Shortstuff on Family Tree Circles

George William HALL and Sarah (Sarah Jane)BORTICK/BORTHWICK were married in County Longford, Ireland, in 1863, and were in New Zealand by 1875. George's father is said to have been George John HALL & his mother, Margaret ARMSTRONG (b.1815). Sarah's father, Thomas Edward BORTHWICK.
They had 2 children in NZ, but any born before then (Ireland? Australia?)are not known.
In one of the Irish Roots sites, the name BORTHWICK is said to be very rare in Ireland. It is of Ulster-Scots origin, occurring in Griffith's only 7 times - in Antrim & Belfast City. There is the same result for HALL/BORTHWICK households.
Some of the Halls were in the Waikato from the late 1870s onwards.

George [1] FRANKLIN =m= Mary DWYER. George listed as a gardener. Known children Annie/Nancy (birth date could be anywhere between 1837-44, but probably abt.1839 d.1912 in NZ); George[2] (23.7.1850- 9.4.1926); and Robert (b abt.1851-1913 d. in NZ).
George[2] =m= 1880, Parsontown (now Birr, Offaly)to Alice HAMILTON, and they had 9 children who emigrated via Canada to Honolulu & Calif.
George was a RIC man. Most of their children b Queens County.
I notice in the Limerick records that there are several Franklin/Dwyer couples around that time, and wonder if they could be connected.

Looking for information about Alex b.abt.1847, & John b.abt.1849, MAY or MAYS of Co.Tyrone, who arrived in Auckland on the "Dover Castle" 14.8.1875, as Assisted Immigrants. They were carpenters. With them was their sister Elizabeth, b. 1854/5. Their father's name is given as Alexander Mays on her marriage record, and Mayse elsewhere. She married Henry HINTON in 1877, and the family seems to have stayed in the Waikato area. Other descendant names connected to this family:- HALL, HENWOOD, BLAND/WALKER, WHITAKER/JONES. The name Alexander suggests they might be of Scots-Irish origin.
I would be interested to find if they stayed in NZ, as I have found 2 records in USA which could be them. I would also like to be able to fit them into the ongoing World DNA project for all the May surname variants.

Not an easy family to track, as I have found 19 different variations of the spelling. True! Mostly WOODNOTH in the old records, but sometimes the same family will be "WOODNOTH alias WOODNET", which brings you into conflict with WOODNOTs, who may or may not be related. When they moved across to the potteries, they often got WOODNORTH. In one family, 4 children christened with different surname spellings :- WOODNOTH, WOODNITT, the next chr. WOODNORTH but WOODNOTH when married, and the last chr WOODNAUGHT, but WOODWORTH when married - which is more likely to have been awful writing by the clerk.
In USA there is a DNA project going to try to sort out the lines to see which ones really go back to Cheshire.
Does anybody else belong to this crazy mixed-up family?

Not an easy family to track, as I have found 19 different variations of the spelling. True! Mostly WOODNOTH in the old records, but sometimes the same family will be "WOODNOTH alias WOODNET", which brings you into conflict with WOODNOTs, who may or may not be related. When they moved across to the potteries, they often got WOODNORTH. In one family, 4 children christened with different surname spellings :- WOODNOTH, WOODNITT, the next chr. WOODNORTH but WOODNOTH when married, and the last chr WOODNAUGHT, but WOODWORTH when married - which is more likely to have been awful writing by the clerk.
In USA there is a DNA project going to try to sort out the lines to see which ones really go back to Cheshire.
Does anybody else belong to this crazy mixed-up family?

Trying to find out how & when the HILTON name came into the family line, I made a sudden discovery that Hilton was not as a surname, but a given name - Hilton Mary VEAL, who married Edward MORAN, a paper maker, in 1846. She is in the 1841 Census (indexed as Peal) working as a servant in Richmond, Yorkshire. After their marriage, they remain in Richmond, and are in the 1851 Census (as MORNE), 1861 & 1871 (both as MORAN) - and then they vanish. They had only 2 daughters (going by the Censuses): Elizabeth (b.1850) and Sarah (b.1857). When their daughter Elizabeth gets married in 1885, she uses the spelling MORN. There seem to be hundreds (well, dozens)of Edward Morans up in the North of England (although this Edward was born in Dublin).

No doubt the name Hilton was a surname further back in time. It is possible that Edward died & she remarried to a man who preferred her to be called Mary, so that is the name she would have in the 1881 Census. Or she died & Edward remarried. Or maybe they retired back to Dublin.

Do these family names fit into anybody else's research?