Proud Winninninni Woman 'Aunty' Kerrie Doyle - Part 2
Update 1 Jan 2023: this post has now been cleared by our lawyers and we now repost it
In Part 1 of this series into the public life of proud Winninninni woman Aunty Kerrie Doyle we discussed the publicly available evidence that suggests Aunty Kerrie Doyle was NOT born “on a mission in the Northern Territory”, nor was she born in “an Aboriginal mob from West Queensland” and neither was she born as a Winninninni person of “southern Queensland”.
In fact, the records support the proposal that she was born in the small town of Tari in the Central Highlands of Papua New Guinea, far from any Aboriginal mission or Aboriginal community.
In this Part 2 post we have investigated the publicly available records of the biological family of ‘Aunty’ Kerrie Doyle. This has enabled the following alleged biological [that is, not the adopted] family tree of ‘Aunty’ Kerrie Doyle to be constructed, as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1 - Alleged Biological Family Tree for ‘Aunty’ Kerrie Doyle. Sources from the public records - File here
Very surprisingly, it is not immediately apparent that there are any Aboriginal ancestors in this alleged biological family tree of Kerrie Doyle, much less any reference to the Winninninni tribe.
All members of this family tree can be traced back to ancestors that were born overseas in England, Ireland, Scotland or Germany, except for Kerrie Doyle’s maternal 4x great grandmother, a convict named Eliza who died in 1853 at Bathurst, NSW. She had married Kerrie Doyle’s 4x great grandfather Edward Wilson, also a convict, who had been born in England. To date, no birth record has yet been found of Eliza the convict, but she is most likely to have been an Irish or English convict and NOT an Aboriginal woman, based on the spatial and contextual content of her records that were located (See Note 3 below).
So it seems that there are no Aboriginal ancestors in ‘Aunty’ Kerrie Doyle’s alleged biological family tree.
It would thus appear to be inappropriate for Kerrie Doyle to claim the Indigenous prefix ‘Aunty’ given that no evidence of any Aboriginal ancestry to the Winninninni tribe, or indeed any other tribe, has been found.
We understand that Kerrie Doyle herself has never publicly provided any documentary evidence of her Aboriginality.
Like most Australian families, there are often very interesting stories about our ancestors that come to light during family history research. In Kerrie Doyle’s case it appears that her 4x Great grandfather, the convict Edward Wilson accompanied the famous Sir Thomas Mitchell on one of his explorations during the colonisation of Australia. It seems that Kerrie Doyle has closer ancestral links to the ‘invading colonisers’ (to use the current, denigrating parlance of our times) than she does to any Aboriginal Winninninni tribe (See Note 2 below).
Therefore, based on this alleged family genealogy it would appear that Kerrie Doyle (nee Leatham/Lumsden) is NOT of Aboriginal descent - she appears to be ‘just making up’ her claim that she is a ‘proud Winninninni woman.’
References and Further Reading
The more research we do on our Aboriginal and colonial history the more fascinating stories we uncover that suggest that our country’s history is highly nuanced and very grey. Despite what the activists want us to believe, our history is not easily categorised as being simply a collection of black and white issues that are neatly described in terms of being right or wrong, good or evil. Unfortunately all historical issues now seem to be highly politicised so it can be hard to get a true understanding of what our colonial past was really like.
In the following Further Reading section we will describe some of the interesting facts we have uncovered during this stage of our research into the alleged claimed life of “Aunty” Kerrie Doyle. As we concluded in our recent book, there are a lot of people ‘just making stuff up’ about our Aboriginal and colonial history and, at the end of the day … ‘we all have the same European lineages flowing through our veins. We are all the same mob. Thus we are all complicit, except some of us are labelled as assassins, and some of us as victims.’
Note 1 - A ‘New Convict’? - Trevor John Lumsden
In April 2019, a contributor under the login name of ‘kerriepieta’ posted a ‘life sketch’ on Patrica Aline Leatham (1934-2000) onto a community-run, family history website called Familysearch. The contributor posted this touching ‘life sketch’ as a tribute to Patricia, who ‘kerriepieta’ claimed was her mother (see Figure 2). From our independent research in Part 1 we know Patricia Aline Leatham is ‘Aunty’ Kerrie Doyle’s mother. We also understand Kerrie Doyle is married to ‘her Maori husband “Papa” Ronnie Peita.’ (page 5 here).
Could the contributor called ‘kerrriepieta’ be in fact our ‘Aunty’ Kerrie Pieta (nee Doyle)?
Figure 2 - Life Sketch of Patrica Aline Leatham, “Aunty’ Kerrie Doyle’s mother. Source
In this ‘life sketch’ post on Patricia Aline Leatham, ‘kerriepieta’ tells us that Patricia’s ‘then husband was in and out of jail’ .
This gave us a lead that perhaps her husband at that time, Trevor John Lumsden, might have had a criminal record [Kerrie Doyle mother’s maiden name was Leatham].
Further research uncovered the following interesting family story, which lends support to the idea that Kerrie’s mother Patricia (and presumably her daughter Kerrie as well?) had a tough time living with her husband Trevor.
In 1963, both Trevor John Lumsden and Patricia Aline Lumsden are on the Electoral Roll, living together in 1155A Manoa Road, Budgewoi, NSW.
Figure 3 - Electoral Roll 1963 showing Kerrie’s parents, Trevor and Patricia Lumsden, living together
But five years later in 1968, Patricia seems to be living without Trevor - he is NOT listed on the Electoral Roll at her address at 30 Sunrise Avenue, Budgewoi. Is he in prison?
Figure 4 - Electoral Roll 1968 showing Kerrie’s mother living without her husband Trevor.
At the same address in 1968 are listed three other people. Patricia’s mother Esme Stella Leatham (nee Staschen), her grandmother Pauline Alice Fotheringham (nee Staschen nee Greig) and her brother Leslie Mountford Leatham
Figure 5 - Electoral Roll 1968 showing Patricia’s brother (Kerrie’s uncle) living at the same house together
Figure 6 - Electoral Roll 1968 showing Patricia’s mother (Kerrie’s grandmother) living at the same house together
This was the same address where Patricia’s parents both lived before her father George Albert Leatham died, as indicated in the previous 1963 Electoral Roll.
Figure 7 - Electoral Roll 1963 showing the address (assuming it was number 30) where Patricia’s mother and father both lived
Then in May 1972 Patricia places a notice in the Sydney Morning Herald in preparation for a divorce, on the grounds of separation.
Figure 8 - In May 1972 Kerrie Doyle’s mother, Patricia Lumsden, places a notice in the Sydney Morning Herald in preparation for a divorce, on the grounds of separation. Source - "The Sydney Morning Herald from Sydney, New South Wales ... www.newspapers.com › newspage - File here.
Is the understandable stress of her ‘then husband [being] in and out of jail’, as alluded to by ‘kerriepieta’ above in Figure 1, just too much for Patricia?
Very intriguingly, Trevor John Lumsden then seems to disappear - there are no electoral roll records for him and all references to him seem to have been erased in the family history and genealogy websites that continue to carry details of his ex-wife Patricia and her daughter Kerrie Esme.
Trevor Lumsden seems to have vanished without a trace.
But then, 16 years later in 1988, a ‘56 year old Trevor John Lumsden’ turns up in an article in the Sydney Morning Herald on a list of ‘dangerous prison escapees’ who are still on the run. It is most likely that this man is the one-and-the-same husband of Kerrie’s mother Patricia - we know her husband was born around 1933, so in 1988 he is about 56, and we know his full name is Trevor John Lumsden and that he was in and out of jail around 1972, 16 years earlier. It seems he had escaped and was never again recaptured - he might even be still alive today.
Figure 9 - Newspaper article article on ‘prisoners on the run’, in 1988. The Trevor John Lumsden mentioned (Photo second from left) is believed to be Kerrie Doyle’s (nee Leatham/Lumsden) father, the ex-husband of Patricia Leatham, Kerrie’s mother. Source Sydney Morning Herald 3 July 1988, p17. - File here
Perhaps then, this is the quite understandable reason why Kerrie Doyle seems to have completely ‘erased’ any public acknowledgement of Trevor John Lumsden, as being her biological father.
Instead she goes by the family name of Doyle, which we understand she acquired in 1975 when her mother is reported to have remarried to the artist Frederick ‘Robert’ Doyle. It is claimed that Kerrie herself was formally adopted by Doyle as suggested in this on-line family tree. [We have not been able to locate any formal documentation confirming Patricia’s remarriage to Robert Doyle or the adoption of Kerrie].
With this biological family tree, readers may be wondering why, or how, Kerrie Doyle could consider herself to be of Aboriginal descent?
Perhaps the answer lies with her adoptive family tree? Perhaps ‘Aunty’ Kerrie Doyle believes her connection to Aboriginality comes from the knowledge that her new dad, Robert Doyle had, as a young man been a drover, a life which
‘…led him into Arnhem Land. Here, at the age of 18, Robert lived with the Aborigines and was initiated into the 'Yarrunga Jarra Tribe'. This experience had a profound effect on Robert and gave him a richer perspective on both life and the land surroundinghim. Roberts artworks include numerous portraits of Indigenous Australians’.
- From a biography of Robert Doyle - Founder of the Tuggerah Lakes Art Society.
Perhaps ‘Aunty’ Kerrie Doyle has convinced herself that she is of Aboriginal descent in an ‘adoptive-sense’, because of the claimed Aboriginal links of her step-father? This is an idea we will explore in our next post which covers the full ancestral details of Robert Doyle’s family. This will appear in Part 3, the next in this series of posts on ‘Aunty’ Kerrie Doyle.
Note 2. An Old Convict - Kerrie Doyle’s Alleged Connection to Sir Thomas Mitchell’s Fourth Expedition of Colonial Discovery
We originally started this website, Dark Emu Exposed three years ago in 2019 as a way of debunking Bruce Pascoe’s theory that Aboriginal societies were not proud, complex hunter-gatherer societies. Instead, Pascoe tried to indoctrinate us and our children in his books, Dark Emu and Young Dark Emu , with the idea that pre-colonial Aboriginal societies were settled, agricultural societies.
One of the main pieces of evidence that Bruce Pascoe offered to support his theory was the comment by the explorer, Thomas Mitchell, who wrote that he saw,
‘Dry heaps of this grass, that had been pulled expressly for the purpose of gathering the seed, lay along our path for many miles. I counted nine miles along the river, in which we rode through this grass only, reaching to our saddle-girths, and the same grass seemed to grow back from the river, at least as far as the eye could reach through a very open forest. I had never seen such rich natural pasturage in any other part of New South Wales.’
- Thomas Mitchell, Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia, 1848, (1969 reprint) p90
Figure 10 - Bookplate for Thomas Mitchell’s 1845-6 Expedition
Figure 11 - Thomas Mitchell, Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia, 1848, (1969 reprint) p90
Now, most incredibly, who do we find was there with Sir Thomas Mitchell travelling through the 9-miles of ‘Mitchell grass’ along the river and for as far as the eye could see?
Well, none other that Kerrie Doyle’s 4x great grandfather, the convict Edward Wilson, who acted as the expeditions blacksmith! We know Edward Wilson was on this expedition as his name is included in Mitchell’s personnel list in his journal (Figure 12).
Figure 12 - List of persons in Thomas Mitchell’s Exploring party - his fourth exploration of 1845-6. Source : Thomas Mitchell, Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia, 1848, (1969 reprint) p6.
We know that this Edward Wilson, the blacksmith in Mitchell’s party is our Edward Wilson, Kerrie Doyle’s 4x great grandfather because we have one of his Tickets-of-Leave that has been ‘cancelled’ due to his misconduct on Mitchell’s expedition.
The convict details on this Ticket-of-Leave exactly match the convict record details of Kerrie Doyle’s 4x great grandfather Edward Wilson, namely his arrival in Sydney on the Lord Melville in 1830, after being convicted at York Assizes in 1830 with a sentence of 14 years. (See Figures 13 and 14). No other Edward Wilsons were recorded as having arrived on the same ship.
The full details of Edward Wilson are provided in Note 4 below.
Figure 13 - Cancelled Ticket-of-Leave; Issued 20th February 1847 for Prisoner Number 30/1830 to Edward Wilson, arrived on the Lord Melville in 1830, Place of Trial York Assizes, 20 March 1830, Sentence 14 years
However this Ticket-of-Leave was over-written :
Cancelled for mis-conduct on his arrival in Sydney after his return from the Interior with Sir Thomas Mitchell vide Governors Minutes on ?? from Sir Thomas Mitchell
Figure 14 - Side-view of Cancelled Ticket-of-Leave from Figure 13
There are two fascinating points here:
why did Thomas Mitchell proceed to punish Edward Wilson for mis-conduct on the expedition and,
what are the chances that two modern day ‘Aboriginal’ commentators, both with alleged dubious ancestry, ‘Uncle’ Bruce Pascoe with his books, and ‘Aunty’ Kerrie Doyle via her ancestry, crossing paths all those years ago on the plains of high Mitchell grass?
Regarding the first point, Thomas Mitchell provided a description of the convicts in his book, as follows;
‘The prisoners who had hitherto formed the bulk of all the exploring parties previously led by me into the interior of New South Wales, were chosen chiefly from amongst men employed on the roads, who had acquired good recommendations from their immediate overseers; but, on this last occasion, the men forming the party were for the most part chosen from amongst those still remaining in Cockatoo Island, the worst and most irreclaimable of their class.
… At Cockatoo Island, blacksmiths, shoemakers, wheelwrights, were at work in their various avocations; all the shoes, for both the men and horses of the expedition, were made there; also one half of the carts, which proved equally good as the other portion, although that was made by the best maker in the colony, a celebrated man.
The eagerness evinced by all these men, so confined in irons on Cockatoo Island, to be employed in an exploring expedition, was such that even the most reckless endeavoured to smooth their rugged fronts, and seemed to wish they had better deserved the recommendation of the superintendent. The prospect of achieving their freedom, by one year of good behaviour in the interior, was cheering to the most depressed soul amongst these prisoners. All pressed eagerly forward with their claims and pretensions, which, unfortunately for the knowing ones, were strictly investigated by Mr. Ormsby the superintendent, and Captain Innes, the visiting magistrate. The selection of such as seemed most eligible was at length made, after careful examination of the phrenological developments and police history of each; and it was not easy to find one without a catalogue of offences, filling a whole page of police-office annals. Still there were redeeming circumstances, corroborated by physical developments, sufficient to guide me in the selection of a party from amongst these prisoners. With them, I mixed one or two faithful Irishmen, on whom I knew I could depend, and two or three of my old followers on former journeys, who had become free.
This party of convicts, so organized, with such strong inducements to behave well, and so few temptations to lead them astray, may be supposed to have afforded a favourable opportunity for studying the convict character. It may be asked by some, how such a party could have been made to yield submissive obedience for so long a period as a year, away from all other authority, than mere moral controul. This was chiefly because these men were placed in a position where it was so very clearly for their own interest to conduct themselves properly. Accordingly, the greater number, as on all former expeditions, gave the highest satisfaction, submitting cheerfully to privations, enduring hardships, and encountering dangers, apparently willing and resolved to do anything to escape from the degraded condition of a convict. But still there were a few, amounting in all to six, who, even in such a party, animated by such hopes, could not divest themselves of their true character, nor even disguise it for a time, as an expedient for the achievement of their liberty. These men were known amongst the rest as the "flash mob." They spoke the secret language of thieves; were ever intent on robbing the stores, with false keys (called by them SCREWS). They held it to be wrong to exert themselves at any work, if it could be avoided; and would not be seen to endeavour to please, by willing cooperation. They kept themselves out of sight as much as possible; neglected their arms; shot away their ammunition contrary to orders; and ate in secret, whatever they did kill, or whatever fish they caught.
Professing to be men of "the Fancy," they made converts of two promising men, who, at first, were highly thought of, and although one of them was finally reclaimed, a hero of the prize ring, it was too obvious that the men, who glory in breaking the laws, and all of whose songs even, express sentiments of dishonesty, can easily lead the unwary and still susceptible of the unfortunate class, into snares from which they cannot afterwards escape if they would. Once made parties to an offence against the law, they are bound as by a spell, to the order of flash-boys, with whom it is held to be base and cowardly to act "upon the square," or HONESTLY in any sense of the word; their order professing to act ever "upon the cross." These men were so well-known to the better disposed and more numerous portion of the party, that the night-guards had to be so arranged, as that the stores or the camp should never be entirely in their hands. Thus a watch was required to be set as regularly over the stores, when the party was close to Sydney, as when it was surrounded by savage tribes in the interior.
Between the "flash men" and the other men of the party, there was a wide difference: An old man to whom they once offered some stolen flour, refused it, saying, "I have been led into enough of trouble in my younger days, by flash friends, and now I wish to lead a quiet life." Convicts, in fact, consist of two distinctly different classes: the one, fortunately by far the most numerous, comprising those whose crime was the result of impulse; the other class consisting of those whose principle of action is dishonesty; whose trade is crime, and of whose reformation, there is much less hope. The offenders of the one class, repented of their crime from the moment of conviction; those of the other, know no such word in their vocabulary. The one, is still "a thing of hope and change;" and would eagerly avail himself of every means afforded him to regain the position he had lost; the other, true to his "order," will "die game." For the separation of the wheat from the chaff, a process by no means difficult, the colony of New South Wales was formerly well adapted. The ticket of leave granted to the deserving convict was one of the most perfect of reformatory indulgences; each individual being known to the authorities, and liable, on the least misconduct, to be sent to work on the public roads. The colony of New South Wales has been the means of restoring many of our unfortunate countrymen to positions in which they have shown that loyalty, industry, public spirit, and patriotism, are not always to be extinguished in the breasts of Englishmen, even by fetters and degradation. It is to be regretted that a more vigilant discrimination had not interposed a more marked line between those convicts deserving emancipation, and those whose services are still wanted on the roads and bridges of the colony’.
Was Kerrie Doyle’s ancestor, the convict Edward Wilson a member of the ’flash mob’ which caused him to misbehave and have his Ticket-of-Leave cancelled?
In Note 5 below we include a long read from the excellent book, The Civilised Surveyor - Thomas Mitchell and the Australian Aborigines by D.W.A. Baker. In this book, Baker describes Mitchell’s attitude towards the Aboriginal people he encountered on his expeditions. We have included an excerpt from the book where Baker describes some interactions and altercations between Mitchell’s party and various Aboriginal people during his previous expedition in 1835. This is not the expedition of 1845-6 in which our Edward Wilson was a member, but the pages we have chosen perfectly illustrate the problems Mitchell had to deal with when convicts interacted with Aborigines, often with fatal results. Perhaps Edward Wilson was guilty of a similar piece of mis-conduct which caused Mitchell to have his Ticket-of-Leave cancelled?
On the second point from above, all we can really say is that all of us with ancestral roots back to colonial Australia are all linked in some way by our European lineages. Even the great majority of people who call themselves ‘Aboriginal’ today have varying degrees of European ancestry. That makes all of us inheritors of our country’s history. All of us most likely have ancestral links to some of the oppressed and some of the oppressors - we all have links to the assassins and the victims, the good guys and the bad guys. Perhaps writers such as Bruce Pascoe and Kerrie Doyle (see her disparaging paper here on colonialism and nursing) should think twice about condemning colonial Australia for past deeds - perhaps some of their own ancestors were to blame as well?
Note 3 - The Convict Eliza Wilson
We know that Kerrie Doyle’s 4x great grandfather Edward Wilson had a relationship with a woman called Eliza and had at least two daughters by her – Rosanna born in 1833 and Phoebe born in 1834.
Kerrie Doyle is descended from Edward and Eliza’s second daughter Phoebe (See family tree in Figure 1). We don’t know if they ever married but, the two girls were baptised (here and here)
We have tracked Edward Wilson back to his conviction in 1830 in York, England and thus most likely he was born in England and is not Aboriginal. But what of Eliza? What was her maiden name and where was she born? Was she Aboriginal?
We have been unable to find documentary evidence confirming her birth, but we believe enough spatial and contextual evidence exists due to her links with her ‘husband’ Edward Wilson to identify her as a convict, and therefore most likely to have been born in the United Kingdom (England, Ireland or Scotland). We do not believe she was Aboriginal.
The following scenario is speculative with some support from the information we have obtained on Edward Wilson.
Firstly, we have Edward, after his initial assignment to the Department of Road and Bridges, being assigned to John Urquhart, coach builder, in George Street, Sydney. Still in his early years of transportation, Edward would not have been able to move around much so the only people he would be meeting would be within a close vicinity to the workshop where he was assigned.
Secondly, we find that Edward absconds in late 1835. Is he desperate to go somewhere? Edward and Eliza by then have had their two illegitimate babies – Rosanna in November 1833 and Phoebe in December 1834. If Eliza was a convict, after the birth of Phoebe it was likely that Eliza was sent to the Female Factory in Parramatta and from there reassigned. The children were most likely put into the orphanage and the authorities would have wanted to put some distance between her and Edward to prevent any further pregnancies. As they were both assigned convicts they would not have been allowed to marry. We are speculating that Eliza was sent to Bathurst, some distance from Sydney and Edward. Is Edward absconding in an effort to be near her?
The evidence for our speculation is that in 1837 he is given 12 months, in an ironed gang at Woolloomooloo, then in 1840 sentenced to a term in gaol followed by another 12 months in an ironed gang at Woolloolooloo. At the end of 1840 he then given a 2-year sentence for ‘repeat absconding.’
The next we hear of him is his being sent as the blacksmith on the 1845-6 expedition with Thomas Mitchell. As Mitchell noted in his journal,
‘…the men forming the party were for the most part chosen from amongst those still remaining in Cockatoo Island, the worst and most irreclaimable of their class…At Cockatoo Island, blacksmiths, shoemakers, wheelwrights, were at work in their various avocations…’
On his return from the Mitchell expedition, Edward Wilson has his Ticket-of-Leave cancelled in early 1847 for ‘mis-conduct’. It is not until late 1847 that Edward Wilson finally gets a new Ticket-of-Leave. This allows him ‘to remain in the district of Parramatta’, so if he wanted to travel into Sydney or to Bathurst, he would have required a special pass. However, we find that Edward then petitions the Governor to be allowed to move to Bathurst and his Ticket-of-Leave is successfully endorsed with the words,
‘Vide Governors Minute on Petition Reg 47/ 6249 Altered to Bathurst 31 January 1848’.
Figure 15 - Edward Wilson’s Ticket-of-Leave endorsed to allow his movement to Bathurst
It is our contention that he has been desperate to get to Bathurst because that is where Eliza is. Sadly, we speculate that they were only together a few short years before Eliza dies in 1853 in Bathurst. We have found a death record for an Eliza Wilson in 1853 (NSWBDM 1335/1853 V1853 1335 119) who is recorded as being aged 50 years which fits as her being 30 and 31 when her two children were born. She was buried in Bathurst, Kelso, St Michael’s Roman Catholic Church.
As further corroborating evidence, we found that Edward Wilson married again (or for the first official time) after Eliza’s death in early 1853 in Bathurst. He married Margaret Ahernz at Bathurst, Kelso, St Michael’s Roman Catholic Church in mid 1853 (NSWBDM 399/1853 V1853 399 99).
It is very coincidental that Edward Wilson appeared to be so desperate to get to Bathurst, and a woman called Eliza Wilson was living there, and when she died in early 1853 Edward remarried a few months later in the same year – it is as if he cannot remarry until this Eliza Wilson has passed on. We speculate that this is Eliza, the mother of his children, that he is unofficially ‘married’ to her, and thus he cannot remarry while she is alive.
We understand that it was unusual for any one of English descent to be Roman Catholic in the early 1800s. We believe that Eliza was Roman Catholic as she was buried at St Michael’s Roman Catholic Church in Bathurst. Eliza was therefore most likely Irish.
We have tried unsuccessfully to determine exactly Eliza’s maiden name. In the 1837 Sydney muster we find an Eliza Sings who states she is 26 years old and arrived on the Southworth in 1832 and is assigned to a Thomas Charles in Bathurst. However, there is no Eliza Sings on any convict manifest at all. She is also not one of the two Eliza’s with different surnames who were transported on the Southworth. The Southworth arrived on 14 June 1832 with female Irish convicts on board.
We also haven’t been able to find a Thomas Charles in Bathurst. However, he may be the Thomas Charles Suttor who married in Sydney in September 1835.
On Saturday last, the 26th instant, special license, by the Rev. W. Cowper, at St. Phillip's Church, Sydney, Thomas Charles Cadogan Suttor, of Brucedale, Bathurst, to Miss Mary Grosvenor Francis, of Sydney. - The Sydney Morning Herald, 28 September 1835, p. 3
Thomas Charles Suttor in 1832 was assigned male convicts to work on his farm in Bathurst, NSW Government Gazette, 5 December 1832 [Issue No. 40], p. 447 and NSW Government Gazette, 12 December 1832 [Issue No. 41], p. 459
After his marriage September 1835, it is likely that Thomas Charles Suttor would have sought to procure the services of a female convict to be a housemaid and cook, and perhaps, with a view to starting his own family in a remote location, would have been happy to have assigned to him a convict familiar with the birthing process. This also aligns with Edward first absconding in October 1835. The Suttor’s first child was born in 1837, The Sydney Herald, 15 January 1837, p. 2
Despite the considerable speculation above, we are certain that Eliza, the mother of Phoebe Wilson and the direct biological ancestor of Kerrie Doyle was not Aboriginal.
Note 4 - Biographical details of the Convict Edward Wilson
We have included here the family tree details of Edward Wilson (starting with Phoebe Wilson his daughter which then links into the full family tree of Kerrie Doyle).
Note 5 - Extracts from D.W.A Baker’s Book - The Civilised Surveyour - Thomas Mitchell and the Australian Aborigines
The excerpt pages of Baker’s book below give a sense of the interactions - some friendly, some not so friendly and all confusing and open to mis-understandings to a large extent - that occurred between the local Aborigines and Mitchell’s party. From page 90 onwards is a description of the tragic event where an Aboriginal woman is killed (murdered?) after an apparently sexual barter transaction goes wrong. Baker lays out the competing narratives of what actually happened. To us today it an example of the difficulties that the government-approved officials like Mitchell had to contend with when when dealing with the Aborigines in the presence of a number of unruly convicts who were nominally under their supervision. Was our Edward Wilson responsible for an altercation with the Aborigines on Mitchells next expedition such that Mitchell decided to cancel his Ticket-of Leave for mis-conduct’?
The following are photographs of various direct ancestors of Kerrie Doyle. These photographs have been provided by people researching family trees that are related to Kerrie Doyle’s family tree. None of these family members appear to be of Aboriginal descent.
