Paternal Great Great Grandfather Joseph Hawthorn & GGG Grandfather George Hawthorn

Viv,

I can’t find the Wiltshire voyage on Ancestry so can’t answer your question about where it sailed from with certainty. However there were not many direct sailings from Ireland to New Zealand and I’d say it was 99% likely they sailed from a port in Britain. Tilbury, Southampton or Plymouth perhaps.

Statutory birth registration only began in Ireland in 1864 so you won’t get birth certificates for Joseph or Jane. However you might find their baptisms. Tradition was to marry in the bride’s church. That church may be the place to look for Jane’s baptism and that of any siblings. Portadown 1st Presbyterian has baptism records from 1839 onwards. I don’t think there is a copy on-line anywhere. However there is a copy in PRONI (the public record office) in Belfast. If you are unable to go there yourself you may need to hire a researcher to look them up.

I wouldn’t worry too much about the precise spelling of the surname. Exact spelling of names was not a priority in Ireland in the 1800s and you can expect it to vary in Irish records. The majority of the population were not very literate and so spelling was often at the whim of the person recording the information.

You haven’t said when Joseph or Rachel were born so I can’t infer exactly when their parents may have married. I looked for possible marriages for George Hawthorn. (Statutory marriage registration started in 1845 for all denominations save RC.). There were 4 George H marriages between 1845 and 1854 in the Portadown area. None was to a woman whose forename was Mary Anne though. Presumably they married before 1845 in which case it’ll be a matter of trawling church records in PRONI. Likewise I couldn’t find a marriage for Rachel Gray to Wm Graham, so that was probably before statutory registration too.

The 1876 marriage certificate should have the couples respective townlands (addresses) on it. If you give me that, Ill have a look in the land records to see if I can trace where they lived. Weavers and labourers (which are much the same thing, weaving being what a labourer did in the winter if there was no other work) are notoriously difficult to trace as they often moved around quite a bit. In 1864 I can see a William Graham in Lisnaminstry and another in Lisnisky. Both were in labourer/weaver’s cottages. But they might have moved by 1876 so it’s those addresses I am interested in.

I do see a death for a Rachel Graham in Lisnisky on 3.11.1894 aged 63. She was the wife of William Graham, weaver. So that fits well but if that is also the townland on the marriage certificate it may clinch it. William, that Jane’s husband, died 15.3.1895 at Lisnisky aged 75. Both died of bronchitis.

https://churchrecords.irishgenealogy.ie/churchrecords/

If the Lisnisky family is the right family, then in 1864, William was renting a cottage on Jane Graham’s 8 acre farm. She had plot 13a and his cottage was 13b. She was probably a widow. Next door on plots 11 & 12 was Charles Graham who is likely to have been related.

Most of Lisnisky today is Craigavon area hospital though the land around plots 11 – 13 looks to still be agricultural land.

http://www.askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/index.xml?action=nameSearch

Hi Elwyn, Your an absolute angel. Thank you for replying. I have included some files for you. Some other information i have is from Joseph & Jane re death entries. These are as follows:

Jane Hawthorne (NZ spelling) died 29th August 1901 aged 46 years, of parents William Graham & Rachael Graham formerly Gray, Jane born in County Armagh, residing in NZ for 24 years at time of death, married at 22 years of age to Joseph Hawthorne in Potadown County Armagh.

Joseph Hawthorne (NZ spelling) died 5th July 1927 aged 83 years, of parents George & Mary Anne Hawthorne, born in County Down, residing in NZ for 50 years at time of death, married at 32 years of age to Jane Graham (maiden name) in Portadown County Armagh. 

Hope this info will help you.

Cheers, Viv

Viv,

Jane Graham’s address on the marriage certificate is Lisnisky, parish of Seagoe. So the 2 deaths I have found for William & Rachel are almost certainly her parents. So if you want to find Jane’s baptism, and that of any siblings, you’ll need to get someone to look up the Presbyterian baptism records in PRONI. (There are plenty of researchers who will do that, for a fee).

I had another look at Lisnisky today on Google Earth. The land where the Graham house was is still agricultural land but there are no houses on it now at all. All have been demolished or collapsed. I can see some trees and open farmland but nothing else. To get to it today you would need to walk through a couple of fields along a farm track up from the nearest farm.

Joseph Hawthorn was living in Tamnaficarbet townland, parish of Seagoe. The modern Carbet Rd runs through the middle of it. That’s about half a mile north of Lisnisky.  Most of that area is an industrial estate these days. (In the 1960s they built a dreadful new town called Craigavon in that area. It’s all light industry, roundabouts and soulless residential estates.) I had a look at the Valuation Revision records for that townland around 1876 but I don’t see the Hawthorn family listed.  Most of the townland was farmland with some weavers’ cottages. Most of the tenants’ names changed over the period of the record, indicating a high turnover of occupants. The clerks who compiled these records only visited every couple of years so if you weren’t there long you might be omitted altogether. Or of course, Joseph might just have been lodging with someone. In which case he wouldn’t be listed at all.

https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/services/searching-valuation-revision-books

There were 29 houses in Tamnaficarbet in the 1901 census, containing a total of 96 people. Most were labourers or weavers:

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Armagh/Kernan/Tamnaficarbet/

There’s no sign of James Hawthorn in the area in the 1901 census, so I suspect he died before that. I see a death for a James Hawthorn on 20.1.1892 aged 79, registered in Lurgan, which seems about right. There was also a death of a James Hawthorne on 27.3.1889 aged 50. (Too young I think).  The 1892 death looks the best but it isn’t on line free. So you’ll need to pay to view it. You can view the original certificate on-line on the GRONI website, using the “search registrations” option:

https://geni.nidirect.gov.uk

You will need to open an account and buy some credits. It costs £2.50 (sterling) to a view a certificate.  If you decide to look at the 1892 death, let me know the details. It will tell you whether his wife was dead or alive, and so which side of 1892 to search for her death. The informant’s details may be helpful too as that might be his wife, a son or a daughter.

I notice from the most recent information that you have given above that Joseph was 83 when he died, so born about 1844. And that he was born in Co Down. So not originally from the Lurgan area. So maybe his parents didn’t live in the Lurgan area. If Joseph was born c 1844 then his parents almost certainly married before statutory marriage registration started in 1845, and so their marriage may be difficult to find. I assume you have already looked for it on rootsireland. They don’t have all the possible records though. Many churches records have yet to be put on-line. But if you don’t know which church they married in, it’s a needle in a haystack finding the right one in PRONI. Co. Down has hundreds of churches.

Anyway I hope this helps a bit.

Many thanks Elwyn,

Out of interest I see Josephs age as 29 and Jane as 20 on the passenger list departure date of the 12th November 1876. I found this info on New Zealand Archives.

Viv