COADY

On 2022-04-24 10:48, Jeanne Roelle Yen wrote:

Ian, 

Thank you for your amazingly quick response.

I have probably seen much of the Trove stuff and everything seems to agree. I have a birth certificate for Amy Armstrong (I454167) which shows William as born at Taralga and being 40 y.o. in 1891. The '40' is a little out – maybe he didn't want to face up to the advancing years! Taralga is where Charles and Naomi Armstrong were (sometimes Laggan). I assume they came down there from Ermington to continue with Major Lockyer. The certificate also gives the marriage date of 08NOV1888  but, as I say, I can't get the marriage on the BDM Family History search. So William (snr.) does seem to be the baby of the Charles & Naomi family. Remember that I have Ancestry DNA connections with other C & N Armstrong descendants. The cert also says 2 living issue. But Amy was the second child. There were other children from previous marriages or maybe another one that never made the books. Or maybe they double counted Amy as she was several months old by then! I think the critical points are the marriage date, the (slightly off) age and the birthplace of Taralga.

(Funnily enough, I bit the bullet and bought Amy's cert just this morning. Before I discovered the 18APR2022 updates on Monaro Pioneers.)

You can see from the attached, and Monaro Pioneers, that g-grandmother Elizabeth Horton was widowed after marrying Denis Maguire in 1879. It gets a bit complicated but I knew that a well known Real Estate agent in Canberra years ago, Reg Daly, was related to William John Armstrong. So if one keeps following the clues, there is a connection there somewhere! I am also considering searching for a divorce for William and Mary Turner. We don't seem to have a death date for her and she is on William's death records. I would think it impossible to marry on 08NOV1888 if Mary was still alive. I should think divorce was fairly uncommon then.

William John Armstrong married Blanche Vallance in 1925. They had three daughters – Paula, Elizabeth and Nola (my mother). Nola died quite young in 1977. Elizabeth only went a year or two ago. Paula is also deceased.

Blanche was the daughter of Hugh Vallance and Sophia Hilder. Hugh was the son of George Vallance who married 'Betsy' Franklin – the eldest child of Joseph and Mary who came out from Ireland with them. George and 'Betsy' lived on Bramina Station in the Fiery Range. Across the Goodradigbee from Joseph Franklin's Brindabella. (I said I wouldn't start with the anecdotes but I always reckoned that Hamilton Hume suggested Joseph go up into the mountains near where he passed on his trip to Port Phillip a bit earlier. They were neighbours and friends when they lived outside of Yass. They went hunting bushrangers – maybe after Hume's brother was murdered at Gunning. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/115386170?searchTerm=roughing%20it%20in%20the%20early%20days#)

The original Hugh Vallance, George's father,  settled at Murrumbateman. He called his property 'Drumclog' – later, and now, called 'Hillview'.

I am sure you are right about 1915. In fact Thomas James Clarke No5346 (CLARKE/BOYD) enlisted with his cousin Charles Thomas Clarke No5345 (CLARKE/BAINES) in late 1915. This is where my search started. I initially picked Charles Thomas as he didn't come back. Perhaps a little extreme for avoiding responsibility back home! But, from the DNA matches, I later formed the opinion that it was the CLARKE/BOYD line and settled on Thomas James. As I say, confirmed by a Clarke researcher on Ancestry. I asked her to explicitly say that I could use the information. She hasn't replied but I imagine it is not necessarily her exclusive property. But, I like to be polite. I will write to her again.

Thomas James may still have been in camp in Goulburn when William Ernest was born in 1916 in Shepherd Street. I wonder if he was allowed out – or even if they wanted to see each other. I couldn't identify the house in Shepherd street. They didn't number them until the 1930's.

I have become generally interested in colonial history and have learned a lot about many of the players from those times – a surprising number of whom had property and connections all around where I am now in Scullin ACT.

But I had better stop before I get carried away.

I am more than willing to provide any more information if I can.

Thank you,

Greg Jeffs

(P.S. As I often say, I am not perturbed by any things revealed from the past. I don't think what happened then affects me adversely today. Feel free to use any info that I provide)