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Post by blinky on Jan 14, 2017 6:24:04 GMT -5
We have just located the funeral director and the company is still in business. We sent them and email asking for details from their records if they still have them. We are not able to find any burial record to match the death certificate of the William Jacka who died in 1890 at Goulburn. Our aunt contacted the hospital many years ago and found out that he did die there as per family tradition. She then located the death certificate at the NSW births, deaths and marriages.
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Post by Cornish Terrier on Jan 14, 2017 17:05:57 GMT -5
William may not have actually been buried at Goulburn but details of the burial should be recorded on the death certificate. NSW death certificates did have provision for the burial details giving the place of burial and the name of the undertaker. This is certainly the case on DCs I have for 1882 and 1902. Have you actually seen the death certificate for William Jacka? If not then perhaps you should check the details with your aunt.
The other option might be to check for hospital records. If William died at Goulburn Hospital then it would be worth checking for historical records from the hospital itself. (or NSW Archives)
I have just been looking at Wikipedia information about Goulburn Hospital. Apparently the current main Goulburn Hospital building was designed in 1886 and officially opened on October 12th 1889 therefore it was probably there that William Jacka died in 1890. What I was looking for was an indication of whether there might have been a burial ground associated with the hospital but as this was a new facility in 1889/90 it would seem unlikely.
Have another look at the death certificate to see what burial details are recorded and then perhaps see if you can locate early hospital records that might be helpful.
CT
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Post by blinky on Jan 15, 2017 22:36:11 GMT -5
I have located the funeral directors who buried Wm Jacka at Goulburn. The company is still in business (amazing)! I emailed them asking if they still have records going back to 1890 and for any information they have.
Also I have emailed the Goulburn City council who is responsible for the cemetery in Goulburn asking for confirmation of the burial and any details they have including inscriptions on the head stone.
In addition I emailed the National Library of Australia in Canberra asking the librarian to see if their incoming passenger lists have any details about Wm Jacka and his brothers arriving circa 1861 to 1871. They are supposed to have microfiche records that have not been digitised and available online.
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Post by Cornish Terrier on Jan 16, 2017 0:25:50 GMT -5
That seems to be covering most of the bases but in the meantime it would still be a good idea to see if any trace of the brothers can be found in Australia. It might also be worth having a look at New Zealand records in case they spent some time there.
CT
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Post by blinky on Jan 18, 2017 17:08:26 GMT -5
Hi CT
We had a reply from Goulburn City Council confirming the burial of William Jacka but they do not know the location of his grave as there is no headstone.
I have searched every passenger list at the National Library web site from 1861 to 1872 but there is no record on the Jackas arriving in Australia. Other than the newspaper articles about a police incident in Bulli in 1875 I cant find anything about the Jackas prior to their arrival in Crookwell circa 1890.
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Post by citroenlady on Jan 18, 2017 23:56:47 GMT -5
I found a family arriving in October 1871. Tragically "infant" William Jacka died during the voyage Here is the link link
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Post by Cornish Terrier on Jan 20, 2017 0:45:33 GMT -5
This is certainly a problem but you must remember that not all passenger lists survived and not all that did survive have been transcribed or indexed. The Jacka boys may have initially arrived in Australia somewhere other than NSW or they may have arrived from a foreign port. If they initially arrived in South Australia for example then I don't think much has yet been transcribed beyond the late 1850s. There is still the option of trying to find John and Richard Jacka which might eventually lead to tracking down their arrival. I did find the death of a Richard Jacka in the Newcastle district in 1916. This looked potentially interesting as although no father's name was recorded in the index the mother was listed as Margaret. Unfortunately a search of newspapers in Trove showed that this was the 12 year old son of Richard and Margaret Jacka of Newcastle. I can find no other possible Richard and no John Jacka in the NSW records which suggests that if all three brothers came to Australia they did not all settle in NSW. And now after checking the BDM indexes for South Australia, Victoria, NSW and Queensland I have been unable to find anything to suggest John and Richard Jacka were in Australia. I seem to have landed right back at square one! CT
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Post by blinky on Jan 22, 2017 17:23:07 GMT -5
Thanks CT.
This is the frustrating part we have searched every known database and there is no evidence of these three ever arriving in Australia. We have a newspaper article placed by a Richard Jacka on 27 April 1889 in the Australian Town and Country Journal looking for his brother William who "left Newclestren, Penzance, Cornwall for the colonies about 20 years ago and was last known to be in Sydney". So that means William's arrival was circa 1869 which fits in with your discoveries about the John and Margaret Jacka's children Richard and William.
The family was always told that William Snr arrived in Australia with his brothers but their names were never mentioned.
We have identified the name of the minister (Rev William Woolls Routledge) who buried William and have written to the Uniting Church to see if they can locate his burial registers in their archives.
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Post by Cornish Terrier on Jan 22, 2017 23:45:56 GMT -5
This is most interesting and I have just located and downloaded a copy of the article for myself. 'Newclestren' is not a place in Cornwall but given the article would have initially been printed from (most likely) a handwritten message and then copied at least once before printing in the Journal it might be fair to say that it (Newclestren) is not actually the word that was originally written! If you can picture some of the handwriting you may have seen in, for example, Census records or Parish Registers it is conceivable that this word might originally have been 'Nancledrea' in which case it is a definite pointer to the family of John Jacka and Margaret Terril. The other very interesting piece of information in this article is that brother Richard Jacka left his address as 'Post-office, Gympie'! This has not helped find Richard either but at least we have evidence that indicates he was in Queensland in April of 1889. CT
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Post by blinky on Jan 23, 2017 15:15:51 GMT -5
Thanks again CT. Yes the newspaper article was a clue and I checked the Queensland records for Richard but could not find anything.
The National Library of Australia responded this morning stating "Unfortunately I've been unable to identify a passenger list featuring either William or Richard. There are numerous people appearing on passenger lists into Australia by the name of William/WM/W/MR Jack/Jacques/Jakes (William Jacka's name may have been noted on a passenger list in any number of ways, making it difficult to conclusively identify the correct list)".
As you said we have a positive pointer to the family of John and Margaret.
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Post by Cornish Terrier on Jan 24, 2017 0:19:52 GMT -5
There is another source you might be able to look at - Electoral Rolls. I have tried but have not been able to source ERs for NSW or Qld prior to 1903 online. The National Library of Australia has Queensland and NSW Electoral Rolls on microfilm for the period around the 1880s and 1890s but unfortunately they can't be accessed online. A trawl through those (even beginning in the 1860s) might turn up some useful information on both William and Richard.
CT
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Post by blinky on Mar 15, 2017 17:05:42 GMT -5
I just want to update you on recent events. Last week end my sisters and my family went to Crookwell to see what we could uncover. We had a great week end and achieved a lot but not all was good.
As you know William Jacka (Woods) lived in Crookwell from circa 1890 and died there in 1943. We have his death certificate and noticed the name of the funeral director who buried him. As luck turns out a relative of the funeral director still lives in Crookwell. His name is James Kennedy.
I also contacted the Upper Lachlan Shire Council (ULSC) and they do not have any record of William being buried in their Crookwell cemetery. His death certificate clearly states he was buried in the Methodist section at Crookwell cemetery.
His obituary also states he was buried alongside his two infant sons in Crookwell cemetery. I obtained the death certificates of his two infants “sons” and found both had been buried in the Methodist section at Crookwell cemetery. One was a male (Noel William George Jacka) aged just 36 hours old who died in 1903 and the other a female (Sylvan Noble Jacka) aged just 9 weeks old who died of whooping cough in 1913.
The ULSC examined their records and found there was a plot registration for Row 12 plots 1 and 2 in the Methodist section of Crookwell cemetery in the name Jacka. A son of William (Athol) and his wife Jean are buried in another row in the Methodist section. They have headstones.
So we gave all this information to the funeral director and he said he might be able to locate the graves! So on Sunday we met James and he had a copy of the ULSC records showing the reserved plots in the name Jacka. He used a metal probe to check if the plots had been used and bingo he confirmed that plot # 1 was the burial site of an adult. So we found Williams grave site. James concluded that the two infants were most likely buried in plot # 2 but because they were infants he was not able to confirm this. Infants are only buried between one and two feet into the ground and apparently not much is left after just a few years according to James. He offered to excavate to check but said it was highly unlikely any remains would be there including any of the coffin if one was used.
So James is convinced we have located William’s grave site and has agreed to erect a headstone on the plot for all three. We have also asked the ULSC to update their records for these plots.
In addition my grandmother’s father James Harris is also buried in the same cemetery but in the RC section. We have his death certificate but there is no record of his site or headstone.
We also located the houses the Jacka’s had lived in.
So that is the good news. However we still have a big mystery on our hands! Who was William’s father?
We have spent years looking for William Jacka Snr but there is nothing except the police reports in the newspapers about an incident in Bulli and his mention in the obituary of his son.
We searched every shipping record at the National Library on last Saturday and found nothing. The NSW State archives have nothing. Penwith have found no record of the three Jacka’s leaving Cornwall.
We have a death certificate for William Jackab who died in Goulburn hospital in 1890. This is the only death recorded around the time mentioned in William Jnr’s obituary. In the letter from mum’s aunt she provided additional information about the journey from Bulli to Crookwell.
She states they we near a town called Tuena (which was a gold mining town around 1890s about 55 kilometers from Crookwell). The letter states William Snr took ill with pneumonia and was taken to Goulburn hospital. The son William Jacka (Woods) was left with a family called “Wherritt” and they took him to Crookwell. William pleaded with the Wherritts to take him to visit his father but they refused. William died soon after not seeing his son!
So we are pretty sure William Jackab is William Jacka Snr. No one else fits the history!
So we are now at a dead end. It looks like there is never going to be a record of the Jacka’s arriving in Australia so we can’t prove that John and Margaret are his parents. Although it looks like they are.
We have exhausted all avenues of finding the shipping records and now give up on this part of the search!
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Post by Cornish Terrier on Mar 15, 2017 23:50:08 GMT -5
A lot of hard work has gone into this and you are to be congratulated. Mixed results of course but I should think that locating the burial site was well worth the effort. JACKAB - from the information provided I would suggest this is 'almost' certainly your William. I would suggest the possibility that this name might actually have been originally written as JACKAH and that subsequent copying of the record has interpreted it as JACKAB. Although no record of arrival has been found for William or his brothers it is still worth trying to track down brother John and especially brother Richard who is known to have been in Australia. CT
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Post by blinky on Mar 18, 2017 4:58:45 GMT -5
Thanks .... we are not giving up ... we will look for John and see what happens.
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Post by blinky on Apr 6, 2017 22:56:12 GMT -5
We have a strong lead:
William Jacka who married Catherine Hoskings and came to South Australia.
The newspapers show that the Queen Bee (arrived on 11 March 1865) was met by a steamer which took many of the immigrants straight to Wallaroo/Moonta Mines. They list miners arriving there and it has William Jacka's name. William and Catherine Jacka have a son there in SA after they arrived.
Passengers were:
William Jacka aged 20 a miner from Penzance Cornwall. This makes his DoB circa 1845. Catherine (Hosking) aged 17 John (infant died on 16 December 1864 on the voyage from Cornwall to South Australia)
In 1870 there was a William Jacka in the town living in one pub where he owed rent and drinking at another. He paid for the drinks with a really good watch and chain. The two publicans fought about the situation and letters were written to the paper including one by the William Jacka. It went to court and the judge said he was a miner and had no family so he could not pay back the rent.
So this guy is a miner, he is alone and he is drinking too much! This is five years before our William turns up in Bulli. His wife must have left him on or before 1870.
He first surfaces in Bulli, NSW about 1875. A newspaper article reports him being arrested for being drunk and swearing in a Bulli hotel on miner’s pay night. Bulli was a coal mining town.
Again in another pub incident in 1885 which is recorded in the Police Gazette they described him as about “36 yrs of age”. This makes his DoB circa 1849.
In 1887 Bulli had a mine disaster and the mine would have been shut for some time. He and his son went on a road trip but William snr became ill and died soon after in Goulburn hospital in 1890.
We have evidence that Catherine and her second son John went to Fiji. There is no record of William leaving with them or arriving in Fiji or living in Fiji.
Catherine re married in Fiji stating she was a widow but we can’t find any record of her husband William’s death.
We are speculating that Catherine and William separated in SA leaving William alone with Catherine and son John going to Fiji. There are current descendants of Catherine's new marriage in Fiji.
This is when William starts (1870) to get into trouble with the SA police and maybe thought it best to get out of town. Where did he go we don't know for sure. If it was Bulli we have a connection!
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