LIST 13 - BAPTISMS - ST MARYS HOBART
The eleventh church and second Roman Catholic parish to be
established in the colony was St Marys at Hobart Van Diemens Land.
Even though the first baptism was not performed in the church until
the 16th April 1821, for reasons explained below the details of 24
baptisms are recorded in St Marys register for 1820.
The information recorded and presented for each child is exactly as
described for St Phillips in List 3.
The list is presented in chronological order by date of baptism then
alphabetically by father's surname.
With regard to the fathers, identities of 68% have been found. The
arrival details of 23 of the fathers remain unknown.
With regard to the mothers, identities of only 48% have been found.
The arrival details of 37 of the mothers remain unknown.
Fifty baptisms took place after 1820 when older children came to
baptism, the latest being George Moore in 1827 at the age of twenty.
There were nine duplicate entries on the register during the period
under study reducing the total of individual baptisms to 65. All nine
were previously baptized at Anglican churches, thus bearing witness
to the early sectarian divide in the colony (which existed well
into the latter part of the twentieth century).
Where the father's surname has a second name separated by a slash '/',
the surname after the slash is how the name was spelt in the original
document or if second name is substantially different it refers to
an alias. Where the mother's surname has a second name separated by
a slash, the surname after the slash is her married name at the time
of the recording being made if she was married more than once.
The reference number would direct the reader to the relevant entry
in the original source document.
It should be noted that this list contains considerably more
information than will be found in the original church register, being
the result of decades of research, principally associated with the
Pioneer Register Project.
Not infrequently genealogists are confronted with odd situations in
the pursuit of their passion and the case of the Reverend Conolly
and his baptismal register is one such example.
The Rev. Philip Conolly along with the Rev. John Therry were the first
officially sanctioned Roman Catholic priests to be appointed
to the colony of New South Wales. They sailed together in the 'Janus'
reaching Sydney on the 3rd May 1820. Whilst Therry was allocated to
New South Wales, Conolly was destined for Van Diemens Land but
Governor Macquarie detained him in the senior colony for a year.
Four weeks after his arrival Conolly performed his first baptism on
the 31st May. He continued to baptise children until Macquarie finally
released him to his duty in Hobart Town. He performed his last baptism
in Sydney on the 23rd March 1821. According to his entry in the
'Australian Dictionary of Biography', Conolly left for Hobart in
April 1821 arriving on the 14th and upon checking Cumpston's
'Shipping Arrivals & Departures, Sydney, 1788-1825' the only ship
to leave for that southern settlement around this time was the brig
'Active'. He performed his first baptism in Hobart two days later
on the 16th April.
So far so good but it would appear that the Rev. Conolly took his
register with him to Hobart Town resulting in the intriguing
situation of having several people born and baptised in New South
Wales appearing in records in Van Diemens Land!
Adding to the genealogical challenge, Conolly recorded his
baptismal entries in Latin, transcribing all the Christian names into
that ancient language. Fortunately most can be easily retranslated
into English although the correct transcription of "Lamentis"
remains a mystery.
One final twist in the saga, the State Archives in Tasmania
assigned a consecutive running number to each entry for every birth
in the colony. The twenty four baptisms from New South Wales (but
recorded as at Hobart) run from 893 to 1106 but in assigning the
numbers they obviously transposed the first and second pages of
Conolly's register. As a consequence numbers 893 to 904 refer to
baptisms on the second page occurring after baptisms on the first
page, numbered 905 to 916.
Those few entries which have a date of birth recorded come from
analysis conducted for the Pioneer Register Project, the dates of
birth not being recorded in the original document. As with the case
of St Johns Launceston in 1811, all baptisms in 1820 are assumed
to relate to births in 1820, but this of course may not have been
the case.
There was one baptism of a native child on the list.
Entries on this list have the reference identifier "SMH" on List 1.
To locate an entry on this list; firstly an alphabetical search
on the name would be made on List 1 from which the date of baptism
would be retrieved, secondly using the appropriate date, the baptism
would be located on this list and finally an alphabetical search
on the name would be made on the baptismal date if there should be
more than one entry for that date.
Proceed to Church Register
Return to 1811-1820
Return to Home Page
This work is copyright. Apart from any fair
dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as
permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process
without written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.