Lost and Found - An Ancestor

 

Kate Ryan's name on the Erin Go Bragh's passenger list

Like most us when we retire and have time on our hands, I've done some basic research on ancestry.

What I know is that my father's family descends from Irish immigrants, and what my father and his family believed is that they came out in the mid eighteen hundreds at the height of the Irish potato famine. 

The enduring family story, handed down by my father, was that one ancestor (presumably named Whittaker) arrived on the migrant ship, Erin Go Bragh, and subsequently married a fellow passenger, a Kate Ryan, and settled in the Drayton area. 

The problem is that there is no documentary evidence of this, as a search of the passenger list of the Erin Go Bragh, the boat my dad assumed brought him here, did not show a Whittaker. There was, however, an eleven year old girl, called Kate Ryan, on board.

One of my nephews who was also curious, did some research through Ancestry.com and came to the same conclusion, i.e., that there was no marriage between Kate Ryan and any fellow passenger.

This left an intriguing puzzle. Who was this original arrival, and when did he get here?

A different nephew who lives now in Singapore, has discovered a newspaper report which at the same time deepens the mystery, but sheds new light on the original family story.

This story, in the Toowoomba Chronicle on 31st August 1897, reports the death of a George Whittaker, (born 1837 in Kilkenny, Ireland) who was apparently my father's great grandfather. Dad's father was also called George, and according to the report, had six sons and three daughters. One of the sons was called John, which may explain a family tradition of naming the youngest son John, with no second name.

My dad was called John (always abbreviated to "Jack"), and had no second name, which always seemed curious to me.

The family belief that does stand up is that a Katherine Ryan, was aboard the Erin Go Bragh when it arrived in Moreton Bay on August 2nd, 1862. The passenger list does indeed identify a Kate Ryan who was eleven years old on arrival.

Whilst this report debunks the belief that the original Whittaker was aboard the Erin Go Bragh when it arrived in 1862, It does not dismiss the possibility that  George Whittaker married Kate Ryan. 

Back then, it would not have been out of the question for Kate Ryan to be married at age seventeen, which would have been 1868, by which time George Whittaker would have been thirty one. Family history has it that Kate was working as a housekeeper in a presbytery, and if the local priest was supportive, such a marriage would not have been unusual.

The new mystery is how George Whittaker arrived in Australia in the first place.

Obviously, further research is necessary.

And that's just my father's side....