updated 9th July 2013

Mary Boyd / Elizabeth Mary Bamford / Elizabeth May Mountney

William Robert Mountney

Tracing up the Mountney line of things, I've determined that William Robert Mountney was not born a Mountney, but was instead adopted when his mother Elizabeth Mary Bamford married Albert Mountney in 1898.

William Robert's marriage in 1908 lists his place of birth as Charters Towers, Queensland, (a gold mining town) and based off his age, he has a birth year in 1882 or 1883. It lists his parents as Albert Mountney and May Elizabeth Boyd. His death certificate says his parents were Albert Mountney and Elizabeth Boyd and gave a similar derived birth year.

Elizabeth May Mountney appears to have died in Kew 1941, with a given age of 84. There is little detail on her entry, I wonder about how much the informant knew.

So, to Queensland..

Given the marriage between Bamford and Mountney, but William's mother's maiden name being Boyd, I went hunting for Boyd / Bamford marriages. There were none in Victoria, so given William's birth location I went looking for one in Queensland. I found that in 1883. Mary Boyd married John Bamford. That seemed likely.

I couldn't find any births for a William Robert Bamford, so I broadened my search to look for William with a mother's maiden name of Boyd, and found Robert William Boyd, born 1883 in Queensland. Speaking to Goff (William's son), he confirmed that his father "had been born on the wrong side of the sheets." That also seemed a reasonably likely match to the folks I was looking for.

I wondered how Elizabeth Mary might have gotten to Melbourne, and been remarried, so I searched for deaths of John Bamfords. There were two in 1888, one of whom was a miner at Eivold:

Saturday 8 September 1888
Queensland Figaro and Punch (Brisbane, QLD : 1885 - 1916) (about)
JOHN BAMFORD, a miner at Eidsvold, was blown
up by a dynamite explosion, while drilling a hole on
Sunday last. The deceased was a brother of David
Bamford, baker, of Ipswich. 

- from trove.nla.gov.au

That seemed a strong possibility, so I left it at that for a while, with some notes that it was still speculative and most of it needed to be confirmed with certificates.

But then...

Some months later, I was trying to find out a little bit more information about Elizabeth Mary Boyd and John Bamford, when I stumbled across a page about the Wonnangatta Murders at http://www.harryshut.net/

What happened to Mary Bamford, the wife of John Bamford who was one of the two murdered Wonnangatta Station men. It seems Mary disappeared from the Dargo area without telling anyone. The local gossip back prior to John Bamfords murder was that when they were living at Blake Snake Creek just out of Dargo, Bamford murdered Mary and buried her in the bush, however no proof of this exists, not even a ploice investigation. She may have stayed in Victoria or gone interstate, perhaps back to Queensland. Keith Leydon & Michael Rays book "The Wonnangatta Mystery" provides us more detail on Bamford than any other book. In this book we learn Mary Boyd aged 22 marries John Bamford on the 4th June, 1883 at the Ida Palmer Gold Fields, Qld. Her parents were William Boyd and Mary Ann Gleason

That, and a followup conversation with Graeme Shead about whether this Mary was the same as the one that married Albert Mountney prompted me to have a closer look at some of my information and purchase some of the certificates.

Graeme currently thinks that I have concatenated two Elizabeth/Mary's together - that the Elizabeth Mary Bamford who married Mountney is not the same Mary Boyd who married John Bamford in Queensland. This is not an unreasonable stance given some of the discrepancies in the path through records. :) I think there are strong enough hints to make it likely I have not. Further investigation will hopefully prove one of us right.

Comparing the Harry Hut info with Elizabeth Mary Bamford's / Albert Mountney's wedding certificate

As I already had this certificate, I was able to compare it quickly with the info about the possible match. On this 1898 certificate, the details given were that Elizabeth Mary Bamford was a widow circa 1889, she had 1 living and 2 deceased children, she was born in Holyhead, North Wales, she was 36 (dob 1861/1862), her parents were William Wilfred Boyd (Captain, coastguard) and Mary Ann Williamson.

Complicating that is that they were married at the Free Christian Church, 552 Queen St, Melbourne, by Albert James Abbott. This is the site of Holt's Matrimonial Agency:

This is the site of "Holt's Matrimonial Agency" built about 1894 when Holt
moved from his rented premises in 345 Swanston Street. The new premises
were renumbered to 448 prior to the publishing of the following
advertisement in "The Age" of October 1901:

"Marriages celebrated by Ordained Clergymen, with due solemnity, in
strictest privacy, at "Holt's Matrimonial Agency" 448 Queen Street
Melbourne, opposite the Old Cemetery, or elsewhere, from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.
daily. Saturdays included. No notice required. Fee 10 shillings and
sixpence, or marriage, with guaranteed gold wedding ring and the necessary
witnesses provided at one pound ome shilling - no other charges whatever.
All sizes of more costly wedding rings kept in stock if required."

And:

"Ladies, Gentlemen, every station in life, contemplating matrimony,
immediately consult the proprietors of Holt's New Matrimonial Agency etc.
Especially erected by the proprietors for introductions and marriages, and
costing four thousand pounds to build. Introductions privately arranged
between eligible partners, either sex, with a view to matrimony. Only
letter containing stamp for reply will be answered. All communications
treated confidentially and managed solely by the proprietors, thereby
ensuring strictest privacy. Holt's "Matrimonial Gazette", containing
particulars of a number of available clients, modus operandi, etc forwarded
to any address, in plain envelope, upon receipt of a two pence stamp."

- from http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/AUS-VIC/2003-03/1048132874

My experience with Holt's Matrimonial Agency - and Nathaniel Kinsman of the Free Church of England and Ireland in Fitzroy, and Andrew Ferguson of the Independant Church in Collingwood - is that as long as you could pay the fees that were being charged for the marriage license, no one looked too closely at the details that you were supplying. I've had people list themselves as widows or spinsters, with zero children, when none of that was true, etc. It was also a favourite of people from different denominations to marry.

I don't think the discrepancies in this record vs the history of Mary Boyd rule it out as being the same person. I am far more cheered by the similarities than the differences (something something selection bias). The same father (William Boyd) and the same mother's first name (Mary Ann) is at least a starting point.

I have looked for information on a William Wilfred Boyd, captain of the coastguard and found nothing. I have looked for Boyd births from 1857 to 1865 in Holyhead or anywhere in Anglesey and found nothing. I suspect these are not entirely accurate. I know I am cherry picking the info that does match, but I'd treat all of it as possibly true or possibly false.

So, Robert William Boyd's birth certificate

Robert William Boyd's birth certificate claims that he was born on the 7th of April 1883 in Ida Palmer, Queensland, and his father was John Boyd (Saddler, 24 years, born Aberdeen Scotland) and his mother was Mary Elizabeth Gleason (22 years, born Dublin, Ireland), and that they married in 1882 in Mackay, Queensland. However, notes from the register made on the side of the entry on the 19th July also say that the father and mother's details are not true, and that Robert William was illegitimate

Although the information is not true, I find it quite interesting that Mary Elizabeth chose 'Gleason' as her assumed maiden name, as according to the Harry's Hut information that was the maiden name of her mother.

John Bamford and Mary Boyd's wedding certificate

This wedding certificate says that they were married in June 1883 at Ida Palmer River, (about a month after Robert William's birth). John Bamford was 27 years old, a miner from Bradford, Yorkshire and his parents were Thomas Bamford (miner) and Mary Ann Birch. Mary Boyd was 22 years old, a spinster born in Dublin, Ireland to William Boyd (Sea Captain) and Mary Ann Gleason

The true and false details in Robert William's birth certificate match too closely with the details in this marriage certificate to not be the same Mary. They are in the same small gold mining town (Ida Palmer), Mary's birth place is the same as on Robert's birth certificate and she used her mother's maiden name as a surname.

I think its telling that on both Mary Elizabeth Boyd and Elizabeth Mary Bamford's wedding certificates they state their father's name as William Boyd and his occupation as sea captain. That being said, I can't find a William Boyd captain in the censuses either... but if he is at sea when the census is taken, you wouldn't expect him to be on it.

Elizabeth Mary Mountney's death certificate

This death certificate was filled out by "signature" , Authorised Agent, Prahran, after Elizabeth died at Caritas Christi Hospice in Kew of a stroke. It gives her age as 84, which would be a birth year of 1856/1857, which is a big discrepancy from what her wedding certificate showed (which would indicate that she would be 79). Her father is given as John Boyd and her mother as Elizabeth unknown, but he is given as "Sea Captain". The birth location is Wales, but the description of how long in which states says "19 years in Queensland, 50 years in Victoria". The marriage details say that she was married in Queensland at age 20, to Albert Mountney (deceased). Her only issue given is William Robert, 59 years.

There are some discrepancies here again. Some of them might be down to the agent being the informant, and Elizabeth dying in a hospice. There's only one marriage listed, but its in Queensland. William Robert's age is right, and given his father had died, he might have been supplying some of the details.

I'm not sure how to treat the times in states. It comes to 79 years, but that would imply she was in Queensland shortly after being born. But if her father is a sea captain, I had been working on the assumption that it was in the UK, and that Mary Elizabeth had emigrated on her own. Even knocking 5 years off because of the wonky age doesn't change that much.

I do think that the Queensland, and Sea Captain parts of the certificate help back up that the two Elizabeth/Marys are the same person. But the discrepancies make that association weaker than they might be otherwise.

Mary Elizabeth Boyd/Bamford vs Elizabeth Mary Boyd/Bamford

The details below are drawn from various certificates but all pertain to Mary, not to the person whose certificate it is.

* There is a birth & death of a John Boyd in Queensland in 1882, no father. I can't find another appropriate birth or death.
* At Robert William's birth, Mary gives her details as Mary Elizabeth Gleason, born Dublin.

So, in conclusion

I'm reasonably convinced that the two Mary/Elizabeth's are the same person, and that I had the wrong John Bamford death in 1888 (he is given as age 26, which would clash with the 32 that the married one should be). I haven't gone looking for counter information at this stage, I've been concentrating on trying to follow the path as I can see it.

Other options may be:

1. that the John Bamford & Mary Boyd described in Harry's Hut are completely disconnected to the above folks, and all of the above describes one woman whose husband did die in a mining accident.
2. that Elizabeth May Bamford in Melbourne has nothing to do with Mary Elizabeth Boyd in Queensland. She might have married overseas or in another state originally. Given the death info and the birth location of William Robert Mountney, I am not convinced

One of Graeme's issues is the difference in place of birth. I'm not so fussed that someone whose father is purportedly a sailor might be a bit vague about which side of a 20km wide piece of sea she was born on. Holyhead in Anglesey faces right across to Dublin, and might have been the fancier place to be born.

Now what...

Information that might counter my theory is if the Electoral Rolls show Mary still living with John Bamford after the Mountney/Bamford wedding. Unfortunately they don't start til 1903 in a searchable fashion, so its not conclusive if I can't find them.

I also want to check out Elizabeth's grave - I don't think it will help much, but you never know. If it has a headstone, it might have information there that wasn't given to the informant (ditto with Albert's, which is nearby).
Update: neither Elizabeth's nor Albert's graves exist any more.

John Bamford appears to have a sister born in 1876 in Queensland, Caroline. He might have other family somewhere that might be able to provide more information as well.

The nurse on Robert William's birth certificate is "Nurse Bamford". I am going to try and see if I can find a Mary Ann Bamford who was a nurse in the area. (ex Birch, as per John's wedding details).

A descendant of William Robert is currently being DNA tested. This test can potentially find cousins (if they have also been been tested) who are related within the previous 6 or so generations (4 reliably). They are 5 generations away from William Robert's parents, so if Bamford or Boyd matches show up, or even matches from Queensland, more information might come to light that way.