For many years, I believed I might have found the arrival of my ancestor Elizabeth Jane Bateman, also known as Elizabeth Kennedy.

A promising candidate appeared in the immigration records of the Albatross, which arrived in Sydney on 30 November 1841. Among its bounty immigrants was fifteen year old Eliza Kennedy from County Limerick. The name, age, birthplace and arrival period seemed to fit. Elizabeth Murphy’s death certificate stated that she had lived in the colony for thirty-five years, suggesting an arrival around 1840. Her birthplace was recorded as Limerick. Could the young Albatross passenger have been my Elizabeth?

The answer initially seemed possible. A much fuller reconstruction of the Albatross Eliza’s life now suggests otherwise.

Eliza Kennedy aboard the Albatross

The immigration indent described Eliza Kennedy as a fifteen-year-old Roman Catholic child’s maid who could read. She was the daughter of Michael Kennedy, a plasterer, and his deceased wife Mary. Eliza travelled with two older siblings:

• Margaret Kennedy, aged about twenty-one;
• William Kennedy, aged about nineteen.

The indent also recorded that Eliza and Margaret were under the protection of Robert Fitzgerald and his wife.

In 2021, I discovered that Robert Fitzgerald and his wife, Margaret Dundon, had themselves travelled aboard the Albatross. They came from the Kildimo area of County Limerick. Robert was a shoemaker who established a shop and workshop in Market Street, Sydney, before later moving to the Braidwood and Araluen district.

This was not the prominent Robert Fitzgerald associated with Windsor and the Hawkesbury. There were two different men of the same name and earlier attempts to connect the Kennedy immigrants with the Windsor pastoralist had confused them.

The marriage to Thomas Willis

A New South Wales index records an 1844 marriage between Thomas Willis and Eliza Kennedy (Registration: V1844226 131, district LD). The index does not provide details of the church, the couple’s parents, residences or witnesses. The original church record therefore needs to be examined before all the details attributed to this marriage can be accepted. Jane Ison’s research states that Margaret Kennedy witnessed the marriage and that she holds a copy of the original record. This is strong evidence that the bride was the same Eliza who travelled with her sister Margaret aboard the Albatross. My only doubt being that Margaret was married by this time and presumably she would have signed her name Margaret Bull.

A convict named Thomas Willis was also assigned to an “R. Fitzgerald” in Sydney. If this employer was the shoemaker Robert Fitzgerald who protected Eliza, rather than the Windsor pastoralist, the connection explains how Thomas Willis and Eliza Kennedy met.

The Willis family

Thomas Willis and Eliza or Elizabeth Kennedy appear to have formed a family of their own. Their children included Thomas, Mary Ann, James, Anastasia and Rachel, as well as several children who died young. The surviving evidence is incomplete, but the family can be followed through baptismal, civil, institutional and gaol records.

The most important record concerns the youngest child. A daughter was registered as Margaret Willis after her birth at East Maitland on 22 April 1860. A child of the same parents and with the same birth date was baptised as Rachel Willis on 27 May. Ison concluded that Margaret and Rachel were the same child.

The Catholic baptism reportedly named her parents as Thomas Willis and Elizabeth Kennedy. The associated birth information identified her mother as Eliza Kennedy, born in Limerick City and her father as Thomas Willis, born at Trowbridge in Wiltshire. This evidence connects Rachel’s mother with both the Kennedy surname and Limerick. It does not, by itself, prove that she was the Albatross passenger. That connection comes from the later gaol records.

Eliza and Mary Willis

Rachel Willis entered the Newcastle Industrial School in July 1868 after her mother and sister had been imprisoned for keeping a disorderly house in Maitland. Earlier interpretations of the records suggested that Rachel’s mother used the names Mary and Eliza Willis interchangeably. Ison noted appearances by Mary Willis in the Maitland courts from about 1864 to 1866, followed by appearances under the name Eliza Willis from 1868. Because the names did not appear together in the material then considered, it seemed possible that they referred to one woman.

The original 1868 gaol admission records changed that conclusion. Eliza Willis and Mary Willis were admitted together. They appear as consecutive prisoners in March 1868 and again in June. They were therefore two separate women. The most coherent explanation is that Eliza was Rachel’s mother and Mary was Rachel’s older sister. This corresponds with the newspaper reports that Rachel’s “mother and sister” were serving sentences.

A March 1868 description recorded Eliza Willis as forty years old, born in Ireland, five feet two and a half inches tall, stout and fair, with brown hair and grey eyes. Most importantly, it stated that she had arrived aboard the Albatross in 1841. The age implies a birth around 1828, only about two years later than the birth estimate derived from the immigration indent. Such a variation is not unusual in nineteenth century records.

The combination of name, Irish birth, approximate age, ship and arrival year provides strong evidence that Eliza Willis was the Eliza Kennedy who arrived aboard the Albatross.

What Jane Ison’s research established

In 2024, Jane Ison told me that she held numerous records concerning Rachel, including her marriage and baptism, her sister’s marriage registration and several undigitised records confirming that Rachel and Anastasia, also known as Annie, were sisters. She stated that these records all confirmed that Rachel’s mother was Eliza Kennedy. Having now examined much of the evidence, I agree it builds a persuasive case:

1. Eliza Kennedy arrived aboard the Albatross in 1841.
2. A marriage between Eliza Kennedy and Thomas Willis was registered in 1844.
3. Thomas and Eliza or Elizabeth Willis had children together.
4. Rachel’s mother was identified as Eliza or Elizabeth Kennedy from Limerick.
5. Rachel’s mother, Eliza Willis, was recorded in gaol as an Irish-born 1841 Albatross immigrant.
6. Newspaper reports connect Rachel with the imprisoned Eliza and Mary Willis.
7. Institutional evidence identified Anastasia Croft as Rachel’s sister.

Meanwhile, another Elizabeth Kennedy

My ancestor followed a different path. Elizabeth Kennedy married James Murphy on 21 April 1844, at Windsor. Their family developed alongside the Willis family, but on the South Coast of New South Wales in the Shoalhaven district:

Charles’s birth certificate states his mother was born in Limerick. This was one reason the Albatross passenger appeared to be such a promising candidate. The overlapping families now present the greatest difficulty for any theory that the two Elizabeths were one woman.

In 1844, one Eliza Kennedy married Thomas Willis while another Elizabeth Kennedy married James Murphy. During the following years, children were born into both the Willis and Murphy families. In 1860, Rachel was born to Thomas Willis and Eliza or Elizabeth Kennedy while my Elizabeth remained part of the Murphy household.

By 1868, Eliza Willis was in the Maitland gaol system and Rachel was entering the Newcastle Industrial School. The Murphy family, meanwhile, was presumably still residing in the Shoalhaven district.

Two women, not one

The evidence now points strongly towards two different women.

The first was Eliza Kennedy, daughter of Michael and Mary Kennedy. She came from County Limerick, arrived aboard the Albatross with her siblings in 1841, married Thomas Willis and became the mother of Rachel Willis.

The second was Elizabeth Jane Bateman, who used the surname Kennedy when she married James Murphy in 1844. She was later identified as the daughter of Henry Bateman and Maria or Mary Alphonso. Her arrival in Australia and her reason for using the Kennedy name remain unresolved.

The similarities between them were real:

• both were Irish;
• both were associated with Limerick;
• both used Eliza or Elizabeth Kennedy;
• both appear to have reached New South Wales around 1840 or 1841;
• both married in 1844.

They are not, however, sufficient to overcome two simultaneous marriages, two overlapping groups of children, two geographical histories and two different sets of parents. The Albatross Eliza once looked like the answer to my ancestor’s arrival. Researching her more fully has shown that she had her own life and family.

Bateman and Alphonso

The Bateman name appears in the Murphy family’s records by 1867. When the death of Elizabeth and James Murphy’s son James was registered, his mother’s maiden name was reportedly given as Bateman. The informant was his father, James Murphy. When Elizabeth died at Back Forest in March 1875, her death certificate identified her parents as Henry Bateman and Mary or Maria Alphonso. This accords with the family story that her father was an English sea captain and her mother a Spanish woman.

Death certificates can contain errors, particularly when informants have incomplete knowledge. However, the Bateman name did not appear only on Elizabeth’s death certificate. Its earlier appearance in the registration of her son’s death makes it more difficult to dismiss.

I also investigated whether Elizabeth might have come to the colony to join an established Bateman family. None of the early Bateman families examined so far provide a convincing connection. One possibility that needs further investigation is the convict Henry Bateman, born about 1805, who arrived aboard the Royal Charlotte in 1825 and received his Certificate of Freedom in 1832. He was in the Windsor area around the period in which Elizabeth might have been born. There are substantial problems with this candidate. He was tried in Middlesex so presumed English, Elizabeth says she was born in Limerick. Her later records indicate that she did not arrive in the colony until about 1840. Unless several pieces of information are wrong, the convict Henry Bateman seems unlikely to have been her father. What happened to him remains a mystery.

Where to next?

There are still several women, including convicts, who need to be eliminated or investigated more closely. They are:

• an Elizabeth Kennedy, born about 1802, recorded in the 1828 census;
• an unidentified convict Elizabeth Kennedy for whom a certificate of emancipation survives;
• Jane Kennedy, who arrived aboard the Margaret in 1837 and was associated with John Welch;
• an Elizabeth Kennedy who arrived aboard the Mary Anne in 1841 after being tried in Kilkenny and transported to Van Diemen’s Land; and
• not to forget the two Kennedy’s who arrived via Port Phillip. A Jane aboard the Orient in 1840 and an Elizabeth aboard the Dale Park in 1844. Whilst unlikely, they remain possibilities.

Other possibilities concern women who acquired the name Kennedy through marriage:

• Eliza Boyle or Carroll, who arrived aboard the Palambam in 1831 and married James Kennedy;
• Jane Young, who had married a Kennedy in Van Diemen’s Land;
• Elizabeth McAvoy, who arrived with her husband Hugh Kennedy and their family aboard the Lascar in 1841; and
• Elizabeth Bowler, who arrived aboard the Marquis of Hastings in 1828 with her husband John Kennedy.

Several others have already been excluded because of their ages, husbands, destinations or documented family histories.

Can DNA provide the answer?

The documentary evidence has taken me far enough to separate the Albatross Eliza from my Elizabeth, but it has not yet revealed my Elizabeth’s origins. The next step is to examine the DNA evidence. Matches among descendants of James and Elizabeth Murphy already confirm connections within their family, with some matches pointing towards the Kennedy surname and families from Limerick and Tipperary.

The challenge will be to distinguish DNA inherited from James Murphy from DNA inherited from Elizabeth to determine whether her genetic connections lead towards the Bateman, Kennedy or Alphonso families. DNA may not provide her name or arrival ship, but, combined with documentary research, it may help identify the family and community from which she came.

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Do you know more about the families mentioned in this post? If you are connected to any of them (particularly if you have DNA tested or are interested in doing so) I would love to hear from you. It’s the power of DNA that can help us break through our brick walls!

I would be especially interested in hearing from anyone descended from Elizabeth through an unbroken female line. Such a descendant may carry Elizabeth’s mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which could add another piece to the puzzle.

As always, please do not hesitate to contact me by sending a message via the sidebar of this blog or through Ancestry, Wikitree or Facebook.

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