Aussie Genealogy

I've made contact with the Hunter Valley Genealogy group (surpisingly at http://www.huntervalleygenealogy.com), looking for some old ancestors of mine in the Hunter Valley, three hours drive north of Sydney. I hope to visit there in early November.

My ancestors in the Hunter Valley are the Bassetts; in particular, Samuel and Mary Bassett. I know quite a bit about them, but not where they’re buried or where Mary came from.

Samuel and Mary Bassett were married in 1845 in West Maitland, and settled at Patrick’s Plains. After marriage, Mary had several children (apparently nine!), though I suspect not all lived to adulthood. Two of her children, Henry and Peter, immigrated to New York around 1870, eventually settling in central Ontario, before possibly moving to Wisconsin in the United States. Henry was my grandmother’s grandfather, and used to say that was born in Melbourne and came to New York with gold in his pockets, before he was robbed and had to go to Canada. I now know this story is untrue; since he emigrated with his brother it’s easy to find his origins. Henry was born in Singleton in December 1848. Of the other children of Samuel and Mary, at least a few stayed in Australia. Thomas Bassett died in 1925 in Liverpool, and George Bassett died in 1932 in Randwick. I haven’t fully confirmed this, nor have I tracked where Samuel and Mary’s daughters went.

The two main ancestors that are interesting, though, are Samuel and Mary. Samuel Bassett was born in 1820 near Bath, England, and was transported in 1835 aboard the ship Fairlane to serve a 14 year sentence for the crime of pickpocketing. He absconded a couple of times, but was given his ticket of leave in 1844. Not much is known about Mary Molloy.

This is what my research has found. There are unclear questions, though. My two areas of interest are burials, and the origin of Mary Molloy.

I don’t know where Samuel and Mary are buried. There’s a tantalizing possibility that Samuel is buried in St. Paul’s church in Paterson: the NSW records indicate he’s listed as dying there in 1854, and a book with cemetery transcriptions at the State Library of Victoria indicates there’s a unusual headstone with his name on it--though it says he erected the headstone for his dead brother! The headstone’s unusual as well because it faces away from the grave, not towards it. If that’s not him, there are two good leads for where a Samuel and Mary Bassett are buried: Casino and Gulgong (north of Mudgee). I’ll investigate those later.

The other big mystery is where Mary came from. There’s a Mary Molloy born in Parramatta in 1826 (mother Bridget, father unknown) that I think could be her; there’s no Mary Molloy listed on any of the convict women ships. Perhaps she was in the orphanage. Perhaps her mother was a convict, though nothing is indicated. Perhaps this isn’t her at all; I don’t know her age at marriage or have anything linking her directly with Samuel Bassett. That’s all pretty interesting, finding out what life was like for women in the days of the Female Factory.

That’s about it. As for my actual connection to the Bassetts, well, that’s through my grandmother, who was born outside Seattle and moved to California in the 1920s.

To be honest, as an American I never suspected I had Australian convict ancestors! It’s been fascinating to learn about all this.

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