Albert Edward E 1870-72)

 

 

Albert Edward’s birth was registered in the final quarter of 1870, the baby was four months old when the 1871 census was taken in April 1871. Sadly, a year later his death was in the April-July quarter of the Death Index.
 

 

Edith Blanche E (1872-1937)

 

 

Edith was born the month after Albert died. Six months later, her mother died and, around 18 months later, her father married her aunt Elizabeth. Eight years later, 10-year old Edith gave evidence to the coroner corroborating her father’s description of events leading to her aunt’s suicide upstairs while the family was having breakfast.    

It looks as though something happened that meant the Edgar siblings left home in the 1880s. This may have been their father’s third

marriage in 1885 or some other event, perhaps his latest bankruptcy. Neither Edith nor her brother, Donald, are with their father for the 1891 census; he and his third wife were staying at the Marine Hotel, Hastings, that night. Perhaps his children were in the family home but did not complete the census, they appear nowhere in the records that year. 

While Donald’s address at marriage shows he moved elsewhere in Yorkshire, Edith may well have been staying with extended family

members because, in 1901, she is head of the house on census night, governess to her Elliot cousins in Herne Bay, Kent. A short time later, she was living in South Africa, possibly with Aunt Louisa. There is a record of a Miss E Edgar leaving London in November 1901 on the Umtata bound for Natal but I can’t confirm this is our Edith.    

In any event, Edith married her cousin, James Robertson Oldfield, on 7 November 1906 in St Peter’s Anglican Church, Butterworth,

Eastern Cape, South Africa. Mr Google tells me Butterworth was one of the earliest white settlements in Transkei, East Cape. The next record is of the family leaving England for New York in 1910 then in 1913 they are on the Australian electoral roll. A son was born between their leaving England and settling in Australia. As noted in James’ section, the couple eventually settled in Queensland. Edith is regularly listed on the electoral roll (Capricornia Division) from 1921 to her death on 22 June 1937.

 

Eveline Aleida O (1909-77) was born in Butterworth. She was with her parents through their travels and migration to Australia. The

Morning Bulletin, Rockhampton, includes her name in the list of successful high school examination candidates at Mount Morgan in 1924. Given she was around 15 at the time, this may have been a graduation milestone. She married Peter Neilsen Lund (1889-1973) in 1937, around a month after her mother’s death, and the couple had two sons. Edith died in Brisbane.    

John Petersen L (ca1939- ) married Margaret Ann Power (ca1943- ) and they became parents of six children: Clint Richard L (1963-);

Terry Neilsen L (1964- ) married Samantha Jane Gurr (son Jacob L (1986- )/Linda Joy Peat (daughter Heather Joy L (1990-)/ Tracey Lee Lawson (1965- )(son Nathan L (1996- ); 
Kassandra Louise L (1971- ); Leslie L (?); Tony Allen L (?)
; and Judith L (?). 
    

Thomas (Tom) Edward L (1941- ), the younger son, has contacted me and very helpfully sent details of his descent through five

generations of the Oldfield family as well as our shared Anderson ancestry. Tom married Anne-Lize Aleida Albrecht in 1962. He did not send details of any children. 


 

Donald Edgar O (ca1911-74) was born around 1910. Given the record of his parents and sister arriving in the US that year, Donald may

have been born there, or even en route to Australia. I have found little more about him other than his entries on the Australian electoral roll where his occupations were variously farmer, gardener and labourer. He submitted two very well written letters to the Queensland Times, in 1935 and 1937 respectively, that indicate a close interest in matters religious. In the first, he argues the Anglican Church had long since lost its way from Christ’s teachings; in the the second, that God is the answer to the riddle of existence. From 1949, he is joined on the electoral roll by Gwenda Mary Oldfield (neé Russell, 1916-66). Prior to her marriage, Gwenda had been a box maker, living in Tenneriffe, Brisbane. At the time, Tenneriffe was an industrial suburb, now it has returned to its original high income status, positioned as it is on the Brisbane River between New Farm and Fortitude Valley. She died in February 1966 and is buried in Brisbane’s Nudgee cemetery. A search of Queensland’s historical records found Donald died in 1974. I have not found any record of the couple becoming parents.