who wrote the death notice in the newspaper. Maybe they didn’t know they had more siblings who had died young. Some of these infants didn’t even get a formal name.

Looking in my direct family tree:

  • Mum had an older sister Iris who died aged 9, just a month after mum was born. She is remembered on the family gravestone and in photos I have inherited.
  • Dad was an only child but ended up having 7 half siblings who all survived to adulthood. But one was in a mental hospital from a young age and I can’t find his death.
  • My paternal grandfather William Elvis Allen had 2 siblings and three half siblings. His older sister Ethel Maud Allen only survived two years and I have not yet found any headstone for her.
  • My paternal grandmother Irene Smith had 14 siblings (DNA they are half maternal siblings) and another 3 siblings (DNA they are half paternal siblings). Only one of those half siblings died less than one year old.
  • My maternal grandfather Henry Lewis England had 3 sisters. The youngest Lucy died aged 20.
  • My maternal grandmother Hannah Davey had 11 siblings. Her younger sisters Elsie died aged 11 and Lila died aged 8. Both are remembered on the same headstone as their parents in Evandale, Tasmania. They were always mentioned in newspaper reports as well.

Hannah had 44 nieces and nephews and only one of them died young aged 14.

If I were to go further back in my tree and look at nieces and nephews of my direct ancestors, I know there are a lot more families with infants or children who have died young.

So to make sure these youngsters are not overlooked, I am making sure I write a profile for them in WikiTree. Here are some of them:

 

Alexander DAWSON Junior

Miss W. Biography, Dawson , , , , ,

Alexander Junior was the third of eleven children born to Alexander Senior and Hannah Dawson nee Sutton. He was born on 11 February 1884 at Gladstone in the Ringarooma district in Tasmania.

Alexander’s siblings were:

  • William John Alexander  1882 – 1884 – died by drowning in Gladstone
  • Albert William 1883 – 1981
  • Catherine Mary 1886 – 1973
  • Henry George 1891 – 1916 – died in WWI
  • John McKay 1892 – 1915 – died in WWI
  • Olive Maud 1894 – 1972
  • Myrtle Amy 1894 – 1975
  • George Byron Matthew 1896 – 1982
  • William Percy 1898 – 1945
  • Frederick Roy (James) 1900 – 1982
  • Half sibling Eileen Blanche CAREY 1905 –

On 27 March 1884, his Lordship Bishop Sandford visited Gladstone. One of his duties there was to administer rites of baptism to Alexander Dawson’s infant child. This was probably Alexander Junior.

The Dawson’s were a mining family first at Gladstone and then they moved to Queenstown.

At age 17, Alexander’s father passed away .

Alexander senior passed away from inflammation of the lungs due to working multiple extended shifts in succession. This was not normally permitted due to the poor quality air in underground mining known to cause lung complaints. But in this case it was overlooked because they’d lost all their belongings in a housefire associated with the nearby bushfires. Alexander was trying to rebuild his home and contents for the family. They lived in a poorer area of Queenstown known as The Pigsty, adjacent to the current football ground. [1]

His wife was left to bring up 10 children of which only one was an age to get a job at the mines. Hannah married again fairly quickly as she had five children under the age of seven when her first husband passed.

At some stage in late 1908, Alexander spent at least one evening with Irene Nellie Somers/Clark and in July 1909 his daughter, Irene was born on Bruny Island. This has been proved through DNA matches. Alexander had no knowledge of this daughter as far as I know.

Married life and children

His marriage to Sarah Jane HAWKINS occurred on 17 July 1912 in Queenstown, Tasmania.

Their first child Alexander Charles was born in September 1912 but unfortunately died three weeks later on 7 October at Preston Street, Queenstown.

Just five days later Alexander was involved in the famous North Lyell Disaster. A Royal Commission into the disaster was held in December 1912 and Alexander was called as a witness.

Alexander Dawson deposition about 1912 Mt Lyell mining disaster

Two of Alexander’s brothers were also involved in the disaster – Albert and Henry.

Alexander and Jane’s second child Ronald was born in 1913 and their first daughter Eileen in 1916 at Austin Street, Queenstown.

Alexander was still mining at Mount Lyell North in 1917 when he was brought up on charges of personal negligence in endangering the safety of two miners working in the mine.

In October 1923, their second daughter Olive was born in Queenstown.

His wife, Jane (also known as Jenny), died on 7 November 1924, from an allergy to a bee sting. [2]

Two weeks later Alexander was charged with indecent behaviour in Little Orr Street, Queenstown.

After Sarah died, Alexander continued to work to feed & clothe the family. The eldest son Ron (Adrian’s grandfather), from age 11, looked after his two sisters in his father’s absence. Alexander was known to ‘touch the bottle along’ after Jenny’s death. After Alexander’s death, Ron continued to care for his sisters until they found their own lives as adults. [3]

Ron with his sisters Eileen and Olive

Alexander died in 1933 from fatal injuries after falling at a sideshow and not regaining consciousness when taken to hospital. A fantastic obituary was written in the local paper. An inquest was held and the coroner gave the verdict of accidental death.

Both Jane and Alexander are buried in the Queenstown cemetery

Sources:

  1. Adrian Dawson, email received 7 December 2021
  2. Adrian Dawson, email received 7 December 2021
  3. Adrian Dawson, email received 7 December 2021