If a job's worth doing...

 ... you know the answer!

Moons ago I chatted with a fellow descendant about my 2xGreat-grandfather, Patrick Curry, and his lack of a baptismal record. I said that a task on my to do list was to go through all the digitised images of early St Mary's Cathedral Baptisms to see if I could find one for Patrick that had missed being indexed. The cousin said it had been done and there was no record for Patrick in the indexes.

As a green (and much younger) genealogist I believed this person. I thought it funny that there was no record for Patrick as his siblings had all been baptised but left it at that.

A while ago it hit me that I should really check the films for myself; they are only available in a few locations one of which is at the library of The Society of Australian Genealogists. These registers were filmed as part of the Joint Copying Project (JCP) between the Society of Australian Genealogists, National Library of Australia and the Mitchell Library.

I recently had a chance to visit Sydney so I booked into the library for a research session. The lovely librarian, Lorraine, got me set up at a reader with the correct film:

Church register of St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney and St John's, Campbelltown Roman Catholic. [microform] :)

and off I went. My winding arm and eyes got plenty of exercise as I wound through the pages checking each baptism record from 1832 (when the first child of the marriage was baptised) onwards. 

Winding and looking at SAG

After about 45 minutes I found the record at the top of a page.

I knew it was my Patrick from the date and mother's name.

I was so excited that I didn't realise, until I got home and took a good look at the record that Patrick's surname wasn't listed on the register. He was recorded as "Patrick of Patrick ? by his wife Ellen Moore". 

A visit to the NSW Birth Index and a few searches returned this record:

It was interesting to note that the baptism was not a family affair as it appears that Ellen was not accompanied to the baptism by Patrick Curry Senior. I am wondering if the sponsors John Leary and Elizabeth Lucas were known to Ellen or just some random people who happened to be nearby at the time.

Fellow genealogists will appreciate how excited I was to find this one simple record that adds more detail to an ancestor's story. 

If it's worth doing - do it yourself.

6 Baptisms, 5 Weddings and a Funeral

1983 St. Mary's Christmas Pageant - Rev Terry Dicks and children including my three angels and Joseph

In recent times our family has celebrated significant occasions at St. Mary's Anglican Church Waverley. A peek at the tags in my digital family album shows that I have several hundred photographs tagged St Mary's. As well as hatches, matches and dispatches there are photos of social events, Christmas pageants and Sunday School events. The picture on the header of this blog is taken of the most recent family wedding at St. Mary's.

2009 Family Wedding - Rev Beth Spence

2009 Family Christening - Rev Michael Spence

St Mary the Virgin is an historic Blackett church in Birrell Street, Waverley . There is a short history of the Church at the Waverley Council website. A book on the history of the Church, Through the archway of the years : St. Mary's Church, Waverley, N.S.W., 1864-1964, can be found in the National Library of Australia. A list of the clergy who have served at St. Mary's can be found on the Church site. St Mary's has a strong tradition of music that is enhanced by the Gern organ that is listed on the NSW State Heritage List.

St Mary's Organ

 St Mary's is a happy place as described in a 2004 article in the Anglicans Together Newsletter,  St. Mary's Church, Waverley : High and Happy

1997 Family Wedding

 More recent news of the Parish is detailed in the snippets below from http://www.stmaryswaverley.org.au/page1/page12/page12.html

St Mary's is a significant place in our family history as so many family events took place in this beautiful Church.

 

Where is Edward R Peterson?

Left behind in a house we purchased in the Hornsby Shire was a box of musty old books. Flipping through the pages of one I found a Baptismal Certificate for Edward Rouett (?) Peterson who was born on March 18, 1922 and baptised at St George's Church, Paddington on April 12, 1922 by J. Poole.

Who is Edward? I have searched Ancestry, The Ryerson Index, NSW BDMs, SAG Primary Records, Google and Trove but can find no clues to his existence.

I would love to reunite Edward's family with this certificate. If I fail I will give the certificate to The Society of Australian Genealogists who will hopefully add it to their Primary Records Collection.