Tonight, 19th July 2018, I will be raising a glass of English ale to James Dennis, one of my 4th Great Grandfathers, because 200 years ago today, something VERY important happened to him. He set sail from Portsmouth, never to return to England again. Not that he was very happy about this, or had intended to do this, as he was onboard the Convict Ship General Stewart. (https://www.jenwilletts.com/convict_ship_general_stewart.htm). In March, he had been convicted of the classic crime of Sheep Stealing, and sentenced to death, but this was commuted to hard labour for life in New South Wales, Australia. And the only reason I know that this was the right James Dennis, and not one of several others living at the time, was due to the DNA test matches I have had in NSW. Otherwise, I had a baptism and marriage dates (1777 & 1801, in Kentisbury, Devon), and the birth dates if his 7 children; but I had no death date. And it was while trying to find out how I was connected to so many people in NSW that I found out that in the long term he ended up in a much better position than the life of a Devon yokel agricultural labourer.
He arrived in Oz at the end of December 1818, aged 41, and was set to work building roads and felling hardwood timber for the flourishing colony. This 'criminal', was of such good conduct and so impressed Hamilton Hume (one of the 1st European explorers of the Darling River that James had been assigned to, and probably 'served' him during his explorations), that in 1824 a petition was signed to let his Devon family join him. But for some reason they didn't, and, of course, if they had, I wouldn't exist! (As I am descended from one of his daughters that got left behind in Devon). Although I did find out from a DNA match that one of his daughters did emigrate to NSW 'voluntarily' after she married. So He continued to impress his 'betters', and Hume gave him some land, and in 1837 he was granted a pardon, and settled down to his new life as a dairy farmer in Fairy Meadow, NSW.
This is where it gets even more 'interesting', and why I have so many DNA matches 'Down Under'. The following year, in 1837, and remembering that he was now 60, and still technically married to his wife back in Devon (but he had been in Australia for nearly 20 years), he 'shacked up' with a 17 year old! :O And proceeded to have 8 children with her over the last 20 years of his life (well actually, looking at the dates, and the fact that she had another child with someone after his death, I suspect that they weren't all 'his', but I need to do some more work as to exactly which of his children I have my DNA matches to, and which ones I don't).
So when did he die? The otherwise missing death date? 1860, aged 82, in Fairy Meadow, NSW. And by the look of his wife's will (as she died only a few years later), they had quite a bit of property by the time of his death, and seems to have been a 'respectable' dairy farmer. So not a bad end for a Devon yokel!
