Recently I decided to cauterise my research into a spindly branch of the family tree. Despite emanating from a well-documented ancestor (i.e., a convict transported to Australia), the spindliness was due to his name. John Jones. It gave a sense of relief that here was one branch which had grown above a brick wall so high it was never to be scaled.
As part of the decision to set aside the research, one last attempt was to be made to correct the metadata distributed globally by British, American and Australian genealogical services. In particular, to excise the occurrence of the unsubstantiated addition of the name Michael.
When first investigating John Jones and his family, the occasional occurrence of his name as Michael John Jones or even John Michael Jones in other people's anecdotes or self-documented research did not trouble me much. The trial, hulk and transportation records; his marriage and death certificates and gravestone all clearly labelled my great-great-great-grandfather as John Jones.
And then, a few years ago while delving into the 1840s history of a small town in New South Wales, I found this gem:
The story teller was William Exton, brother to John Jones' wife Harriet Lancaster Exton. Although published long after the death of Jones in 1866, it gave an explanation for the introduction of the name Michael, albeit a curious one. Without studying the Bundjalung language of that time, or similar, it could be true.
There was an earlier reference to Micky Jones in Trove:
One ( the only? ) official record in Australia of the name was an appearance on the death certificate of Jones' wife Harriet, where it was endorsed by her daughter Eleanor Atkin, and her obituary:
Were family members merely repeating a family legend ? But why Micky << >> Michael and not some other nickname ? The elapsed time between the 1840s, '50s, '60s, and 1915 is long enough to forget it. Until, as part of the process of verification, I found a record I'd never seen before:
Was this the source of the name Micky ? The young men mentioned in this crime were both transported, separately, under their "aliases" of John Jones and William Robinson. There is no mention of an alias, which sometimes did appear in Government records. The other details seem to match all Australian documentation. [1]
Did John Jones try to reinvent himself on arrival ? Or were the petitions manufactured ? Certainly there was a young man named Michael Ralph who committed crimes in London, in the following year.
Does one record outweigh the many ? Family historians who use the global genealogical services without triangulating original sources of information won't care. For a pedantic practitioner however, it's not good enough. Perhaps that's a gene not shared.
Footnote
[1] John Jones' transportable offence, described in his Convict Indent as Assisting in rescue of a prisoner, seems quite unusual. Not the same as the original indictment, Stealing from a dwelling house 112 yards of worsted cloth. The dwelling house was a storehouse for a materials trader. This crime seems to have been instigated by the other young man, and the event could be interpreted in different ways. Perhaps this was why Jones' Certificate of Freedom [#45/467] was issued after seven years from the original 10 of "incarceration" imposed ?
