My Aboriginal Heritage - Part 1 - Finding the truth
Yaama (Hello) - this is a personal story of my journey to find my Aboriginal ancestors. If I were to write only what I know for sure about this part of my heritage this would be a very short post indeed (at least I thought so when I started writing!) I have been researching this a long time and it is a very personal journey, more so than any other part of my heritage.
My Aboriginal line is my direct motherline as shown below. Margaret, as far as I can tell was full-blood Aboriginal.
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The research - Finding the truth
When I was in my early 20's, yes many, many years ago in the late 80's, after my Mum had passed away, I had a visit from an uncle who told me that I should research my Nana Dora's heritage as she was Aboriginal.
I know back in those days my older relatives may not have been pleased with the news and so, in an effort not to upset anyone, I kept this information to myself, and I did my research quietly.
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| Mum (left), Uncle Ted, Marie The uncle that gave me the first information |
Many years went by and I didn't really uncover anything, and to be honest I wasn't trying that hard, I was just keeping my eyes open for anything that might suggest that he was telling the truth. I peered at the few family photos I had looking for signs. My Mum had never told me about it, and I’m not sure that she knew.
I had my great-grandparents marriage certificate (below), West Maitland 1894, their names were Mary Ann Hole and John Eric Tiedemann. Mary Ann was born in Walgett to Martin Hole and Margaret and John was German, parents George and Catharine. He died in a mine accident 1905 and Mary Ann died in 1904. I also had the names of their 6 children from both his and her death certificates. I had looked for a birth of Mary Ann for a long time with no results at all.
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| Marriage certificate of John Tiedemann and Mary Ann Hole 1894 West Maitland |
So roll the calendar forward 30 years to December 2016. I was searching on familysearch.org and I came across a baptism for a Mary Ann Hole. It was likely that I had seen this record before but had always dismissed it because of the year, rookie mistake!
Mary Ann's marriage certificate records her as 25 yrs old, making her birth around 1868 in Walgett, and this baptism was in 1887 in Scone. But I had to be sure. I contacted Newcastle City Library. They had the film rolls of the Scone church baptisms. Georgia was going to look and get back to me with details.
Georgia rang me with some news. I was keen with anticipation. It turn out this record was an adult baptism, female born around 1860, not an infant baptism as I had originally assumed.
She tentatively said to me, "ummm..... how much do you know about your gt-grandmother?" I had an inkling of where she was going with this.. "well I know that she was Aboriginal" I said hopefully ...Georgia let out a sigh of relief and said "I wasn't sure how to tell you in case you didn't know".
I was ecstatic, finally a document that stated this, although not in nice terms "half caste", I was happy to see it noted! Even that comment gave me a little more information, she was indeed of mixed race, and I was guessing Margaret (no surname) was my next line of inquiry, but I hadn't finished with Mary Ann yet.
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| 1887 baptism of Mary Ann in Scone, born c.1860 |
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| 1879 baptism of Emma in Scone, born 1877 |
So looking at this evidence you might not think this was enough to be proof, but I was pretty sure I was on the right track. What about the 1860 rather than 1868? Well I am guessing that Mary Ann didn’t know her age so the minister took an educated guess. Her year of birth has always been variable on a range of certificates, and they listed a year, not a date, so this would back up the guess theory.
Scone is still the right area though. It is on the Kamilaroi Highway enroute south east between where Mary Ann was recorded as being born in Walgett, and where she ended up in West Maitland married to my gt-grandfather. (N.B. There was one other Mary Hole in the area but I discounted her as Hole was her married name and the relationships didn’t match.)
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| The path from Walgett to Scone to West Maitland |
If Mary Ann was born in 1860 she would have been 17 when she had Emma. Not a stretch for the circumstances I would be betting. She could have been even younger, maybe 14, if they had overestimated her age on that baptism record, all feasible.
Information from the baptisms show Mary Ann worked as a domestic servant at Wittegary Creek a place near Owen’s Gap on the road to Merriwa. Something else to investigate.
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| Scone to Owen's Gap |
What I found next was a HUGE breakthrough, the next steps for Mary Ann before she met And married John Tiedemann. A section of her life of which I knew nothing, and one that I hoped would lead me to our ancestors.
The mystery of George
So there was another mystery that started off with John Tiedemann but soon turned into information about Mary Ann. The answer came by an interesting set of interlinked events.
I had been looking at a newspaper article about John’s death in the mine. It made comment of a son by the name of George who worked at that office. I originally thought they meant at the mine office, but soon realised they were talking about the newspaper office that was reporting the accident. But, as far as I was aware, John and Mary Ann didn't have a son named George. I hadn't found any record of that. I was a bit stumped. Let’s put a pin in that and come back to it.
In separate correspondence with a cousin on Ancestry, who had been giving me information over a period of years, told me about a relative she had met who had done research on Mary Ann and said that she was Aboriginal. I desperately wanted to find this man.
The only information I had was that his surname was Daley. Another pin please!
The blackout breakthrough
One night we had a blackout, so no internet, no TV. I decided now would be a good time to go back through all my paper-based certificates, so using a torch 🔦 (yes I am a bit hardcore with my family history) I went through them reviewing all the facts. All of a sudden I noticed the surname Daley as a witness on a death certificate of one of Mary Ann’s children, Martin. She was listed as Niece.
Well, I did have an iPad with internet so I did a search for the witness I. Daley. I found a marriage...bingo!
Donald Mervyn Daley married Irene Tiedeman!!!!
Irene’s birth in the indexes... daughter of George H Tiedemann and Ivy P. and also a sister Georgina.
I had found the mystery George!
(I found later that there is another daughter Elvie, but she was born in Nov 1921, so still not available on NSW BDM)
I also searched for George in the records under the surname Hole.
Find the researcher
I went back to the info about Irene Daley, one of her descendants must be the mystery cousin, 3 children and only one was a son, Bruce Daley. This was surely the cousin with all the research. Looking at electoral records I found an address of where they had lived. I checked the phone book online for a listing. Someone of the same surname still living at the same address. I really am not one for calling people out of the blue, so I put pen to paper and sent an old fashioned snail mail.
(I condensed my research into a small timeframe here, most was done in that night, amazing discoveries by torchlight and by the glow of the iPad in the dark, some admittedly after the lights came back on! :P )
About a week later I got a phone call from Lisa, daughter of Bruce Daley. Her Mum had given the letter to her. Sadly she reported to me that her Dad had passed away only 6 months previously. What a shame that I didn't find him sooner :(
Anyway, it was great to talk to Lisa. She said her Dad would have been so thrilled if I had only been able to meet him. She arranged for me to get a copy of his research from her cousin Peta who was collating it.
The information was interesting, and gave me a starting point and leads to follow. One especially valuable thing was his recollections about his grandfather George, and other family members. Priceless!
It also gave me a full tree of descendants from George and new DNA candidates. I first met my cousin Robyn over coffee in Newcastle, and was able to present her with a photo of her gt-grandfather.
Then I met her sister Peta in Canberra, who very kindly offered to do a DNA test (but the test failed both times - very frustrating for both of us) and so Robyn came to the rescue, and did a test and was successful, yay! Lisa (who I still haven't met) did one for me a few months back, and another of their cousins has done one as well.
This group is great, because they only match Mary Ann not the German Tiedemann’s side of my tree. Peta also went to great effort to provide me with a photo of George, the only photo I have of Mary Ann’s children with the exception of my own grandmother.
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| My grandmother's half-brother George |
In Part 2 I will review the resources used in the search for Mary Ann's mother, Margaret.
Yaluu (Goodbye, see you again soon)
Great read again Julie....
ReplyDeleteLove the way the story unfolds bit by bit! Great read!
ReplyDeleteThanks Kathryn, always like a mystery:) this research took lots of twists and turns.
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