Today, I believe I solved a mystery that was 150 years old. It's one that I have referred to before - my maternal grandmother's lines and how, while her paternal line just unfolded before me with ease and I watched as I became the descendant of a brown dude who was a revolutionary, her maternal line just brickwalled.
I am no closer when it comes to her maternal grandfather, John McVeigh. I still believe I am in the ballpark with my idea that we have some misspelt surnames there, and potentially a couple of convicts, but I cannot be sure.
Eliza Louisa Hibbert though, I am now reasonably certain I have solved. For fans of Downton Abbey, it's a "Marigold" story. And probably one that, if I wasn't so stubborn while also driven by accuracy, I may not have solved.
Eliza was my first clue that, when encountering relations on Ancestry, you need to question everything. If things don't fit, people will shoehorn stuff in, mainly in the hope they can construct their family trees.
Eliza was very shoehorned, but I guess it was understandable why she was. According to her marriage and death certificates, her parents were Joseph Hibbert and Eliza Sarah Kipps. They had a number of children, including a daughter named "Louisa Elizabeth", and Eliza Sarah actually gave birth to her final child when she was 47 (terrifying thought to me at 47 right now!). People had misidentified Louisa as Eliza Louisa yet when it came to the records, it didn't fit. This woman was 9 years older than Eliza's husband John, yet marriage certificates and cemetery records showed her being seven years younger than him. Further digging showed that Louisa married a man named George Podesta, and that she died in 1912.
Yet despite what Eliza Louisa's marriage and death certificates stated, no birth certificate existed for her. What's more, she does not appear on her named mother's death certificate. She does appear on her named father's death certificate, but as "Louisa Eliza" and with an illegible age. Had she been born to Eliza Sarah and Joseph, Eliza Sarah would have been 45 - not impossible, particularly considering the one younger brother, but certainly not usual.
When Eliza Louisa died, it was June 1947 and she was listed as being 74 years old. Her beloved husband John followed her to the grave a mere couple of weeks later. She was fondly remembered by my nanna Lorna as being a warm woman, who was like a mother rather than a grandmother to her because Avis was out making her boots. Nanna actually lived with her grandparents and her mother until she married at 18. Eliza Louisa was a steadying influence in a house of rather strong-willed individuals.
Therefore if she had a birth certificate, it would have indicated that she was born in 1872 or 73. Eliza Sarah did not give birth in that year. She did, however, have two daughters who would have been old enough then to have children - Sarah Avis (18yo), and Louisa Elizabeth (16yo).
Perhaps I should have taken closer notice of Joseph Hibbert's death certificate, because the first clue was there. But then again, I don't know that I would have got it from the listed "Louisa Eliza".
The answer appears to be this: according to the records, on the 10th of August, 1872, Sarah Avis Hibbert gave birth to a daughter named "Louisa Eliza Londriggan" in Panton Hill, Victoria. Her mother, Eliza Sarah, was listed as the witness. The father was a man listed as "Edmond Londriggan", who was a 28 year old brickmaker from Ireland. Allowing for misspellings and so forth, this man does not appear to exist - there are no records for him in Victoria beyond this birth certificate, and I haven't found him on passenger lists for migration, nor cemetery records. He doesn't seem to exist elsewhere in Australia either - I located an "Edmund Longrigan" in a NSW cemetery, but he was too young. Sarah Avis was listed as married to this man, and carrying his surname too, yet no marriage record exists. Victoria was the best record-keeping state in the country.
When it comes to Sarah Avis' death certificate though (1890), no daughter named Louisa Eliza Londriggan is listed, and nor is a first husband named Edmond. She is, however, shown as having married firstly, a man named William Townsend to whom she had two children (both did not survive infancy), and then secondly, to a man named Robert Moyes to whom she had a son named Francis. On her marriage certificate to Townsend (who was more than twice her age), she was listed as a "spinster", rather than a widow or divorcee, thus making her stated marriage to Londriggan prior unlikely.
I can, therefore, only come to the conclusion that "Louisa Eliza Londriggan" is my second great-grandmother Eliza Louisa Hibbert. Louisa Eliza would have been exactly 74 years old in June 1947 when Eliza Louisa died. I believe Sarah's parents brought up Eliza Louisa as their own, thus hiding Sarah's "illegitimate" child in their already huge brood, and freeing her up to marry at the age of 21 without the stigma or shame society put on unwed mothers at the time. I also believe that in "adopting" Eliza Louisa, they switched her name order around as there was already a daughter named Louisa in the family. Finally, they gave her their surname, and that was the "maiden name" she carried to her grave.
Perhaps if there are living descendants of Francis Moye who test on Ancestry, I will be able to confirm all this. As it stands though, the dates are right, and this explains the absence from both Sarah and Eliza Sarah's death certificates, but the presence on Joseph's. It explains the unfindable "father". It also explains why I do match up genetically with other descendants of Eliza Sarah and Joseph - I am of that flock, but just a further generation along than what our family knew.
I will never know if Eliza Louisa knew any of this. I hope she did, but regardless, if she didn't, I am glad that she still grew up with her family. And she went on to create and nuture a family of her own, to which, I am proud to now know and be a part of.
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