A flexible use of age

The Patrick and Mary Galvin conundrum

What were they thinking? Were they so desperate to leave Ireland that truth would hinder that opportunity?

My husband's 3x gt grandparents Patrick Galvin and Mary Regan had married in Kinvara Parish in County Galway, Ireland in 1832 (1) but on their application to emigrate in 1863 they listed their ages as 44 and 40, to be accompanied by Sally (Sarah) 13, Catherine 12, and Margaret aged 6. 

Something obviously wrong here, as that marriage date would mean that Mary was only 8 or 9 and Patrick only 12 or 13 when they married in 1832!

Times in County Galway were tough. The great famine had decimated the population in the Kinvara parish. In 1841 there were 255 folk living in 44 houses but by 1861 there were only 107 people left in the 22 houses that were still standing. (2) 

Multiple deaths were recorded in the nearby workhouses through the famine years. Patrick and Mary must have been very anxious about the future for their children. It looked grim, and the encouragement to emigrate would have been fuelled by those who wrote letters back to friends and neighbours offering to provide sponsorship. 

So how can we know the ages are incorrect on their application and the ship's papers? We need to examine some other documents and some data associated with the children listed here.

Taking a step back to 1862

Michael Galvin had emigrated to Sydney in 1862 with his sister Bridget on the Lady Milton. A Mary Galvin had provided the deposit for them. 

• Michael's baptismal record in 1833 shows him as the son of Patrick Galvin and Mary Regan of the Kinvara/Kinvarra parish.(4)
•  In the ship's register Michael was listed as being from Kinvara, County Galway and he nominated his trade as baker (5). This is later verified through other early NSW records and a 1968 memoir written by his grandson John Michael Galvin. This Michael Galvin, my husband's gt-gt-grandfather, was about 28/29 when he arrived on the Lady Miilton though he claimed to be 24. 

So could the Galvins, Patrick and Mary and children, who arrived in South Australia on the Morning Star a year later in 1863 be his parents and sisters?

Back in Kinvara parish, County Galway

In the Kinvara parish records, baptisms are listed for four other children born to Patrick Galvin and Mary Regan, one of whom we assume died early. 

Ann is listed as baptised at the end of 1835 and Margaret in 1856. 

The first named Catherine was baptised in 1846. It was quite a common practice to reuse a name if one child had died. The Catherine with her parents on the ship Morning Star was born in 1849.

I had dismissed this family as being Michael's parents due to the ages shown on the immigration papers. Recently I was contacted by another Galvin descendant who is a skilled researcher now resident in London. Together we traded emails and built up the scenario through family documents, newspaper snippets and some family lore, which although not always correct, did point us in the right direction. 

John Maher's generosity in sharing his research has led us to conclude that we have now identified the Morning Star arrivals as Michael's parents and sisters. So the Galvins were in South Australia from 1863. Thanks John!

The documents with the deciding details

• A family memoir written by John Michael Galvin in 1968 provides details about his father, John Patrick Galvin and grandfather Michael Galvin along with another of Michael's sisters Mary, (Sister Mary Philomena) of the Josephite nuns.
• The Adelaide hospital admission registers shows Patrick, Mary and daughter Margaret who all arrived on the Morning Star, admitted in various years and provide a different range of ages for Patrick and Mary. (6)
• Death certificates provide more realistic ages but even then we cannot be certain of their accuracy as no records for Patrick's or Mary's birth are available.
• Patrick died in Adelaide hospital on 2nd April 1871 aged 62 - makes his birth year 1808/9 which is realistic for an 1832 marriage. This means he was about 54 not 44 when he immigrated just 8 years earlier.
• Mary died 15th June 1892 aged 78  - makes her birth year 1813/14 which is realistic for an 1832 marriage. This means she was about 49 not 40 when she immigrated 29 years earlier.
• Daughter Margaret died in Adelaide hospital aged 15 on 13 March 1872 - just 9 years after her arrival as a 6 year old.

Sarah, listed as Sally aged 13 on the Morning Star next appears in records as Sarah Galvin aged 18 in September of 1865 when she married Henry Anderson in St Patrick's church in Adelaide. She was possibly 15 rather than 13 when she arrived with her parents. This may well have have been a shipboard romance as Henry Anderson also arrived on the Morning Star. Sarah died in 1886. 

We will probably never know the reason for the mis-reporting of ages, but could it be that age was seen as a barrier to immigration or was it just a general fuzziness about dates compared to our current day need for accurate details?

There is gap in the baptismal registers for the years 1837 - 1843 in Kinvara parish, so accurate birth years for Mary, Bridget and Sarah are unknown.

What is known about these 3 sisters

Mary (Sister Mary Philomena) 

When and where did she arrive? 

• The Sisters of St Joseph's Archives have Mary in their records as arriving on the Morning Star with her parents in 1863.
• She is not in the arrival list on the Morning Star. We do know she was one of the young women to join Mary McKillop in 1868. Her sister Catherine (b.1849) also joined the fledgling group of nuns but left after several years. Catherine's is a longer story waiting to be told. Catherine died in 1908.
• A Mary Galvin had paid a deposit for Michael's and Bridget's immigration to New South Wales back in 1862. This suggests that Mary had already arrived in Australia.

Yes, she was the daughter of this Patrick and Mary and sister to Michael who had arrived in Sydney in 1862. She and Michael's wife Bridget Crotty, whom he married in 1865 were well known to each other. Mary Galvin was a witness at their wedding. 

Mary died on Jul 27 1924  after a long career in the Sisters of St Joseph and was buried in the Gore Hill cemetery the following day. From her age on the death registration it appears that she was born in 1842.

Bridget

In John Michael Galvin's 1968 memoir, he mentions that his grandfather Michael "arrived with sister Ann who then went to Adelaide and married a cousin".(7) We now know from the arrivals into Sydney on the Lady Milton in 1862 that the sister was Bridget, not Ann.

In the South Australian marriage records for 1866 there is a 20 year old Bridget who married James Galvin. The surname listed for Bridget is Regan (this was her mother's maiden name) so this is our Bridget Galvin who arrived listed as a 16 year old with Michael in 1862. 

In Ireland dispensation could have been obtained for marrying 3rd or 4th cousins, so perhaps it was easier to forgo that process and use Bridget's mother's surname. Another use of a half truth to achieve a desired outcome.

Bridget and husband James Bernard Galvin have only four of their many children listed in the South Australian birth index. On three of these records where the mother's maiden name is listed, she is named as Bridget Galvin not Regan, on the other one the mother's maiden name is not recorded. In 1908, Bridget's and James' daughter Martha, married John McCarron. She is seen listed in the 1924 funeral notice for her Aunt, Sister Mary Philomena.

Bridget died in 1923 her age given as 77.

Ann

Ann's baptism appears in the Kinvara parish register in 29 December 1835. 

On her marriage to Daniel Macaulay in February of 1873 in New South Wales, she is noted as being 30 but was really 37. It was not uncommon if a woman was older than a man that she claimed to be younger than her true age. 

Ann (mentioned in John Michael's memoir) is noted here in this death notice in 1900  by her sister Catherine, the then Mrs Harry Anderson.

MACAULAY. —September 3, of pneumonia, Annie, dearly beloved wife of Captain Daniel Macaulay, of S.S. Palmerston, aged 63 years, eldest daughter of Patrick and Mary Galvin, Kinvarah, county Galway Ireland, and much loved sister of Mrs. Harry Anderson, late of the Osborne Hotel, Woolloomooloo Bay, R.I. P. Adelaide papers please copy.(8)

Again a slight confusion of ages as Ann (Annie) would have been 64 having been baptised in 1835. Could this have been the Anne Galvin from County Galway who arrived in South Australia on the Nimroud in 1856 listed as an 18 year old rather than 21 or did she arrive in Sydney?

Perhaps Mary arrived in Sydney earlier than the others, I have not yet found any records to support that theory. Chain migration was a common practice where one member of a family or a fellow member of a parish paid the deposit for others to emigrate. 

A flexible use of ages obviously also assisted! 

Family research often leaves one with more questions than answers but cooperation via online contacts can yield rich results. If you are a descendant of this Galvin family, I would be delighted to hear from you.

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1. Kinvara parish register, Marriages | Microfilm 02442 / 14 National Library of Ireland https://registers.nli.ie/registers/vtls000634188#page/36/mode/1up

2. Census of Ireland 1861 : Part I, Area, Population, and Number of Houses, by Townlands and Electoral Divisions Provinces of Ulster and Connaught https://archive.org/details/op1248751-1001/page/n390/mode/1up

3. 1863 Morning Star Passenger list  https://archives.sa.gov.au/sites/default/files/documentstore/passengerlists/1863/GRG35_48_1_63-1_Morning%20Star.pdf

4.  Kinvara parish register, Baptisms | Microfilm 02442 / 14 National Library of Ireland https://registers.nli.ie/registers/vtls000634188#page/14/mode/1up

5 1862 Lady Milton passenger list, State Records NSW, 

NRS5316/4_4796/Lady Milton_28 Jun 1862/ p.11 https://indexes.records.nsw.gov.au/ebook/list.aspx?Page=NRS5316/4_4796/Lady%20Milton_28%20Jun%201862/4_479600209.jpg&No=11

6. GRG 78/49 Admission registers - Adelaide Hospital, later Royal Adelaide Hospital https://archives.sa.gov.au/sites/default/files/public/images/F%20-%20L_1.pdf

7. 1968, Galvin, John Michael, The Galvin Family: Over 100 years in Australia. Family held papers.

8. 1900 'Family Notices', The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), 6 September, p. 1. , , http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article14334468

This post first appeared on earlieryears.blogspot.com by CRGalvin