Topic: LONGEVITY

My oldest ancestor was probably Margaret Lyle, born in Glasgow on 14 October 1827 and died aged 98 in Australia. Margaret was the fourth of eight children born to surgeon Thomas Lyle and Margaret Cochrane, his cousin. As the daughter of a surgeon it could be surmised that Margaret led a comfortable early life, however her father was far more interested in bryology (the study of mosses) and in writing ballads (he was the author of “Kelvin Grove”) than surgery. By 1851while Dr. Lyle occasionally practiced surgery in the little town of Airth in Stirlingshire, where the last three children were born, Margaret (then aged about 23) and two of her younger siblings were in Glasgow earning a living.

Margaret probably met her future husband Alexander Johnston, a cabinetmaker and a little younger than her, through their church. They married on 25 March 1853, Alexander’s birthday, in Glasgow.

Their first son Charles arrived in December 1854 in Airth. He was less than a year old when his parents embarked on the new clipper “Storm Cloud” for Australia the following year, with Margaret already pregnant with her second child George who arrived three weeks after their voyage ended. The long sailing voyage must have been difficult for Margaret, heavily pregnant and probably still grieving following the loss of her mother just before they departed.

The family settled in Launceston in northern Tasmania. A daughter was born in 1858. Ten years later, which must have been a surprise, another son (my grandfather) was born in 1868.

Margaret and Alexander lived in the same house until Alexander died aged 76 in 1906. Margaret survived him by almost 20 years, dying aged 98 at the home of their eldest son Charles in Sydney.

Their story is told in more detail at https://nancyvada.me/alexander-johnston-margaret-lyle-tasmanian-pioneers/

It is curous about Margaret’s longevity. It does not look like heredity had much influence. Her paternal grandparents only lived to 30 and 32 (probably succumbing to cholera or similar) and her father was 67. Her maternal grandfather was 53 and her mother 57. Of her siblings, the next oldest were the sisters Mary Anne and Amelia, 74 and 85 respectively, who also emigrated to Tasmania. “Something in the water??”

Margaret Lyle’s children were 78, 67 and 84 respectively (one other son drowned in a shipwreck at 29). Her 67 year old daughter Margaret Johnston (whose husband FJA Huxtable lived to 72, his father to 83 and grandfather Dr. William Huxtable (1791-1887) to 87, had four children 85, 90, 77 and 81 and most of their grandchildren and great grandchildren are also long-lived. A Huxtable longevity gene? Certainly modern medicine must play a part. But still ….Does that mean that I, another great granddaughter of Margaret Lyle, may just possibly reach 100???

The theme for this week is Surprise.

DNA testing has certainly opened the door to finding more cousins. But too often after establishing a family link and exchanging a couple of emails, communication stops. But not always.

My Great Grandmother Margaret Prendergast (1844-1915) arrived in Australia from Ireland as a 6 year old in 1854, together with her parents and most of her 9 siblings. They went to a small country town in South Western NSW called Maude, where they stayed. Grown-up Margaret went to Melbourne, married, was widowed after a few years, then married again to my Great Grandfather, and lived in various country towns while he worked at droving or managing remote sheep and cattle stations. Grandfather did the same.

I was born in Sydney, Australia, lived in Brisbane for many years and moved to New Zealand in 2000.

Margaret’s elder brother Patrick John Prendergast (1837-1886) stayed in Maude and married a local lady. They had 10 children of whom one went to Blackall in outback Queensland, where some descendants still live. A great granddaughter of his, named Joan, now lives in Brisbane. She is a third cousin with whom I have established DNA contact via quite a small match – but I recognised the surname!

So after discussing at some length via various emails the coincidence that we both lived in the same city for many years but never knew the existence of each other, I casually mentioned that I now Iive in a certain town in New Zealand. And Joan exclaimed – “So does my sister!” What a surprise.

Pat and I are now good friends and see each other often. The known Prendergast family tree has greatly expanded. It is so good to have at least one relative in my new home town. Incidentally I also have another third cousin living here from a different family entirely.

Topic for Week 37: Prosperity; Topic for Week 38: Adversity.

Both Prosperity and Adversity have been major features of my Australian Darchy family – so I am combining the two weeks’ postings.

My mysterious ancestor Thomas Darchy, born in 1820 in Augsburg Bavaria to English/Scottish/French/Prussian parents – the still unravelled story possibly involving a runaway heiress – spent his first 20 years in the care of a guardian in Switzerland, He was ‘collected’ in 1830 by a respectable churchman who had to sign all sorts of legal papers, then disappeared for the next 10 years and finally turned up, unaccompanied, and a very wealthy young man, on a ship in Australian waters in 1840.

He soon became involved in the budding Australian grazing industry – cattle and sheep – exploring and taming wild country and pushing westwards from the south-east coast (the only settled area at the time). His wife Susan Byrne was said to have been the first white woman west of the Murrumbidgee River. He owned or leased several properties including “Gelam”, before settling on “Oxley” near Hay in the Riverina area of New South Wales, some time before the birth of his sixth child in 1857. A tutor and later governess was employed to teach the ten children and later the boys were sent off one by one to a prestigious boarding school in Melbourne.

A newspaper correspondent journeying towards the Hay district in 1872 wrote:

“Continuing the journey for a few miles I got thoroughly into the much dreaded “lignum” country.  The name is doubtless a corruption of polygonum. It is a kind of hard-stemmed, thick, rushlike plant, with a number of branches from each stem. The lignum country presents an extraordinary sight.  There are scores of miles of it – the lignum growing from five to fourteen feet high, in fact over horse and rider’s head. It resembles a great artificial plantation, and is said to bear a nice flower, but it was not in flower when I saw it. No use whatever is made of this plant, and not a blade of grass was growing near it. In fact the lignum country is the terror of the traveller, whether in a vehicle or on horseback. The ground on which it grows is quite black, and exceedingly sticky and tenacious. A few yards over this adhesive soil made my horse’s hoofs resemble pans, and another horseman and myself had to dismount several times to clear the tenacious clayey composition off. The wheels of a buggy resembled cheeses, all the spokes being filled up with this black clay. The driver had to dismount at intervals and with a spade clear the spokes of this waxy substance, in order to make the slightest progress.

“Regarding “Gelam” … This is one of the stations first taken up by Mr. Thomas D’Archy, Esq., about thirty years ago.  Mr. D’Archy also took up the station above “Pimpanpa”. The difficulties and strange adventure, particularly with the blacks at that time, of Mr. and Mrs. D’Archy, were of a very remarkable kind, but their recital would occupy too much space here… “Gelam” has an area of about sixty square miles, and a frontage to the Murrumbidgee of ten miles.  It carries about 5000 sheep and 500 head of cattle….

(And a little later) … to avoid a long dreary ride of nearly forty miles without a habitation, I took a northerly course across plains, the greatest part of which were under water for eighteen miles to “Oxley”. Large quantities of wild fowl were on the plains, chiefly bustards and wild duck. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon when a narrow belt of trees on the plains indicated my approach to the “long and lazy Lachlan.” “Oxley” is the residence and station of Thomas D’Archy, Esq., J.P.  I received a most hearty welcome at the station and remained there several days.  Mr. D’Archy is the oldest resident in that part of the country; and the health of this hospitable pioneer and his kind hearted lady, were drunk in bumpers of champagne at the last Pastoral Association’s dinner held at Hay.” … “Oxley has an area of 160 square miles and has a frontage to the Lachlan of eighteen miles. Mr. D’Archy has marched with the times, and has seen almost all his early compeers come and go. The station is well improved. Sixty or seventy miles of wire fencing have been erected on the run which is also subdivided into paddocks.  Mr. D’Archy was the first to secure the waters of the Lachlan by damming.”

So, Thomas Darchy overcame some early adversity to achieve prosperity. But five years later he died aged 57, probably of apoplexy (stroke). Too much good living?

He did not live to see Adversity hit his family again in the form of a major economic depression in 1890, accompanied by a bad drought and rabbit plague, with prices of wool falling heavily and later a shearer’s strike. By then several of his sons were running their own properties – mostly leased on long-term loans held by investors based in Britain with no understanding of Australian conditions.

My own great grandfather Frank Darchy, in partnership with a brother and cousin, was forced to give up his property “Cuthowarra” near Wilcannia, and his brother Michael also went broke at “Tarcoola”. Frank, declared bankrupt, took to droving and was for a time an outback postman. Michael was more fortunate and managed to hold on to some of his properties.

Another brother Louis also went droving and was for a time a station overseer – but by 1910 he was a station cook and took his own life in despair in 1910. Yet another brother FritzEdward whose four children were all born in 1890-97, was to die in a lunatic asylum aged 56.

Fortunately Thomas Darchy’s three daughters were not so affected; two married and the third made a name for herself as a journalist – the subject of another story.

Topic: Tradesman.

My 2xG Grandfather Charles Johnston (1797-1848) was a boot and shoe maker in Glasgow. Pigot’s 1837 Directory shows him listed at 267 George Street, which is now a prestigious address in the heart of the Glasgow Business district.

George died in 1848. He did not leave a will, but on 24 July 1850 his son Charles (1817-abt.1856) made a solemn declaration to the effect that he and his brother (which one was not stipulated) and their mother “entered upon the management of the deceased’s personal estate”. The value of the deceased‘s Stock in Trade and household furniture was 39 Pounds, 13 shillings and one pence; and there were a large number of book debts to the value of 100 pounds, 13 shillings and threepence. There was a further list of 21 people headed “Book debts due but bad (underlined) and on which no value can be put” to the value of twenty six pounds and eight shillings.

The younger Charles took over the business. The 1851 Scottish Census shows him living at the same address, 267 George Street, a shoemaker employing six men. So the business must have survived and flourished.

Scottish records are wonderful! Here is the first page of the declaration:

The elder Charles was buried on 24 December 1848 in Glasgow’s Southern Necropolis. Either he or his son the younger Charles was the registered owner of the lair, the address of the owner being 267 George St., Glasgow. It is a most imposing lair and as was common in those times, various other bodies were also interred there. Records enabled me to identify them and to greatly expand the family tree. Charles was obviously a very prosperous tradesman.