Summing up my Australian research

 

                                                              Harold Strange Chambers' family tree 

Sometimes no matter how intriguing the finds, it's time to call an end to a search. I've enjoyed my time in Australia but there are other lines clamoring for attention. I was able to find out quite a bit about William and Henrietta McKay and their girls after they arrived in New South Wales around 1889.

At the time that the McKays arrived, New South Wales was still a separate colony. In fact, Australia as a country didn't exist. Most of the already explored spaces on the continent had seen a steady influx of incomers, many of them from Europe. The McKays were from Europe too, although they had come by a circuitous route.

The family would have lived through the birthing pains of the new country. The Federation of Australia was proclaimed on January 1, 1901. This joined the six existing colonies as the Commonwealth of Australia. The 1902 Franchise Act followed. While this act denied the vote to aborigines on the one hand, on the other it was more enlightened as it gave women over 21 the right to vote federally. New South Wales gave women the franchise statewide as well in 1902. This meant that Henrietta and her daughters could vote as soon as they reached the age of majority, something that the women of other countries would have to battle towards for years yet.

Allowing women to vote might have been enlightened but there were other signs that society was still patriarchal; like the report which called one of the married McKay sisters by her husband's initials rather than her own. While this provided a wrinkle in my research, I think I have the majority of the sisters' married surnames sorted out now. In date order, they are as follows:

1897 - Florence Annie McKay married Edward Horace Woodley

1900 - Henrietta Maud McKay married Ernest James Woodley

1906 - Martha Alice McKay married George Langford

1914 - Margaret McKay married Robert Lyttle

I'm pretty confident that those are correct. I'm not so sure of the next one which is:

1919 - Bertha McKay married William Watson

I also know that Ethel, the one child born in Australia, never married and died in 1927. So, the majority of this research seems to be done but there are still two children unaccounted for. The first was William and Henrietta McKay's first child, William, who had been born in England. It isn't clear if he stayed in England or accompanied the family on their travels, or perhaps died young. The other child, who at least appears in the family tree above, was Nellie. The family tree indicates that she had one child so presumably she married. Research showed that there were just too many Nellie McKays in the records to determine who might be the correct one. It isn't even certain that she married under the name Nellie as she was baptized Mary Ellen McKay. I hope that when I pick up the research into my Australian roots again, I will have found some more clues to lead me in the right direction. 

 

 

Sources:

Federation of Australia www.nla.gov.au

Keneally, Thomas. Australians: From Eureka to the Diggers. Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 2011.

NSW Government: State Archives & Records - Federation Timeline https://www.records.nsw.gov.au/archives/collections-and-research/guides-and-indexes/federation-timeline

Women’s suffrage in Australia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_suffrage_in_Australia