Going through genealogy to update my ancestry for the last few days. I am a deaf genealogist for more than 28 years, and I came across many dark secrets, shocking revelations, newfound cousins for we did not realise through friends instead of cousins. Of course, I just found out there were two more links from the Deaf community, which I never thoughts until they mention the name of their ancestors through Facebook. Even discovering that we have several famous cousins dating back to England, Ireland and Europe. Blimey wow!
Let me tell you something exciting stories which fall one of the new cousins of their fifth/sixth male generation back which link to my fifth/sixth female generation back as a brother and a sister of the same line to one of my ancestors – Cherry family.
Emily Alice Cherry married her husband of Canterbury, New Zealand and this husband’s families had the most fascinated lives such as convicts, a famous couple of the well-known city in the South Island, several sad stories, a con man, a whaler, and a captain.
Well, let start with a woman born and raised in England. She was a good woman but for one little problem was she stole a pecking apron. The staff reported the constable as it was called in these old days. From there, she was arrested and went on a trial. The court charged her on transportation to Norfolk Island for seven years. Her name was Sarah G. Fast forward, she had three daughters, and a son with different fathers for no one was sure over the actual parentage lineage. It sounds like tramping over the muddy water. Her daughter – Mary married the chap in Tasmania for his father was a convict back in Ireland and sailed to Tasmanian for seven years. He was also a conman, exclusive character with many misdemeanors because the surname was difficult to track down where he was in trouble with the law. Mary’s husband Charles was a criminal over stealing woods, a barrel of salt, money, drunken and fighting in Tasmania, and his life was not a good experience due to his criminal for a long time. Mary died while being separated and John remarried to another woman on a permitted through the court, so he received a grant to married the woman who was a widow from her previous marriage. Now John’s father – Charles was also fraud fellow with many disguised names, and he came from Bologna, Italy. We, genealogists, have trouble tracing his surname for there were too many to track and find the clues together.
Right, here is another mystery and discovering of Charles and Mary’s children. Let focus one male child called Joseph C, F.and he became a captain with a wife and four children in Australia. One day, Captain Joseph C. F became a captain after several months as a … and he took his men on the ship – Creole along with the cargo. They sailed out for Dunedin, New Zealand by leaving Launceston, Tasmania but the fateful day/night the vessel went aground near Tasmania. There were no survivors as all. Captain J lost his life and left a wife with four children. https://www.fishingboating-world.com/n/photo/176493
Now, Captain J had a brother called John J. F, and he was a whaler/timber cutter along with his best mate – George Mason. Both of them decide to travel to one of the whaling stations, New Zealand on a vessel – “Vansittart”. John J. F and George Mason decided to settle down in Canterbury, near Christchurch. One of the whaling stations is Peraki Bay and here is a picture of the bay.
https://stamps.nzpost.co.nz/new-zealand/1950/canterbury-centennial
Each of these men got the land purchased by one of the Māori iwi and John J. F married to a Māori woman. Anyway, there was something fishing about John J. F. and his background back in Tasmania if he had done a crime or something else. Mutu’s hapu (a group of the family clan) related to the Māori chief – Tutemakohu, and KokerePokoriri, who fought the war in the South Island.
Under John. F and Mutu, had got a large number of children. In this family, there were so many tragedies over the years, such as drowning, missing, crimes. One of their children married to our Osborne/Cherry’s side family – Emily Alice Cherry. Emily had got a sister called Mary Jane Cherry who married to the Osborne family of Oxford, near Christchurch, New Zealand. With our Osborne and Cherry family, Mary Ann’s husband Thomas committed suicide because he can not cope with over 10 children. After all, Mary Ann died passed away and leaving our great-grandma Rose the eldest child in Thomas’s second marriage. The Osborne children were sent to the State Home (Orphan Home in Christchurch, New Zealand). Rose was under 18 years old, and she kept in touch with her brothers and sisters but nothing to do with the other children from Thomas’s first marriage but often ran into them.
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