Rachel Balnave FINDLAY (1872-1924)
Ancestral Women 31-Day Challenge: I will be honouring one of my women ancestors a day throughout March. I hope you can join me and add yours, too.
I missed yesterday’s post as I was busy doing an assignment, so I’ll post two today. This first one is honouring the female ancestor who is the subject of my assignment, my great great grandmother Rachel.
First-born of four to Peter BALNAVE, a plumber, and Mary HANNAH in Paisley, Renfrew, Scotland, Rachel lost her mother and siblings before she was eight. Her father remarried and had five more children, four of whom survived to adulthood. In 1891, 18-year-old Rachel was working as a cotton feeder, a textile industry worker who fed cotton into a carding machine, when she married 22-year-old Hugh FINDLAY, a slater (roofer), in Eastwood, Renfrew. They had eight children, the last of whom died as a baby.
Perhaps it was all these early deaths which contributed to their decision to emigrate to Australia in 1912. Hugh went first on the ORSOVA and then nominated Rachel and their seven children to join him on the DEVON. By this time all of the children over 15 were working. The family settled in Brisbane, Queensland among the Scots community already established there. Rachel’s father and three siblings and at least two of Hugh’s siblings also joined them in the next few years.
Rachel appears to have had some issues with mental illness. Her death in 1924 was by drowning in the Brisbane River, and a news report alleged that on the day before her death she had been apprehended in a shop with goods she had not paid for. The article reports Hugh stating she had been very upset about the events and had been at home in bed at 2am but when he awoke at 6am she had disappeared. A sad end.
How tragic.
A very sad end