Thanks Lesley,
My source for information (a descendent of this couple) wasn't too sure
about names and dates and places. I am going to have to find whether it is
Laura Naomi who is the incorrect child to these parents or whether the
parents of the children were Tom and Helen and not Charles and Flora.
What I have that is fact is the following:
Alfred Henry Gregory born 12 Dec 1913 in Fitzroy, Victoria, married and died
in Fremantle, WA.
His parents were Albert Gregory born in either Vic or Fremantle, WA (no
date) and Florence May Harrison, born 1891, Fremantle.
I Have Albert's parents as Charles and Flora Gregory but this could be
incorrect. It could be that Tom and Helen Alice Spencer were the parents of
Albert and Victor as well as Laura.............who knows at this point????
To confuse things further, Florence May Harrison born 1901 in Fremantle to
Edvin (Ned) Aresen from Norway and Margaret Fahey. Ned and Margaret
apparently married in Sandhurst, Victoria in 1873. Ned was a sailor who had
jumped ship and changed his name from Aresen to Harrison. I could never find
out anything on Ned, except on his naturalisation papers he said that he was
the son of Are Edvinsen from an apparently non-existent place in Norway and
that he'd arrived here when he was "ship-wrecked off Rottnest". He was
ship-wrecked off Rottnest but that was years after he'd been in
Australia......bit of a porky teller I think.
Margaret Fahey's parents were Darby Fahey and Mary McNamara who I think were
Irish.
Darby and Mary Fahey with daughter Mary came to the Swan River Colony,
Western Australia aboard the convict ship "Vimeira" in 1865. Darby was a
pensioner guard and was stationed on Rottnest Island. Whilst on Rottnest,
they had a son who died while very young and was brought to Fremantle for
burial. Darby didn't cope with the death of the baby, hit the bottle and was
often in the lock-up charged with being drunk and disorderly. He lost his
job and eventually committed suicide by hanging himself in the lock-up. His
wife, Mary, spent the next thirty odd years in the Fremantle Lunatic Asylum
while daughter Mary and a younger sister spent years in the care of nuns in
a convent orphanage in Fremantle. A rather tragic story.
Back to the drawing board, I think.
Vivienne
