Hi Listers, I once again ask for any information on a lass Sarah Lynch(ey), who in 1845 was working as a servant on Kennington Farm at Hexham which was owned by Captain Ranulph Dacre . Mrs Dacre spoke highly of Sarah's work and is quoted in memos written by the Maitland Magistrate to Sydney reporting on Sarah's rehabilitation, the last in April 1845. This girl was the subject of physical and sexual abuse after she had been illegally taken from NSW to the Bay of Islands in New Zealand. The perpetrator was the Honorary US Consul in Russell who was apparently never confronted over the affair. I have a number of memos written to and from the Sydney authorities from the time she left the orphan school as an apprentice to Mr Badgery, through to her "rescue" by a solicitor in Russell, to several covering her settling into work at Hexham. Sometime after bankruptcy in 1846 the Dacre family moved to New Zealand where they seem to have carved out a successful life. So far as I have ascertained Sarah did not accompany them. I found Sarah during my search for the siblings of my GG grandmother who had with a brother and a sister accompanied their convict mother from the Isle of Man in 1835. This girl was admitted to the Orphan Home about 9 days after the arrival of the Mary III on which they had been transported.. The family name "Lynchey" has morphed into "Lynch" in Ireland and both my GGG grandmother and my GG grandmother used Lynch intermittently with Lynchey on documents. I have found Sarah's baptism on the Isle of Man in 1826 which would have made her age in 1846 about 18 or 19 years. Peter Melbourne