LIST 19 - 1811 MUSTER - NEW SOUTH WALES
The third muster presented for New South Wales is the 1811 Muster, which
took place in February of that year. There are 189 members of the First
Generation identified from this muster (149 colonial born and 40 childhood
arrivals, 58 boys and 131 girls). Once again what has happened to all the boys ? The information presented for each entry is:
family nameChristian name
year of birth
parents' names
parents' civil status at the time of the child's birth parents' marital status at the time of the child's birth settlement of residence civil status ship of arrival name of spouse for females surname as it appears in the original muster reference number linking the entry back to the original source document. The entries in the list are presented alphabetically ordered by the father's
surname, exactly the same as in the original Muster, which by the way is the
only one among the various musters to list the entries in perfect alphabetical
order, making it one of the easiest musters to use. Three girls would appear to be duplicated in the Muster; Jane Cowling
[2643]/[2644], Jane Kennedy [3339]/[3340] and Mary Roberts [4977]/[4978]
and one boy John Baxter [6102]/[6103] bringing the total number of
individuals in this list to 185. Again the question has to be asked, why
these particular 185 First Generation colonist and not the hundreds of others,
is a mystery.By 1811 the eldest of the colonial born would have been 23 years old, with many, especially the girls, having started families of their own. The girls have been separated from the boys and the names of their spouses
included in order to make sense of the surnames under which their entries are
found in the Muster because most of them were already in relationships with
men and following the English custom, women took their husband's surname upon
marriage.
The year of birth, parental details and name of spouse (for girls) are
additional information researched for this work which are not in the original muster.
As mentioned the married girls used their husband's surname, the exceptions
being; Rose Bean, Charlotte Day, Mary Dowling, Rosanna Julian & Sarah
Lee, why these five women chose not to use their husband's surname is unknown.
Even those girls not legally married to their husbands used their surname, for example; Hannah Edge, Frances Martin, Sarah Sutton and Jane Gittens, it appears
only Mary Duggan did not.
The single girls and boys used their father's surnames, whether he was married
to their mother or not. There were only two exceptions to this practice
amongst the boys and that was the interesting case of the two lads listed in
the Muster as John and Thomas Watts. At first glance it would appear that
they were brothers, but they were not, at second glance it would appear
they were step-brothers, but they were not, they were no relation at all, they
both just happened to have mothers called Watts (as far as is known not related
to one another) and they both chose to use there mother's surnames. There are
always traps for the unwary genealogist !
Seven of the single girls decided to use their mother's surnames. Charlotte Day
(Bishop) is particularly interesting, not only did she not use her legally
married husband's surname (Crabb), she did not use her father's surname
either, even though he was legally married to her mother.
The parents and birth details of 4 males and 13 females are still unknown at
this time:
John Carrell [0932]
William English [1883]
Thomas Johnson [3136]
William Kelly [3319]
Penelope Atkins [0158]
Teresa Atkins [0161]
Elizabeth Chapman [1012]
Mary Fitzgerald [2038]
Maria Forster [2114]
Ann Honis [2877]
Ann Johnson [2575]
Elizabeth Johnson [4046]
Frances Martin [0025]
Mary Smith [4110]
Mary Ann Taylor [5710]
Sarah Walburn [5982]
Elizabeth Williams [4809]
The identity of Elizabeth Schaeffer being the same as Elizabeth Smith has
been deduced from the fact that there were no other women named Elizabeth
who arrived free on the 'Lady Juliana', although it has to be admitted that
up to this point in time no marriage to a man named Smith has been found either.The surname of one woman, the wife of James O'Hara, has not been solved as yet since her marriage record has not been found.
The "Settlement of Residence" column is interesting because this is the first, and only? muster which attempts to document persons living in more than one
settlement. As we have seen the 1800 and 1806 musters were restricted to Sydney and surrounding districts, the 1802 and 1805 musters were only for Norfolk Island
residents. As we shall see subsequent musters were also settlement specific,
so in this regard the 1811 Muster is unique. For the first time we have mention
of the settlements on Van Diemens Land, one female - Mary Wainwright - was
a resident of Hobart. Eight women were recorded on Norfolk Island.The "Civil Status" column in the original has just two responses, free and
convict. All the entries in this list are free of course (with the exception
of Mary Wainwright who is recorded as a convict so either she committed a
colonial offence or this is a clerical error transposing the information
from her convict husband's entry above). In passing one might note that
no distinction appears to have been made in the original muster between
current and emancipated convicts.
The "Ship of Arrival" column for the colonial born was recorded as either "born
in colony" or "born Norfolk Island" or left blank altogether. Even among the
childhood arrivals only 17 listed their ship of arrival, three; Mary Ikin,
Jane Kennedy and Mary Sharling have "born in colony" in error and the rest
left the column blank. John Kennedy's ship was incorrectly recorded as
"Surprise" when it should have been "Sovereign". All these omissions have
been corrected in the list presented here.
For reasons which are unclear, William Darkes is recorded as John Darkes and
Rosanna Julian is recorded as Esther Julian.
Only 6 of the 20 males and 13 of the 29 females from the 1806 Muster appear
in this muster.
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