Looking for a Griffin marriage in Australia
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| 1 | I have next to no information about this man, having only T as his first initial scrawled on a BDM document which described her as 'the wife of T Griffin' in 1865. Martha Griffin was listed as a widow at her second marriage in 1869 in New Zealand. I really want to try to find her first marriage to prove/disprove many things. I have found only one possible Griffin death in NZ if the scrawled T on the document is actually a J. - John Griffin who died aged 39 in 1865. There were three other male Griffin deaths before the second marriage. I have sent for the John Griffin death certificate. Martha was born in Norfolk in 1844. Because her father was born to Harriet Lummis who then married Samuel Brock, the family used both names and a combination of them both at the time they emigrated to Australia - 1857 on the Grand Trianon. I have not been able to find a passenger list for this ship. Several of the Brock half-family also went to Australia. It is posssible though that Sam Brock was the father of Harriet's baby. The Lammas/Brock family settled in Sandhurst (Bendigo), remaining there, and Martha came to NZ some time after that, I suspect in the early 1860s. The spelling varied and Lammas was used in New Zealand by Martha when she was required to give her birth name. She may also have used Brock in Australia as did more of her family. I have not had any success in Australia and gave up many years ago. Many consider that she was just fibbing about her first marriage. Now that everything seems to be different, I wonder if someone can help me to find a possible marriage for Martha Lammas/Brock to a Griffin somewhere in that part of Australia. Maybe even children born to,that marriage? Please. blackhalls - 2019-05-11 12:47:00 |
| 2 | Mrs Brock of Sandhurse (sic), mother of Martha Lammas seeking contact in 1868 And What were the names of the parties in the 1869 remarriage? Edited by stock at 2:38 pm, Sat 11 May stock - 2019-05-11 14:37:00 |
| 3 | stock wrote: stock - 2019-05-11 14:40:00 |
| 4 | stock wrote:
Yes, you are right. The birth registrations of her children are odd, but we have all of the ones born in New Zealand. Several cousins have been debating with BDM about the first two NZ ones so I have not mentioned them here. Sorting out that first marriage and widowhood or otherwise, should answer all of those name questions. BDM has changed one record several times after convincing arguments. I have several different copies of one birth certificate, but that is a discussion for another day. Do registrars sometimes change those early records? I have a record in a differently line where the death record registered by the coroner is different from the record of the inquest. That was a curly one to resolve, but I think I have the solution now. it has taken me fifty years to do so!!!!! blackhalls - 2019-05-11 16:22:00 |
| 5 | I doubted the marriage to Griffin eventually, and this was based on numerous advertisements in Waikaia of Griffin musical shows. Martha was a singer and it could seem that she appeared in several advertisements for that show, as Miss Griffin, Martha Griffin, and Mrs Griffin. The spelling changes from time to time. Perhap there were two women totally unrelated to Martha? blackhalls - 2019-05-11 16:27:00 |
| 6 | blackhalls wrote: stock - 2019-05-11 16:40:00 |
| 7 | The advertisement you found was the very first thing we found to indicate who Martha's parents were. I ignored it, but kept it for many years until I registered that Sandhurst was not the English one, and that Phoebe Brock's name could be a second marriage. It was not, of course, and that it was because they travelled to Australia as Lammas but changed to Brock or Lammas-Brock there. Family would not believe me at first, but thirty years ago, a ninety-year old Lammas woman in Nelson told me that some of her family had one name in their trunks and another on the outside. I have never been able to connect her family, but she was right, so there must be a connection. DNA will help. I'll stop rattling on, because it is the actuality of that first 'marriage' which concerns me. Someone in officialdom must have found out and believed that Martha was married to Griffin at the time her first child was born in 1865. This is where they scrawled over the entry that she was the wife of T Griffin. She had named the father as James Joyce. Someone in authority must have had a right to change the document, and would need proof (?) Her next child, fathered by George Moffitt, was registered under Lammis (sic). These children were confused forever about their status, poor loves. It all happened in the same little town, so you would think that the Postmaster would still use her legal name Griffin, unless he had found out that it was a bogus marriage. Would she revert to her maiden name when widowed or divorced! Was she just owning up? Or was deserted? Who knows? Edited by blackhalls at 4:50 pm, Sat 11 May blackhalls - 2019-05-11 16:47:00 |
| 8 | From Ancestry which is based on the microfiche indexes you can find in libraries: 1866/1053 was registered in the Nokomai district (Southland). The NZBDM online index is based on the last record for the registration (e.g. it can include alterations made since the original registration). There is also this record for someone not in the online births index for any year: May not be related but the Mangonui reference is possibly a red herring if a change to the record was made in Wellington for example. I suspect the change of surname and omission of Joyce was made in 1892. Edited by stock at 5:35 pm, Sat 11 May stock - 2019-05-11 17:33:00 |
| 9 | from NZBMD births 1892/1609 Moffett William James Marion Isabel Robert crab2 - 2019-05-11 17:41:00 |
| 10 | crab2 wrote: stock - 2019-05-11 17:46:00 |
| 11 | I'm guessing different Transcribers and apparently Ancestry is done from Microfiche's by Indian people crab2 - 2019-05-11 17:58:00 |
| 12 | stock wrote:
I have four different birth records. I know that they are supposed to have alterations marked on them. William James was born 18 October 1865 and the registration was made in the following year, probably because he was born in Nokomai, reputedly one of the firstborn European children born there, later moving to Waikaia. I've been wondering where he went to school, as he was probably WJ Joyce then, or Griffin, or Moffitt immediately upon the 1869 marriage, but in general he was reared as William James Moffitt. That name was used for his marriage and the births of his children. The last child that I have noted for Martha and George was Margaret Georgina, born 1879. I have no idea what the 1892 details mean. They take some digesting. Some changes may have been made in 1982, upon my cousin's request, followed by mine. But the date is a wee bit out! (Sorry, did not mean to quote your whole message. Computer drops things if I mess about with entries.) It has been a long process. BDM intitally stated in writing that the Records were missing, burnt, and secondly that they were confidential. When I clicked and asked under Martha's name I got the Joyce record. I have charts for five Moffitt brothers here in the early days. I will look to see if anything fits with 1892. Phew! Edited by blackhalls at 6:17 pm, Sat 11 May blackhalls - 2019-05-11 18:15:00 |
| 13 | crab2 wrote:
I will look at this. Moffitt is spelled many different ways, even within the same family. Martha's fourth child George Michael is recorded with an incorrect spelling, so most people miss him. I know because my father was reared at Waikaia Plains Sation by GM and his wife after my Gran, Dinah Moffitt, died. Having said that, there were three distinct, so far, families in the same area. One was Moffett, so the reference you found for 1892 could be to that family. I found them in Invercargill but thought he was William John Moffett, so possibly that line. Two of the families were in Waikaia and I am only now finding posssible links. These were Moffat and Moffitt, apart from mis-spellings. John Lindsay Moffitt, surgeon dentist in Wellington belonged to my family too, but the connection is back in the same village in Northumberland. John Lindsay arrived in NZ in 1842, had at least thirteen children and the 1892 date fits in with the birth dates of them. There could be more than 13 as researchers have different figures. George Moffitt's brother James had 19 children to two wives and several other children in the UK. We will rope them all in eventually. Brothers, all farmers really, James, John, George, and Michael were fossicking for gold in NZ in 1861. John quickly settled in Australia. John Lindsay was a cousin of theirs. I think that a fifth brother, Donaldson, also came to NZ later, so the numbers grow difficult as they tended to use the same set of names. Another possibility is that this 1892 birth is a descendent of John Moffitt, brother of George above, who raised his family in Australia. I will hunt out his details. It gets to be overload quite soon. That's why I have decided to go back in time rather than forward to fix up some anomalies. I found several Griffins, even a family travelling to NZ aboard the Mail ship Aldinga, over several voyages at about th same time. They may account for the Griffin deaths recorded in the 1860s. blackhalls - 2019-05-11 18:58:00 |
| 14 | In light of message #9 I think you can discount 1892/1609 stock - 2019-05-11 20:18:00 |
| 15 | stock wrote: crab2 - 2019-05-11 21:22:00 |
