Greetings for Christmas and New Year 2000 from a VERY new member.
Our interest in the Gwent area relates to an ancestor who migrated to
Australia in December 1877.
My wife's Great Grandfather and G-GrandMother migrated from Blaenavon
to South Australia arriving in Adelaide on 2 Dec. 1877.
They were Francis and Mary Burgoyne. Mary had been Mary Morgan
before her marriage while in Blaenavon. Francis 1851 to 1887 and Mary
1847 to 1901 settled in the country town of Port Augusta. Francis was
a stonemason. They brought three children with them. William who died
within a few years of arriving and was born c. 1872. Annie born 1874
to 1905 and who became my wife's Grandmother. Francis born 1876 and
who died without children early in the 20th cent.
Francis and Mary are buried in the old Cemetary at Port Augusta
and their grave is marked with a stone headstone which we have seen
and photographed.
The only other item of which we can be fairly certain is that
Francis' father was William Burgoyne. Our research at the Mortlock
Library in Adelaide SA showed that they arrived in SA aboard the Queen
of Nations.
There are some minor discrepancies when comparing ages from
different sources. The ages given for the original migrants are taken
from their tombstone but vary slightly with the ages given on
departure on the boat. The tombstone shows Mary to have been 4 years
older than Francis but the passenger list only shows a difference of 1
year. Francis's date of birth according to boat figure could have been
1850/51 while Mary was born 1848/9. The ages of the children are given
as 5,3,1 on the boat figures in December 1877.
We would be most interested to contact anyone who has further
information about this family and can supply additional data from our
local research.
We live in Perth Western Australia so personal investigation in UK is
not easy although we have had several trips to various parts .
Best wishes Clive and Wendy Napier e-mail cnap(a)optusnet.com.au