Unravelling truth from lies

August is Family History Month and it is a great time to get back into researching a branch of the family tree or taking a free course from the thousands available. I am at the end of the process of unravelling truths and non-truths left in a trail of documents by my 3x great-grandmother. She did a great job of erasing her daughter Eliza and Eliza’s father from her life. It worked so well that the majority of online family trees, the local historical society and even her descendants believed her.

If you believe the obituary and death certificate for Margaret Wogan, who died in Young, New South Wales, in 1924, you would think that Margaret:

• came to Australia in 1850 from County Meath, Ireland with her parents at age 14
• married Hugh Henry in Bathurst and raised four children
• arrived in Young in 1861 with Hugh and her four children, Christopher and Mary Ann, Catherine and Margaret
• married Martin Gill and had three children, Bridget, Julia and Martin.

Unravelling the discrepancies and mysteries involved using online records, newspapers articles, obtaining all certificates of her children and her relationships, as well as digging in the archives of the family history society. Assembling a timeline helped to analyse what was fact and what information could be discarded.

Once finished, the research was used to build a timeline and the truth emerged. The truth about Margaret was she:

• left Ireland at age 14 as an orphan as part of the Earl Grey Orphan Immigration Scheme. Her parents were not alive.
• married Hugh Henry at Bathurst aged 16 and had four children: Christopher, Catherine, Mary Ann and Margaret.
• left Hugh in Bathurst some time in 1859 and met William Fox in Hovells Creek
• gave birth to Eliza in 1860 at Hovells Creek, William Fox registered the birth. Hugh Henry died in Bathurst later the same year.
• arrived with William at the gold fields near Young with five children. She was five months pregnant with Bridget, born in 1861 in Young. William Fox registered Bridget’s birth.
• gave birth to Julia Gill in 1865, the father noted as Martin Gill stating she married him in Bathurst.
• appeared in court in 1865 in a dispute with a neighbour. She appeared as Margaret Henry, not Margaret Gill, despite stating she had married Martin in Bathurst.
• married Martin Gill in 1866 in the Congregational Church. He gave his name as Francis Gill, never having used that name before, but perhaps to distinguish from the name given in Julia’s birth registration.
• gave birth to her eighth child, Martin in 1870
• re-married Martin Gill in 1873 in the Catholic church.

I can understand why Margaret didn’t tell the truth on official records. She was an Irish Catholic orphan who had committed adultery and given birth to three illegitimate children, not the actions of what was considered respectable in colonial Australia. Eliza Fox used the Fox name throughout her life and married an older man that Margaret didn’t like. Perhaps these are the reasons Eliza was erased. Despite the path she took Margaret successfully manipulated the facts, returned to the Catholic Church and, after her death, was remembered as ‘a grand old pioneer and a lady widely known and respected.’