Great Great Grandparents - Maternal

Gregor

William Gregor

Born: 1842
Died: 1876, Moonta, York Peninsula, South Australia, Australia

Hannah Jane Yelland

Born: 1844, Stoke Climsland near Duloe, Cornwall, England
Died: 1920, Eaglehawk, Bendigo, Victoria, Australia

Children

With William Gregor

William John Gregor: born 1866
Annie Gregor: born, 1868
Florence Gregor: born, 1870
Florence Jane Gregor: born 1871 - my great grandmother

Kate Gregor: born 1873

Laura Gregor: born, 1875

With Henry Anderson Hunt

Sidney Herbert Hunt: born 1882

Horace Yellend Hunt: born 1884

William Gregor

George Street, Moonta, Sth Australia

More to come



Hannah Jane Yellend

More to come

Taylor

John Taylor

Born: About 1832, place unknown
Died: 3 September 1873, Westbury, Tasmania, Australia

Maria Gillam

Born: 9 February 1838, Westbury, Tasmania, Australia
Died: 14 January 1911, Westbury, Tasmania, Australia

Children

With John Taylor:

John Taylor: born 1867
Thomas Gillam Taylor (Bailey): born 1873 - my great grandfather

With William Bailey

Emily Maria: born 1877

With Laurence Burns or Burnes

Nil

John Taylor

Little is known about John Taylor apart from some basic facts and the details of his tragic death.

Taylor was born in or about 1832, it is not known where. He married Maria Gillam in 1854 - there was a license issued for Maria to marry him at St Andrews Church of England, Westbury on 13 September 1854. He was a farmer, of full age, at time of marriage. His wife was 16 and therefore a minor. Witnesses to marriage were James and Frances Hogben. Frances is very probably Maria's half-sister (b 1828). Keeping the  Kent smuggling connection going, Frances had married James Hogben, probably the son of transported Aldington Gang member James Hogben.

They eventually had two children, the first of whom, John,  did not appear until they had been married 13 years. My great grandfather arrived on 19 November 1873, a little over two months after John's death

It would appear that they lived in Westbury where John is recorded as a farmer in 1854, 1867 and 1873.

The Westbury Valuation Rolls for 1872 show Taylor as the owner/occupier of a 32-acre farm in Moore Street. Maria is shown as the owner of twelve acres in Jones Street. In 1874 Maria, as Mrs John Taylor, is the owner/occupier of both properties.

John's death on Wednesday 3 September 1873 is recorded in the Launceston Examiner of  the following Tuesday as follows:

DEATH BY BURNING — A fatal case of burning occurred to a small farmer named John Taylor, residing at Thumpup, near Westbury, on Thursday evening last. It appears that Taylor was subject to fits, and it is supposed that on the evening named he was smoking his pipe in bed, when he was suddenly attacked by one of them, and thus unconsciously set fire to the bedclothes. Mrs Taylor, who slept in a separate room, on discovering the accident immediately gave the alarm, and Dr McCreery was shortly in attendance, but the injuries received were so serious that Taylor after lingering a short time expired.

Note:

A number of researchers associate my great great grandfather with a John Taylor who landed in Pt Phillip with his parents and siblings in 1844. This association seems to rely on this John Taylor being the right name and age - hardly convincing. Other researchers have worked out a history for the John Taylor arriving in Pt Phillip that is convincing and evidenced - this John Taylor lived out his life in Victoria.

So, in the absence of further evidence, my John Taylor remains, in my opinion, something of a mystery.

Sources

1. Trove
2. Helen Anderson - www.weepnotforthem.net/Chapters/3%20Thomas%20Gilham.pdf
3. www.kentresources.co.uk/contr-sm.htm

Maria Gillam

Maria Gillam with her second husband, William Bailey (from Lynne's Family Tree on Ancestry.com)

Maria was the second last child of Thomas Gillam and Frances Furner, born in 1838 in Westbury. She married young, being only 16 when she took her first husband John Taylor.
After the tragic death of John, Maria married William Bailey (the informant of the death of John Taylor) in July 1874 at St Mary's Anglican Church at nearby Hagley. William was a widower, and they had one child, Emily Maria in April 1877.

William Bailey died at Westbury in July 1885 and Maria married again in June 1887.  Her third husband was a Irish labourer named Laurence Burns or Barnes who had arrived in Tasmania about 1848. The couple were married in the Catholic Church at Deloraine. A witness to the marriage was her sister-in-law, Eliza Fawkner, widow of her brother Joseph Gillam.

In April 1887 Maria became the licensee of the Plough Inn at Alveston. In July of the same year she transferred the licence to Laurence Burn or Barnes. Burns died in 1909, leaving Maria a widow when she died in 1911. Her death was reported by the Launceston Examiner of Monday 16 January 1911:

Sudden death Westbury, Saturday. Mrs. Burns, relict of the late Laurence Burns, died suddenly at the house of Mr. Jesse Breward, Westbury, on Saturday morning about 9 o'clock. In the after noon an inquest was held before the coroner, Mr. D. Burke, & verdict was returned in accordance with medical evidence, that the cause of death was Bright's disease and heart failure.


Frederickson

Nothing is known of my Finnish/Swedish great great grandparents.