We all have them - the elusive ancestors who have simply disappeared.
Sometimes we are lucky enough to find them again in unexpected places. Sometimes they reappear after an absence of years - or decades. Sometimes they remain elusive and are never found again.
People disappear for all manner of reasons. They move around the country or the world in search of a better life. They disappear into prisons, asylums or other institutions. Their names are spelled so badly the connection is difficult to make. Perhaps they chose to change their name completely as part of a new start.
Migration can be one of those times when our ancestors simply disappear. Shipping and immigration records can be sketchy at best, and those recording our ancestors were often not terribly concerned with accurate spelling of names.
For my own research, it was important to consider if my ancestors might have migrated in stages. Not everyone went straight from A to B – some visited other points along the way, sometimes taking years to arrive at their final destination.
One such example was the family of my great grandfather, James Nicholas Clark, who was born in Bristol, England or possibly Launceston, Tasmania around 1856, just as the family emigrated to Australia. James’s younger sister Annie Amelia Clark was born 31 March 1857 in Port Sorrell, Tasmania, where the family lived for at least 12 years before they crossed Bass Strait and settled in Victoria. I searched in vain for their immigration records for years before I discovered they began their lives in Australia in the state of Tasmania. I had been searching for their immigration records in the wrong state. The family 'disappeared'.
