Once when I was being examined by a doctor, he made a remark about something that I had, maybe the spleen, that was not in the usual place. I asked him what that meant. He then explained that it was best not to be interestingly outside the norm or you would turn into a case for study. It's the same with genealogy research. Anything outside the norm piques an interest that requires further study and there we are, off down another rabbit hole. Believe me, it's best not to have a niggling fact outside the norm when searching Trove.
The marriage of two McKay sisters to two men with the surname Woodley was a niggling fact. Were the two men brothers? If not, what relationship did they have to each other? Were they, like the McKay sisters, immigrants to Australia or had they been born there? The scarcity of documented facts would make finding the answers to these questions hard but there was always Trove which was both a blessing and a curse.
Newspaper searches on Trove brought up many articles for both Edward and Ernest Woodley but were they the Edward or Ernest I wanted? Were they my Woodleys? Maybe the 1882 article from Tamworth about an Edward Woodley who was sentenced to one month in jail after a suicide attempt recorded a blot on my Edward Woodley's past. Although, I must say that my first reaction to the sentence imposed was surprise at how unenlightened it was. But this was clearly not the Edward Woodley that married Florence McKay in 1897 as further searching brought up a later article. That article appeared in 1884 and was about an apparently successful suicide of an Edward Woodley, a miner at Mount Misery, found in a mine shaft with his throat cut. I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that both articles referred to the same man. It's a sad story but also one that makes it clear hat I can discount this man from my research.
Another search, this time for Ernest Woodley brought up a few articles on an Ernest James Woodley who was suing for compensation for injuries he sustained in his employment as an assistant butcher. One of his fingers was cut off in a meat grinder and another finger injured. The middle name of the man was the same as that of the Ernest Woodley who married Maud H or Henrietta Maud McKay (the order of her names changes with the record). But the occupation, which was central to the story, was different. Was this the man I was looking for with a change in professions? The Ernest Woodley who married the McKay sister was a boilermaker. Is it likely he would have become an assistant butcher?
A boiler maker, according to A Dictionary of Old Trades, Titles and Occupations, is an "industrial worker of metal (not necessarily making boilers)."* One would think that such a worker would be more cautious around metal machinery but maybe that's a case for him no longer being a boilermaker. Interestingly enough both of the Woodleys who married McKay sisters were boilermakers, something else that seemed to hint at a family bond between the two husbands.
That's the thing. The information in the newspaper articles about the Woodleys was suggestive but not conclusive. In only one case was I ready to attribute the event in news reports to one of my Woodleys. A 1937 article in the Newcastle Sun, stated that Ernest Horace Woodley was found guilty of dangerous driving and a later one in the Wingham Chronicle and Manning River Observer in 1942, was about an Ernest H Woodley being sued for negligent driving. I'm more than willing to bet the dangerous driver and the driver accused of negligence were one and the same and most likely to be the Ernest Woodley who married Florence McKay.
Sources:
Trove – trove.nla.gov.au
Waters, Colin. A Dictionary of Old Trades Titles and Occupations. Countryside Books, Newbury, Berkshire, 2002 p. 42*
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