Caroline Emma Austin

     Caroline Emma Austin was born in Melbourne, VIC, AUS, bt 1854 - 1857 the exact year varying according to source. Her age was given as 26 when she married in Feb 1882, ie born 1856; 42 when died Jan 1899, ie 1857; 31 on dtr Honor's birth cert July 1886, ie 1855 and her mother Emma's 1894 dth cert. shows a surviving 40 yr old dtr, ie 1854. Emma is also shown, without an age (unusual on VIC certs), as being an elder sister to John Gibson on his 1859 birth cert.^4,5,3,1,6
     Caroline Emma Austin was actually born on 14 Jan 1854 Melbourne, VIC.² She was baptized on 8 Feb 1854 in the Parish of St James, Melbourne, Bourke, VIC, AUS; entry #7211 reads: Baptised Feb 8th 1854 by G C Varner. Born 14 Jan 1854, Caroline Emma, Parents: William and Emma, Austin, of Little Bourke St West, profession ginger beer manufacturer.^2,6
     Caroline Emma Austin Gibson married Matthias Rowe, son of William Rowe and Honor Daw, on 4 Feb 1882 in the Office of the Registrar of Marriages, New Plymouth, TNK, NZ, Folio #201 cert. reads: 1882 in the District of New Plymouth on Feb 4, Matthias Rowe, 28, laborer (sic) bachelor born Plymouth, England, s/o William Rowe, farmer and Honor Daw married Caroline Emma Austin Gibson, 26 (really 28), spinster, b. Melbourne, Victoria, d/o William Austin Gibson, laborer, and Emma Clinton (NB this turns out to be an interesting mix of fact and fiction, as Emma's father was really William Austin and her step-father John Gibson). Both resident New Plymouth and signed their names. Wit: Ellen Maria Martin and N Martin Turner (Turner may possibly be occupation not surname. Not known to be any relation or connection).^7,8,3
     Emma Rowe died on 21 Jan 1899 at Huirangi, nr Waitara, TNK, NZ, at age 45; cert #191 reads: Emma Rowe, aged 42 (!) of intestinal obstruction, collapse, duration 1 week, father given as "Austin (no forenames given) step-father John Gibson" and mother as "Emma, maiden name unknown". Buried 23 Jan 1899, Huirangi; Born Melbourne, Victoria, in NZ 30 years. Married New Plymouth at age 28 to M Rowe. Three children still living M 14, F 12,7 (ie Henry Matthias, aka Harry; Honor and Clara Elizabeth. NB the given age at marriage corrects that given on her actual marriage cert.).⁴ She was buried with Matthias Rowe in the Huirangi Cem., nr Waitara, TNK, NZ, Emma buried 23 Jan 1899, Matt 30 Dec 1901, grave is next door to Matt's parents. The h/stone has been cleaned between 1993ish and 2005.^4,7,9 No probate for Emma has been found (not indexed as either Caroline or Emma Rowe).¹⁰
     
     Caroline Emma Austin and Tara are related as Tara is the direct maternal ancestor of Lorna, proven by a mitochondrial DNA test. Lorna's proven maternal ancestral line goes: Lorna (NZ), Alice Henderson nee Andrews (NZ); Honor Andrews nee Rowe (NZ); Emma Rowe nee Austin (Australia to NZ); Emma Gibson/Austin nee Clinton (London to Australia to NZ); Jemima Clinton nee Parker (Essex to London to Australia to NZ) with a further possible generation to Charlotte Parker nee Parkinson (Essex) and an awful lot more women who will obviously remain completely undocumented back from the 1760s to 15000 BC.
I see that Oxford Ancestors has one, and only one, direct match for my mDNA on their database although there are many other Tara descendants, including a lady in Auckland whose forbears lived in Essex and moved to London, just like mine, about the same time. Unfortunately, the direct match one hasn't chosen to share her contact details.^11,12
     Emma Gibson was assumed to have travelled to New Plymouth, TNK, NZ, with John and Emma Parker Gibson bt 20 Jun 1864 - 3 Aug 1864; from Melbourne, presumably as a family group, Capt John and wife Emma Gibson, eldest (step)dtr (Caroline) Emma aged about 10; and sons John, 4 and William Henry a baby, another son, James, having died in Melbourne in 1863. The actual date varies depending on the source, starting with the certificates nearest in time: son William Henry's dth cert implies c 1864/5; mother Emma's 1894 dth cert c 1864; however dtr Caroline Emma's 1899 dth cert implies 1868/9; brother John's 1932 dth cert also implies c 1868. It is possible, but unlikely, that in 1864 Emma and John stayed behind in Victoria with family then followed their parents out 4 yrs later, aged 14 and 8 respectively. So, I presume they all emigrated together when John took up his appointment as Harbour Master in New Plymouth in 1864. The "Jun to Aug" was drawn from correspondence in the Taranaki Provincial Papers in the National Archives offering him the position, and after his arrival.^13,14 In 1892 Emma and Matt were living Huirangi, nr Waitara, TNK, when dtr Clara born.¹⁵
     Emma Rowe was not listed on the electoral roll of 1893, the first to include women (although her mother was).¹⁶
     As of 1854, her surname was possibly also spelt Austen as on her baptism entry if there is a dot over the i it's hard to spot, and the i/e looks fat enough to be an e. However a Rootsweb search shows that by far the more common spelling would be Austin, which clearly appears on other records.² She was also known as Emma Gibson this surname being stated explicitly on husband Matt's 1901 dth cert and being implied from Emma's appearance as an elder sister on 1859 birth cert. of John Gibson, (now known to be half siblings).^5,7 She was also known as Caroline Emma Austin Gibson as shown on her 1882 marriage cert.³ On her death, in 1899, her name was recorded as Emma Rowe.⁴ The name shown on her headstone was Caroline Emma Austin Rowe.¹⁷
     This lady led me a merry dance out of proportion to her short existance. Genealogy on recent generations is meant to be easy: "start with the known and work backwards". No problem thought I, her death and marriage certificates should be available in NZ, and I should therefore be able to easily find her parents and date/place of birth.
     From her dtr Honor's 1908 marriage cert I found that Honor's parents were listed as Emma Gibson and Mathias Rowe. Honor's 1886 birth cert gave her parents as Matthias Rowe b Plymouth, ENG and Caroline Emma m.s. Gibson born Melbourne Victoria. Honor's dth cert confirmed the Emma m.s. Gibson.
     So she was an Australian, formally known as Caroline Emma, usually known as Emma, surname Gibson, so far so good, but then the plot thickened.
     As she had died while her 3 children were still quite young (14,13,7), her dtr didn't know that much about her relatives, and her granddtr (my mother) even less, so it was time to get Emma's own official certificates.
     I thought her 1882 mar. cert would be the most accurate as being presumed to have been from information she herself provided. In this her name expands to Caroline Emma Austin Gibson, age 20, father William Austin Gibson, laborer and mother Emma Clinton, but we are still looking for a Gibson. When asked, all my mother could remember about any Gibsons was that: "Uncle Harry was sent to a Gibson farm after his parents died", she didn't know why; and that the family seemed to be friendly to the Gibsons of Smart Rd, again, without knowing why. Two photographs added to the existance of the Gibsons: one labelled "4 generations of Gibsons", and the other believed to be Honor on her Grandmother Gibson's knee, labelled "Grandmother Gibson".
     With the additional statement from Emma's dth cert that John Gibson was her stepfather and her father's forenames were not known at her dth, more work was obviously needed to track her birth and actual parents down. Her mother was found to have died five years prior to Emma, but her death cert was singularly uncommunicative about any marriage prior to that to John Gibson, adding however that she had been born in England and married at age 28 in Victoria. Even her mother's 1855 marriage cert showed her as single with no children by any former marriage. Poor Caroline Emma, who, by Dec 1855, was now nearly 2 according to the birth cert. for Emma that was found matching most of the information available to date (a Caroline Emma Austin/Austen to a William and Emma Austin/Austen in Jan 1854).
     So what had happened to William, and were he and Emma married or not? Shipping records provided the next clue, as a fellow researcher and Clinton relative had found the familys' emigration to Australia, showing a 24 yr old William Austin, miner, travelling with a 25 yr old wife Emma. A London marriage certificate dated Feb 1853, 3 mths prior to the ship sailing, was also found for William Austin and Emma Clinton. On the same voyage were a Henry Clinton, 22, miner, with Jemima, 65, "mother", ie Emma's mother and brother.
     We still do not know what happened to William Austin in the short time span between his arrival in Australia in Jul 1853 and his wife's remarriage as a "single" woman in Dec 1855, but we do know that their dtr Caroline Emma was born Jan 1854, when he was described as a ginger beer manufacturer. I am assuming that if he was already dead by then that the cert. would have said so, but that is an assumption on my part, and we now have Caroline Emma hatched matched and despatched, albeit with some mysteries surrounding the life of her mother Emma.^18,19