JohnHumphrey on Family Tree Circles

My 2 x great-grandmother, Mary Wemyss (1800-1871) of Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, Scotland - married to John Humphrey, Calico Printer (1803-1849) - had a brother James and sister Sarah who both ended up in Sydney, Australia. Some of their correspondence (totalling 10 letters between 1829 and 1852, mostly on family matters) have survived (now in the National Library, Canberra). James Wemyss married Priscilla Kelly (from Glasgow) in Ayrshire. In 1827 Priscilla was convicted of "uttering forged notes" (passing out counterfeit banknotes to local shopkeepers) and sent down under on the convict ship "Louisa". James, a shoemaker, followed her out a few months later as a free passenger (i.e. a settler, not a convict) on board the cargo ship "Boddingtons". They had left a young son back in Scotland, James Wemyss jr, who was brought out six years later by his aunt (Mary's sister) Sarah Wemyss, who had decided to emigrate. James Jr became a shipwright, and married Eliza Stewart - an emigrant from Govan, Lanarkshire - about 1844. They lived in Hobart, Tasmania, and Auckland New Zealand, and had 4 children, but James Jr died young, in 1852.

Priscilla and James sr. had five more children in Sydney, three of whom survived into adulthood: twins Elizabeth & Benjamin b 1829 and Hercules b 1835. Of these, Elizabeth married James Perkins, a mariner who died early; they had a son William Lloyd Perkins (1850-1940, an engine driver). Benjamin became a ticketed seaman. Hercules, 1835-1918, a construction worker in Canterbury NSW, had 9 children with his wife Charlotte Rexworthy.

James Wemyss sr., who had become a tavern keeper in Sydney, died in 1836, age 38. Priscilla married John Munro, a former mariner and a Ginger Beer manufacturer, and they had a son John Munro jr who became a grocer and tallow chandler.

Meanwhile, Sarah Wemyss, Priscilla's sister, having arrived in Sydney, soon met up with John Noble - a convict from County Tyrone, Ireland via the ship Waterloo 1831. They lived on Dr Ramsay's family's orchard in Dobroyd, Petersham. John & Sarah had two surviving children - James Ramsay Noble who married Frances Blakeney and moved to Townsville, Queensland; and Priscilla Ellen Noble, who married David Missingham and moved to the Illawarra, NSW. Both with numerous children.

And Priscilla Kelly had a younger sister Elizabeth back in Glasgow, who was transported 5 years after Priscilla, on the convict ship Buffalo, 1833 - serving a 7 year sentence for mugging an inebriated acquaintance and stealing his watch. She married an Englishman, Joseph Wright, soon after landing - but their relationship was abusive and they seem to have quickly separated. She was in and out of jail after that, in Sydney, for various petty crimes. But I've lost her trail.

So, all in all, I have been busy keeping my eyes trained in a dozen directions trying to keep track of all these various ancestors as they tried to put down family roots on the opposite side of the globe. Fascinating and never-ending.