Arabella Davies Law - Australia help please
 

This is on a side-branch of my tree - Arabella Davi(e)s Law born 15 Sep 1837 Southwark, Surrey, baptised 6 Oct 1837 St George the Martyr, Southwark, parents William and Charlotte. In 1841 the family are all in the workhouse, Charlotte separate from the rest of them:
1841 census

Arabella is listed as Isabella on this census. (She was named after her great-grandmother who was never sure whether her name was Arabella or Isabella.)

Here is the rest of the family in 1851 but no Arabella / Isabella and I haven't managed to find her elsewhere:
1851 census
Now I have just found that she appears on some public ancestry trees marrying a Henry Barnett in Victoria, Australia in 1863 and dying in 1876 in Adelaide. She doesn't have a middle name on either the marriage or death index, just Arabella, but apparently she and Henry gave one of their children the middle name Bristow, which would fit with my Arabella.

Can anyone find anything to prove / disprove that Arabella Barnett is my Arabella, please? (It's only a distant twig of my tree so I'm not planning to pay for certificates.)

Unfortunately there's hardly anything online for South Australia, but I've found what appears to be the missing link; there's a death in Queensland in 1944 for a Francis Law, son of Henry and Elizabeth Arabella Barnett:

https://www.bdm.qld.gov.au/IndexSear....m?type=deaths

And one of the various Ancestry trees has the birth of a Francis Law Barnett to Henry and Arabella in NSW in 1872. I haven't been able to find it on the NSW birth index, but they give an exact date and place of birth (3/1/1872 in Wentworth), so maybe they have a cert.

They also have a wife for Francis, but I haven't found a marriage yet.

I did check the Victoria BMD index, but it doesn't appear to give Arabella's middle name or parents' names:

https://online.justice.vic.gov.au/bd...SearchCriteria

and I haven't found anything on Trove so far:

http://trove.nla.gov.au

I see Henry and Arabella had a son Ronald F Barnet in Wentworth in 1872, which casts a certain amount of doubt on the birth date given in the tree for Francis.

Hmm. Francis is buried in Brisbane under the name of Francis Law:

http://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/commu...arch/index.htm

and married Elizabeth Mauch (the name of the wife given in the Ancestry trees) in Queensland in 1923, also under the name of Francis Law.

So either the people with the Ancestry trees have got entirely the wrong person, being misled by his mother's name of Elizabeth Arabella Barnett in the death index, or Francis dropped his surname for some reason before he got married.

Arabella Barnett isn't a particularly common name, so I'd be inclined to think it's the same Francis, but I'm not sure you can go much further without certs.

Thanks for looking, Mary. I guess Ronald F and Francis could be the same person? Maybe the F is short for Francis?

Also the Australian Birth Index on ancestry has a James Barnett born 1866 Swan Hill, Victoria, parents Henry Barnett and Arabelle Law, but he doesn't seem to be on those public trees.

The 1944 burial record gives his age as 72, which would tie in with a birth around 1872.

He's buried in the Anzac section of the cemetery, so I looked for a service record, and found his WW1 record. The next of kin's hard to read on the attestation page, but it looks like Wolfinden and the name of a boarding house in NSW, and on p. 6, the letter about the DCM awarded to Francis is sent to Mr A Wolfinden, Union Hotel, Barcaldine, Qld.

There are some Wolfindens on the electoral roll, mostly in Qld, but I can't see a man with the initial A.

Found Francis now on the WW1 embarkation roll; his nok is given as Albert Wolfenden, friend, with a Qld address.

https://www.awm.gov.au/research/peop...ct=0&op=Search

Henry and Arabella Barnett also had three others in Wenworth NSW

6244/1869 BARNETT HERBERT W HENRY ARABELLA WENTWORTH
5010/1864 BARNETT THOMAS H HENRY ARABELLA WENTWORTH
21127/1874 BARNETT OLIVER BRISTOW HENRY ARABELLA WENTWORTH
19236/1872 BARNET RONALD F HENRY ARABELLA WENTWORTH

Wentworth is at the junction of the Darling and Murray Rivers in far western NSW - at that time it was an important River Port. However, people there had far more contact with Adelaide and Melbourne than with Sydney.

It would appear that Henry and Arabella married in Victoria in 1863-64.

Oliver B Barnett married Mary E F Gainer in Broken Hill NSW in 1905. - They had two children Henry C in 1906 and Pearl E in 1908 in Broken Hill.

My ancestry sub has run out, but you might be able to pick up Thomas, Herbert or Oliver in the electoral rolls. I could not see them in the NSW Deaths Index or the Ryerson Index.

Di

I think Wentworth was hit pretty in the Depression of the 1890s and many people left the district.

Could have a search on here.

Have emailed them and got reply to say they're live and have passed my request for bil ancestors on to the research team but they haven't got back to me yet.

http://www.gouldgenealogy.com/2012/0...es-now-online/