Elizabeth or Mary - who died in 1855?
Trawling through the internet looking for information on the long-departed can be tedious and unrewarding.
What is found has to be verified and tested, proved to be accurate,
I have been fortunate in my contacts with 3rd and 4th cousins, Raymond Morris and the Liddy's. John and Terry are both sticklers to academic protocols. Sadly John has since passed, and of the Liddy research team, only Terry remains. Still, he is his father's son and maintains the same rigour level when it comes to researching information.
Occasionally I am fortunate to stumble over information that is very promising or challenging.
Googling Mary's first husband Robert Cowburn I discovered a blog written by one of his descendants through Roberts second wife Catherine Bloomfield (nee Allender). After Mary disappeared with Joseph Hatfield, Cowburn had a woman named Elizabeth living with him. She died and while the inquest absolved him of some responsibility he was severely admonished for leaving the sick woman to die alone in such abject circumstances.
In his blog, Mark writes that the woman Elizabeth who died in 1855 is named in error. He asserts that this woman is in fact, Mary Davis. This caused me great concern if he is right then my story is all wrong. Fortunately, I have two reliable sources to check this story out. The first my reliable Terry and second, DNA. To create the link between Mary Davis in South Australia I needed to find Mary's two abandoned children Mary and Sarah.
It was a relief to finally track down a descendent of Sarah Cowburn who had taken the DNA test, and through this connection, Mary Davis was Roberts wife, and she did not die as Elizabeth in 1855.
Comments