Finding Ellen Ross

Ellen Ross may be my first direct female ancestor in Australia (unless we can prove the stories of Aboriginal Australian dalliances).

Interestingly someone commented on my ancestor tree that they were looking for Ellen Ross who had married a John Seely and they believed Ellen to be Aboriginal. Unfortunately the source record was deleted and I can no longer find who had posted the comment. There is a tree on Ancestry.com that links Ellen and Seely so I am making contact to see if they have more than a hunch on it. **SEE UPDATE BELOW**

Ellen Ross probably emigrated to Australia. The name Ellen is passed down to at least two descendants. We can be comfortable in thinking it is not Helen but we know many colonial people didn't stick to birth names!!

To look for Ellen, first we need to understand John Ross (husband of Catherine).

We know from his marriage on 6th October 1856 that he was 21yrs and 3 months and born in Parramatta. This is very specific so I feel confident we can pinpoint his date of birth to about July 1835. I think the specifics in age link to parental permission to wed be provided by people under 21. Catherine did not have her parents to approve but from the Irish Christening Records it appears she was born before April 1833 and would have already been 22.

So, back to John... searching BDM records for 1835 is fruitless (they rely on Church records anyway) and the only John Ross that is registered is for 1850 with father listed as Joseph (unless it's for a teen christening before confirmation but I doubt it).

Findmypast is much better for early Christening records. We find John Lees christened at St John's Parramatta 1st September 1836. Birth year noted as 1836 so perhaps not telling the whole truth when getting married. Perhaps an unplanned pregnancy had happened.

But it is John's christening record that reveals a bigger secret...Ellen Ross is her maiden name and she is unwed. We may never know if John Ross (the convict) was a brother, cousin or even her father and the connection to our John Ross may be another example of early family researchers getting it wrong. We could summise that she adopted her lovers name. But then why say she is a spinster? I have no clue about records for Aboriginal births, but do believe churches recorded it somehow.

The middle name LEES is also interesting, almost like a reference to a surname.

So what do we know about Ellen from John's records?

Ellen Ross single in 1836 still living in 1856. In 1836 she lived in Bankstown.

In 1836 she is possible between 15-25 years of age born between 1811-1821. She may have been born outside of NSW or Australia. I can find no birth records in that time frame in NSW and her name doesn't appear in the convict registers as a name or alias.

I already have her in my tree as a migrant but other than a name and approximate age I have no real proof it is John Lees Ross' mother.

Australia's free population in 1836 wasn't extensive but migration was being encouraged. In 1834 Australia's population was 127 200 and NSW's was 77 000. Sydney had a population of less than 35 000 with a large portion of convicts. In the 1830s more than 4000 female immigrants arrived. Prior to that the female population was only about 20 percent. Surely there can't be too many women named Ellen Ross in Sydney at the time!

There is still the question of Ellen Ross being Aboriginal. Indeed in the 1830s a school for native children was established in Parramatta.

Here is a photo of Ann Ross who would be Ellen's grandaughter, I just can't see the evidence of an Aboriginal background (as much as I would love to find it). The blonde child is her son Charles Lang.

***UPDATE***
The person who had noted Ellen Ross as having married John Seeley kindly shared marriage certificates with me and this has left no doubt that Ellen Ross married John Seeley in 1849 in Braidwood.

I then purchased her death ceritificate and that of her son John Ross and was able to find out a few other things.

It states she was born in England (not surprising as most people in the colony in the early years were born overseas). I can only assume that it was not likely that a full blood Aborigial person could pass herself off as English so I think we can rule out the rumours of her being Aboriginal.

Ellen's death certificate records her two marriages. The first to John Ross in Sydney when she was 21. The second to John Selley (noted as W Selley on the death certificate) when she was 45. This marriage produced a daughter Eliza.

From her death certificate we are lead to believe:
Ellen arrived in Australia from England in around 1823.
She was born around 1810 and arrived when she was around 14 years old.
Ellen Ross was a house-keeper living in Inverell at the time of her death.

We should note that the information for Ellen's death was the undertaker but to have information about John Ross' father and Ellen's second husband he must have been given information from the family. Something that strikes me about the Ross family is they seem to be close knit and devout Catholics. I can only believe they have told the truth in the facts they have provided. In John Lees Ross' baptism and her own marriage Ellen Ross was noted as a spinster (and consequently un unmarried mother). There was no hiding this so why would she hide other information.

Over Ellen's life we can follow her from living near Parramatta, moving to near Braidwood and marrying then later travelling to the Inverell area near her son.

I think had she been a convict we would have records for her. Even when they married records in their original names existed listing permission to marry, Tickets of Leave and Certificates of Freedom. Immigration records don't always mention the children's names. Did she come out as John Ross' "wife". John Ross, her son, definitely has many relatives in the Inverell area, who were they and what was his connection to them.

John Ross the convict, and potential father, had a brother Joseph Ross who came to Australia. Could the Ross family in the north be connected to him? John Lees Ross's family has said John Ross Snr's was a selector. This wasn't a term associated with the early pioneers until around 1860. Had John Ross Snr simply abandoned his family and taken off to "greener pastures" and his son came looking for him once she had remarried.

From Eliza Selley's three marriage records we are also able to gain some information about Ellen. In 1898 when Eliza marries she states both her parents are dead. Her father is John Selley and her mother Ellen SWEENEY.

Where could this name have possibly come from? Why is it that Ellen Ross has always been spinster Ellen Ross and now we have Ellen Sweeney?

So here likes my future searches:

Ellen Ross - child of a convict
Ellen Ross - child of an immigrant
Ellen Sweeney (as above)
Ellen Sweeney convict

The Ross' of Inverell area