The Dawes Family of Good Hope, Yass, New South Wales
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The Dawes Family of Good Hope, Yass, New South Wales A Family History Compiled from various sources and written by Joan Murray Dawes B.A.(LibSc) 2018 For Bill and Babe This is a story for the many Australian descendants of a Yass pioneer family created by Emigrants William Henry Daws from Cornwall, per “Herefordshire” 1857 & Mary Anne Flanagan from Galway, per “Kate” 1855 Married Yass NSW 1859 Why do we research our Family History? We are the chosen. My feeling is that in each family there is one who seems called to find the ancestors. To put flesh on their bones and make them live again. To tell the family story and to feel that somehow those who went before know and approve. To me, doing genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts but, instead, breathing life into all who have gone before. We are the storytellers of the tribe. All tribes have one. We have been called as if it were in our genes. Those who have gone before cry out to us; Tell our story. So, we do. In finding them, we somehow find ourselves. How many graves have I stood before now and cried? I have lost count. How many times have I told my ancestors, "You have a wonderful family; you would be proud of us." How many times have I walked up to a grave and felt somehow there was love there for me? I cannot say. It goes beyond just documenting the facts. It goes to who I am, and why I do the things I do. It goes to seeing a cemetery about to be lost forever to weeds and indifference, and saying I can't let this happen. The bones here are bones of my bone and flesh of my flesh. It goes to doing something about it. It goes to pride in what our ancestors were able to accomplish. How they contributed to what we are today. It goes to respecting their hardships and losses, their never giving in or giving up, Their resoluteness to go on and build a life for their family. It goes to deep pride that they fought to make and keep us a nation. It goes to a deep and immense understanding that they were doing it for us, that we might be born who we are, that we might remember them. So we do. With love and caring and scribing each fact of their existence, because we are them and they are us. I tell the story of my family. It is up to that one called in the next generation, to answer the call and take their place in the long line of family storytellers. to step up and put flesh on the bones. [Author: Della M. Cumming ca 1943.] Front Cover photo William Henry DAWS (1835-1908) Back Cover photo Stained Glass window in St. Augustine’s RC Chapel, Yass NSW CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS PART DESCRIPTION PAGE I William Henry DAWS – emigrant from Cornwall to Sydney in the year 1857 PER “Herefordshire”– his journey over the Razorback 1-14 to Goulburn by bullock wagon – pioneering days in Goulburn and thence Yass – marriage to Galway lass, Mary Anne Flanagan. Purchase and settlement of land at Good Hope and the creation of their Australian born family. II AUSTRALIAN BORN CORNSTALKS The nine children of William Henry and Mary Anne DAWES: 16 Their lives, marriages and descendants - A Ellen Jane DAWES 1860-1942 [McKINNON] 17 B John Henry DAWES 1861-1920 27 C George Thomas DAWES 1863-1895 79 D Eliza DAWES 1865-1923 81 E William Patrick DAWES 1866-1955 87 F Catherine Gertrude DAWES 1868-1936 [PATMORE] 143 G Fergus DAWES 1870-1938 155 H Mary Bridget DAWES 1874-1905 [DUFF] 157 I Annie Josephine DAWES 1876-1956 [GRACE] 159 III ATTACHMENTS Some notes on connected pioneer families J The FLANAGANS of Ballinakill, Galway, Yass & Gunbar NSW 165 and Iowa USA. Who was Uncle Edmund Flanagan? K The McKINNON family of Good Hope NSW from Isle of Skye 1837 185 L The DUFFY family story from Fermanagh 1841 to Cavan & Yass NSW 195 M The FRANKLIN family from Co Clare 1839 to Yass & Brindabella 205 N William HARKUS from Heligoland to Nerrigundah & Moruya NSW 225 O McNAMARA/WALSH connections – Caherconlish, Limerick, Ireland, 233 to Bowning, Yass, Boorowa, Carcoar, Lachlan 1840s/50s P CLEARYs from Co. Clare to Piney Range, Grenfell NSW 245 OTHER Q 1929 Droving Diary of William Patrick Dawes (1866-1958) 249 R The Barren Jack Reservoir, Burrinjuck Dam and Dawes Island 259 A Final Reflection 2 Descendant Charts to enter your own family information Order Form INTRODUCTION A quest by my husband, William Thomas (Tom) DAWES, to find a connection to Lieutenant William Dawes of the First Fleet was the catalyst that started me off on a project to find any family tree information pertaining to that illustrious mariner, whose father’s name was Benjamin Dawes. This was followed by investigating Cornish records for another generation back to “Quay” Parish in Cornwall, from whence Tom’s great grandfather, William Henry DAWS, had set sail on the emigrant ship “Herefordshire” for far-off Australia in the year 1857. I had some success in finding two direct descendants of Lt. William Dawes’ daughter – one in Finland and one in Perth WA and managed to put them in contact with each other. At least, I contributed to their family tree! Lt. William did have sons, but they had no children; he also had siblings of which nothing is known – but that is where my research ended. I did actually meet the two descendants who travelled, on separate occasions, to Sydney and, even though we found no relationship, I was able to help them find new information, relevant for them, at the NSW State Library. As for “Quay” Parish, my first breakthrough was information from the Cornwall Record Office that it was actually “Kea” Parish I was looking for!. No doubt, the shipping agents spelled the word as they heard it. That was followed up by finding, in Truro, census records of our William DAW(E)S, his siblings and parents. Further, there came a “certified copy of Parish Register Entry, Parish of Feock, Baptisms : A.D. 1806 : Benjamin, son of Thomas Daw and Sarah, his wife, May 18th.” Therefore, the name changed in Cornwall from DAW to DAWS and then, eventually in Australia, to DAWES. Unfortunately, Lt. William Dawes of Devon’s father Benjamin and our William Daw(e)s of Cornwall’s father, Benjamin, were two quite different Benjamins! Genealogy had become a real hobby for me – it led me, after we moved to Sydney in the late 1970s, to acquire a B.A.(Lib.Sc) degree to become a librarian, the better to follow my bent for tracking down sources of information for my hobby. I then found employment as a librarian/information manager in various corporate libraries for 12 years. The Dawes research took a back seat as I had committed to writing the story of my own Murray family from Fermanagh in Northern Ireland, which took a (very) long time! But, that done, my husband Tom decided I should do the same thing with his Dawes family story. His father, William Franklin (Bill) Dawes and aunt, Anne (Dawes) Cullen, had been enthusiastic enough to collect family information and newspaper clippings re their Queanbeyan family. They had even visited and copied down headstone details from the Yass Cemetery, and after their deaths, what they had collected was also available to me. Bill’s father, William Patrick Dawes, was the only one out of his siblings to have eventually lived and brought up his family in Braidwood and Queanbeyan, while the others mostly remained in the Yass area. I have also gathered information, photos etc. from some of the Yass descendants. Although I had become familiar with members of my Dawes in-laws in Queanbeyan and Canberra, I had no contacts among the Yass families, except through Ann Cusack (later Jaeger) who then lived in Canberra. At one stage, we exchanged Dawes information when she was writing her Cusack family story. She had compiled a manuscript about John Henry Dawes whose daughter Alice had married John Joseph Cusack of Yass. This included oral history she had received through John Henry’s gr-grandson, Len Dawes. This all appears in parts of this narrative in Ann Jaeger’s name. Tom and I had visited Kea Parish in Cornwall by this time and were able to supply Ann with photos and maps of the area Ann reciprocated with parish maps of the Yass/Good Hope area. Anne finished and self published her excellent Cusack book but, sadly, she passed away in 2014. I hope I can do justice to what she initiated with her initial Dawes story. I found many obituaries and wedding notices by googling TROVE, the excellent Australian National Library web site of early Australian newspapers. On reading through all the names attending Yass Dawes weddings and funerals, I found many surnames that also appear on my own paternal grandmother’s family tree and felt that, maybe, I was meant to do this book. Amongst the veritable forest of family trees in the Yass, Bowning, Boorowa, Tumut and Cowra area – some of them very large families indeed – marrying into other large families - I did actually come upon the main connection. My great grandmother, Ellen Walsh emigrated with eight siblings from Limerick, Ireland, after their parents died in 1841. They all went, initially, to their Uncles Mathew and John McNamara at the Gap, Bowning, near Yass NSW.