A Question the Records Can't Answer

A #52ancestors prompt -  most of the records we use in genealogy don’t tell us the “why” and “how” of our ancestors’ lives. We can read the records of what happened, but how did our ancestors feel? What was it like? What would you ask that ancestor?

Well, this prompt was made for my paternal great-grandfather, Gaspar Sigović! 

So this post will be part genealogical record, part research and part interpretation on my part!

Where did Gaspar come from? 

The main document that I had at the start of my research was Gaspar's naturalisation certificate (more on that later), which listed him as Gaspar Sedgwick, a fireman, living in Newtown, inner-west Sydney, for 25 years since coming from Austria on the "Lady Belmore" in 1874. There is a fire station near 27 Australia St, Newtown, so I assumed he worked there, and came a yodelling from Austria like the Sound of Music!

But my father and his Sedgwick relatives had discovered via his marriage certificate (more on that later too), that he was a seaman who came from Cherso (Italian for Cres) - they had 15 March 1855 and Sidovic as a possible surname. I'm not sure how they discovered this, but apparently, there is a family bible, which may reveal more, but I have been unable to access it, sadly.

Those family also list his father, Jacob Sedgwick, as a shipwright, and christened at St Nicholas, Cherso. So I had something to go on! I think they got Gaspar's date of birth as 15 March 1855 from his railway service record, as that lists it and says his Proof of Age was from naturalisation papers (how very circular!).

Born and raised on an island in the Adriatic? 

Through the wonders of the modern-day internet, I discovered that Cres (Cherso is Italian) has digitised Catholic Church records! Not digitised as in searchable, but scanned. So I went looking, page by page, reading Italian/Latin records and finally found this:

16 February 1855 - Gaspar Sigović, born in Cherso (modern-day Cres), in the then-Austro-Hungarian Empire, now in modern-day Croatia. I found this record by searching through the Croatian Church records of Cres. Gasparus (modern versions include Jasper, which he was also recorded as in future records), Aloysius (a good Latin name, now "Louis") Sigovich. His father was Jacobus (and his sons include Jacob), who was a navigator, and his mother Maria (daughters include Mary), which match the Sedgwick family history names!

Domus 288 was the house number - I'm unable to find any maps of Cres from that time that reference those house numbers, but honestly, looking at modern-day Cres, the buildings in the "old town" have not changed that much. That might have to be a fun, in-person trip to Croatia to see if I can uncover where he was actually born and lived in that small town.

Modern-day Cres is a small fishing village on an island in the Adriatic:

Why did he leave Cres? 

It looks idyllic enough, but we know that he emigrated to Australia by at least 1874 (according to his naturalisation certificate). Why would anyone leave such a beautiful location? According to Google, people left the island of Cres in the late 1800s when a massive wave of emigration began toward the Americas and Australia. I certainly have DNA matches from this lineage in Vermont and other U.S. states, so that checks out. I'm trying to imagine Cres in the 1880s:

• blight mildew ruining olive plantations;
• overpopulation (with olive and wine industries collapsed);
• broader Austro-Hungarian economic crises and lack of industrial opportunities leaving the working class in coastal and inland communities with few options other than seeking better prospects abroad; and most importantly:
• a transition from traditional wooden sailing vessels to commercial steamships heavily impacted the local shipbuilding and maritime trades, costing many mariners their jobs;

So I imagine a young Gaspar, who would be involved in the maritime industry in some form, due to his father, looking for maritime work. I found these historical photos/images:

Cres circa 1901

The streets of Cres - looks less idyllic close up!
Horses in the streets and look at the children in the front - they look poor.

Beginning his maritime career and journey to Australia? 

I have just one record which hints at a maritime career, which may be him. The 1871 English Census lists the Czoernig ship, ported in Durham, East Sunderland, as having an  A. Sichvich, aged 17, and working as a cook. 

c.1850 drawing gives a birds eye view of the east end of Sunderland with South Dock stretching from the centre to the right edge of the image. The docks, reclaimed from the sea & sited against the barracks square & town moor, are packed with shipping. North Dock (at top left) has indeed been dwarfed

Above is an 1883 print of the entrance to Sunderland Harbour, as published in 'The Graphic' on Feb. 3, 1883

The Czoernig ship was a bark/barque had a crew of 12 from Fiume/Pecchine that , which is current-day Rijeka, a shipbuilding and port city on the mainland, directly north of Cres. The crew has very Croatian names, and the Captain is from Volsca, Austria - modern-day Volosko, near Opatija, Croatia, all close to Cres, so I think it's very likely this was him.

How and when did he come to Australia? 

I can't find much else between 1871 and 1874, where Gaspar's (1900) naturalisation certificate says he came out on the Lady Belmore in 1874, when he would have been 19 years old. There was a Lady Belmore, and she came to Australia in 1874 on October 19 (reel 430), but the digitised record for that date does not show anyone with a similar name.

I note (from the printout/photocopy) my dad got direct probably from the Archives in Kingswood, Sydney (he had to to old-school!), there is a reference to the Lady Belmore in 1877, which has a A. Lebrosvick? aged 24 from Austria. A possibility, but impossible to know.

But we do have one record - undated and no marks or writing to indicate who it is, but it was found in all the family papers, and surely has to relate to him! AI tells me the central figure is dressed in a standard late-19th-century or early-20th-century mariner’s double-breasted jacket and a flat-topped officer’s or merchant captain’s peaked cap. If Gaspar were an officer or a merchant sea captain, this matches the exact profile.  Captains frequently had professional photographers come aboard their vessels while docked in major ports like Sydney Harbour to document their ships and crews.

Why did he change his name? 

Apparently, many emigrants from Cres and the surrounding Kvarner region journeyed to the United States (mostly New York) or Australia, often settling into established immigrant communities.

Dr Ilija Sutalo wrote the book "Croatians In Australia - Pioneers, Settlers and Their Descendants". I was able to get a copy of this book from the ANU library, but sadly, it does not reference Gaspar Sigovich or any variation of that name. I have written to him for edition 2! 

In 1871, Australia had 610 Croatians, and by 1881, 1024, noting that many immigration records list Croatian pioneers as Austrians and, given the long history of Venetian rule over coastal Croatia, often listed as Italian. 

Adding to the confusion, many pioneers lied about their age when they were married, stating they were younger than they actually were and also the obvious differences in spelling of surnames made it extremely difficult to follow Croatian pioneer movements around Australia (as an example, Natale Vuscovich's - real name Božo Vusovic - appeared variously as Vuscovih, Vuscovitch, Wiskiwitch and Vascovitch). 

Additionally, Croatian given names were replaced with their English or Italian equivalents; for example, Ivan became John or Giovanni. And many surnames were Anglicised, using English or Italian equivalents. And, of course, the vast percentage of Croatian pioneers were largely illiterate, so misspellings or phonetic interpretations would have been common.

How did he meet his wife, Catherine/Kate Morley, an Irish girl and where did they live? 

Our Sedgwick investigators guessed that he may have changed his name so people could pronounce it, or/and he wanted to marry an Irish girl (Catherine/Kate Morley), and her family may have been ashamed of her marrying a "foreigner" (because, of course, the Irish weren't foreigners!). It's possible he worked as a mariner, from at least 1874 to 1882, and at some stage, changed his surname from Sigovich to Sedgwick.

I have one record (Sands Directory, 1880) listing a Mr J. Sedgwick and a Mrs C. Sedgwick living in Banksmeadow, which is near Botany Bay and Eastgardens. This would make sense if he was still working as a mariner. I think the coincidence of Jasper and Catherine Sedgwick is too much for it not be them!  But in 1880, they were not married.

The marriage took place on 15 April 1882 at the Sacred Heart Church in Darlington (Darlington Rd is off City Road in Camperdown, but there is no church there now). There is a Sacred Heart Churc

Sacred Heart Church, Darlinghurst - possibly where they got married

The marriage certificate lists him as a 27-year-old seaman from Austria (Jacob, shipwright, and Mary as his parents). Given he was listed as living with her in 1880 and he's still listed here as a "seaman", I suspect (here's my interpretation part) that he might have met on a ship going back and forth, and decided to stay. I can only find her arriving in 1874 on the Indus, in Brisbane, as a 20-year-old. I think Catherine Meehan, listed with her, may have been her aunt or cousin, as there are Meehan DNA matches, and I believe her mother, Bridget, was a Meehan (who later emigrated and lived with them).

Interestingly, I have a record from 2 January 1884, which lists unclaimed mail to a G. Sigovich, Abercrombie St, Darlington, which is right near Redfern and the new Railway workshops, which I think is uncontestable proof that he lived in the vicinity where he got married and before he got married, had changed his name from Sigovich to Sedgwick, most likely to marry Kate. It has to be the same man!

How did he go from working on ships to working on the Railways?

In Sutalo's book, he notes in Chapter 6 that most of the clipper sailing ships, which carried both immigrants and supplies, as well as Croatian seamen and passengers, came to the Victorian and New South Wales goldfields. I can find no records of Gaspar travelling to the goldfields, but he definitely settled in the inner-west Sydney community and the booming industrial jobs at the Eveleigh railway workshops. 

Designed by the NSW Government Railways Chief Engineer, George Cowdery, the principal workshops sprouted here between 1882 and 1887. The Locomotive Workshops, Running Sheds and Manager's Office were sited to the south of the main railway line, and the Carriage Works, Paint Shop, Stores and Chief Mechanical Engineer's Office located to the north of the tracks. This vast workshop complex employed workers in the thousands who undertook the assembly, repair and maintenance of imported steam locomotives and the construction and maintenance of carriages used throughout the NSW railway network, which was advancing across the colony. 

The Eveleigh Railway Workshops of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was comprehensive and advanced, employing some of the most sophisticated machinery and power systems available for the manufacture and overhaul of steam locomotives. Consequently, Eveleigh's workforce developed specialised knowledge and skills geared towards steam-age technology.

Gaspar's employment record lists him as starting as a cleaner on 28 July 1882. By 15 January 1883, he is listed as a fireman in the Chief Mechanical Engineer's Office, which turns out not to be a firefighter but the person who shovels coal into the steamer engines. He worked as a fireman on the railways until his retirement on 19 July 1915.

The Chief Mechanical Engineers (CME) branch provided all of the rolling stock, carriages, wagons and locomotives. Steam locomotives were vital to railway operations, and underwent maintenance and improvement between trips. Once part of the fleet, the rolling stock had to be maintained. Locomotives needed coal and water, attention to their fires, and lubrication at most big towns along the journey. Steam engines were mechanically simple, but they worked hard and wore out quickly. The high-pressure boilers were often filled with poor quality water from different towns and needed to be replaced.

Employees of Mechanical Branch at Bathurst Locomotive Depot circa 1910. Standing third from left is locomotive drive Mr J.B. Chifley future Prime Minister of Australia. Could the man standing on the left be Gaspar? It certainly looks like him!

The eastern boiler supplied steam solely to the Davy Press. The other three fed steam lines that ran the length of Bays 1-5 and across the Laneway (now Locomotive Street) to the foundry and other shops. The noise of the machinery and the continual beating and gurgling of the steam created a unique, sometimes dangerous, work environment.

“You were more or less like a brotherhood.  You were all in the same boat, involved with steam engines and of course they breathed and they worked and expanded and contracted with the heat just like human beings do. And when they got angry they blew their top just like human beings and so I suppose … you can understand why people love steam engines.”

Jack Bruce, Eveleigh employee

“The shop was activated in the morning, when the chap would open up the main control valves on the four big boilers on the outside there… the whole workshop would kinda become alive.”  

Richard Butcher, Eveleigh blacksmith

Why did he live in Redfern, then later, Newtown? 

His first son, Jacob (fittingly), was born on 8 January 1883 in "Sydney", and his second son, Thomas, was born on 21 April 1884 in Redfern. Sadly, Thomas did not live long, dying on 3 February 1885. His first daughter, Mary (or Maria), was born shortly afterwards on 17 August 1885, also in Redfern.

Kate sponsors her sister Cecelia, her mother Bridget, and her brothers Thomas and Luke to come out to Australia from Ireland, and they arrive on 23 December 1884. What a Christmas that must have been in "Sydney" or probably Redfern by that point!

The 1886, 1887, 1888, 1889 and 1890 Sands Directory gives his address as 3 and later 26 Burnett St, Redfern, and lists him as a fireman, which would have been within easy walking distance of the Everleigh Railway workshops, but 3 or 26 Burnett St doesn't seem to exist today. There were newly subdivided terrace houses specifically built for workers of the rail yards, the St. Peter's brickworks and the IXL jam factory.

The Redfern Estate Heritage Conservation Area is historically significant as an early Victorian structured subdivision covering the entire grant to William Redfern. The development of the estate from the 1840s - 1890s reflects the establishment of the Railway at Redfern.

He and Kate continued the good Catholic tradition of pumping out the offspring: Bridget Ellen (known as Delia) born on 13 June 1887, Burnett St, Redfern, John Francis on 23 July 1888, Redfern, Catherine Margaret (known as May) on 29 April 1891 in Newtown and Gasper Leo (a nod to Aloysius) on 7 July 1892. 

The Sands Directory in 1891 (and 1892, 1893, 1894, and 1895) lists they had moved to Trade St, Newtown. Like much of Newtown, Trade Street was developed during the 1880s when the suburb experienced a massive population surge. Row terraces were built to house the growing working and middle-class labor force.

How did he marry Kate's sister?

From 1882 to late 1893, we have Gaspar going out to work in the railway yards, hauling coal, while Kate is continually pregnant and raising 6 living children under 10 years of age, all living in a terrace in Newtown. But sadly, on 2 January 1894, she died of internal strangulation of the bowels (this is when a section of the intestine becomes trapped, such as in an internal hernia - this cuts off the blood supply, rapidly causing tissue death and is a life-threatening emergency) and asthenia (general weakness - no actual wonder), aged about 38 or 40. 

But only two years later, Gaspar remarried, on 28 May 1896 (which by some serendipity is exactly 130 years ago today, as I write this post!), Kate's sister, Cecelia. I wonder if they were attracted to each before Kate died? No doubt she became "mother" to all those young kids, but perhaps she also was interested in securing herself a home and husband? Apparently, according to family law, they had to get a special dispensation from the Catholic Church to marry - in those days, canon law prohibited marrying a deceased wife's sister as it was considered a form of incest within the spiritual family. The St Joseph's Newtown did not have the records — those dispensation requests often went to the diocese or Rome directly.

By 25 February 1897, my grandfather, Joseph Patrick was born. They moved a couple of times, firstly to 25 Wellington St, Newtown (which isn't on Google maps now - it could have been either Waterloo or Chippendale - both walking distance to the Railway yards, then 29 Regent St, Newtown. Then on 25 March 1899, Thomas Michael was born. 

Why did he get naturalised after all this time in Australia?

Gaspar was naturalised as an Australian on 11 April 1900 at Government House, Sydney, after living for at least twenty five years in Sydney. Naturalisation was the responsibility of each colony (New South Wales) until the end of 1903. Any person born outside the British Empire who wished to vote or own land needed to become naturalised. One of the conditions of naturalisation was a five-year period of residency in New South Wales. From the certificate, you can see he said he came from Austria in 1874 on the Lady Belmore and had lived here for 25 years. 

Where is the house they bought on 27 Australia St, Newtown?

The address given here is 27 Australia St, Newtown, and I think he purchased that house, as he was still living there when he died in 1920. Now, I've walked the length and breadth of Australia St, and what I've come to believe is that the street numbers were changed! 27 Australia St is currently at the Camperdown end, and looks like an old factory. 

The 1900 Sands Directory, lists the East Side of Australia St from Town Hall on King St, Newtown to Bishopsgate St (no. 15 - the Courthouse Hotel, which still stands today) and then from Lennox St:

So, on the eastern side, we have the Courthouse Hotel, Lennox St, 23 with William Willett (which was a fuel yard and uninhabited at night, 25 with Jesse Willett, and then 27 with Jaspar.

I found some old maps on the City of Sydney Archives and History Resources website! This one from the 1890 map clearly shows 27 Australia St on the eastern side, just up from the Lennox St intersection!

And then this one from 1938 shows the buildings (without the numbers). The vacant block and yard could be 23, then we have a house where 25 was, then where number 27 is on the old map is in the middle of the block, opposite where Newtown Public School is now! 

And here is the present day. So I reckon 27 is the double terrace block outlined in red:

If you walk along Australia St, you have the Courthouse Hotel, Lennox St intersection, then a building that faces Lennox St, then a hall/yoga studio, then four terrace houses - I believe the old 27 Australia St is the terrace now hidden behind the huge bottlebrush tree, to the left of the current Black Lives Matter house. 

You can see the laneway that I reckon Gaspar is standing in in his photo: 

So by 1901 Census, Gaspar, Cecelia and their now 9 kids (Jacomena was born on 4 September 1901) have their own slice of paradise in Newtown. Gaspar is still hauling coal at Everleigh in the Chief Mechanical Engineer's Branch (getting paid 10 shillings per pay period). Sadly his firstborn Jacob dies on 16 April 1902, in nearby Waterloo, aged just 19 (I need to get that death certificate to find out how). 

How did we come to have such an amazing photo of Gaspar, Cecelia and last child Celie?

They weren't done - Anthony Vincent born 27 April 1904 and lastly (phew!) Ann Cecelia (or "poor Celie" as the family referred to her) on 10 April 1910. Gaspar would have been 55 years old at this point and Cecelia 45 - a change of life baby!). There is an amazing formal portrait of Celie and her very proud parents when she is about three, I want to guess (no date on the photo)? Gaspar looks absolutely dapper and Cecelia look stoic:

And here is rather more candid shot of him - I think on the same day as he's wearing the same clothes. Probably in that laneway on Australia Street:

What became of Gaspar in his later years?

We know Gaspar retired on 29 July 1915, aged 60 (poor Cecelia probably never retired). He got five years of retirement before he died of arteriosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), myocarditis, and bronchitis (cardiac cough - where a heart problem causes coughing, due to heart failure or pulmonary congestion where the heart fails to pump effectively, and fluid backs up into the lungs. Apparently, key signs include a persistent wet cough that produces white, pink, or blood-tinged mucus, coughing fits that worsen when lying flat, and swollen legs and ankles. Sounds like a pretty awful way to die.

So there's a life, now pieced together so he's not forgotten and maybe some of the questions the records can't answer. Leaving a small Adriatic island as a seafarer and ending up (maybe with other Croatian sailors) in Sydney, Australia - possibly via London and other exotic ports. Living in Banksmeadow with an Irish girl he met before moving to Darlington, changing his name to be more "English" and getting married. Getting a job in the new Everleigh railway yards, where he worked for the next 33 years, and retiring for 5 years, before succumbing to heart disease. But he had eleven children (nine of whom who still alive at his death) and two wives and owned a house in Newtown. 

Some last unanswered questions!

I do wonder if he missed Cres. I have no record of him ever going back. Maybe he did in the early seafaring days, but I suspect he was pretty busy with the kids once he settled in Sydney. Were they a happy family? The photos suggest they were and he kept both his wives pretty busy over the years. I like the twinkle in the old Croatian sailor's eye, even at 58 in that photo.