Looking for Mary

For the past few years my sister and I have been searching in vain for details of our great grandmother’s birthdate, birthplace, parents and siblings. From vague family discussions we were told she was born somewhere between 1854 - 59 in Limerick, Ireland as Mary Simpson.

Her surname is not Irish and we’re not sure what parish she was from but we have located records of her boarding a ship, the Surat, in the 1870’s, travelling out to New Zealand as a single woman and marrying David Kirk Rhodes a couple of years later. She survived the ship being wrecked as it came into Dunedin, so we think of her as a hero.

She spent the rest of her life in Tasmania and is buried in Hobart overlooking the magnificent harbour. We'd love to know where she came from and why she would risk everything to travel by ship, alone, to the other side of the world.

A couple of years ago, we travelled to Dublin and tried searching documentation there for any information but church records in the 1850s & 60s were in Latin so we couldn't find anything. What can we do to find Mary’s beginnings?

Vivienne Spargo

7 Corsewall Close

Hawthorn VIC 3122, Australia

email: vijaspa@bigpond.net.au

Phone: 03 9819 5003

mobile: 0407 747 234