Hi Julie, I was hoping particularly that you'd reply! :) The published TAHO comment states that they checked Plomley for any reference to Thomas HITE (presumably including spelling variants) and turned up nothing. I suppose Plomley made a list of all the names he found in everything he consulted, and it appears as an index or something? An additional resource that has been checked by others is the parish register for Colmworth in Bedfordshire which was the native place of Samuel HITE (allegedly the brother of Thomas, and the father of the children attributed to Thomas, at least according to their birth certificates). A group of baptisms which appear to be of Samuel and around seven of his siblings was found, but no Thomas was among them. A marriage between Samuel HITE and Jane shortly before Samuel's date of transportation was also located, and this fits in with Samuel's conduct record which mentions a wife left behind. So probably the right Samuel, but still no brother Thomas. I take on board Patricia's comments about the lack of records for some people in early VDL, but note that in her case, there is a record for her grandfather's marriage, just not for his birth/baptism, so he is not entirely without a paper trail. The problem with Thomas HITE is that the paper trail is so far entirely blank. Douglas On 11/09/2014 5:21 PM, Julie Gough wrote: > Hi everyone = good thinking Douglas > > It would also be good to check all potential spellings of HITE - Hiatt, Hyett,Height, etc -though I've not encountered a "sealer" with such surname (from memory). > > Julie > > (Sent from phone) > > On 11/09/2014, at 5:18 PM, Douglas via <aus-tasmania@rootsweb.com> wrote: > >> Hi List, >> >> There's an interesting discussion going on in the Australian media at >> the moment regarding the claim to aboriginal ancestry being made by a >> Tasmanian politician. A similar claim was made in 2002 in an appeal made >> by some people to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, a claim which was >> upheld. >> >> The claims centre around an alleged marriage between Margaret BRIGGS and >> Thomas HITE. Margaret was a daughter of George BRIGGS and a sister of >> Dalrymple BRIGGS. >> >> On the other side, Thomas HITE is reputed to have been a whaler and a >> brother of Samuel HITE who was a convict per Malabar (1821). A lot of >> the problem with supporting the claims is that there is no hard evidence >> that Thomas HITE ever existed. The Tasmanian Archives and Heritage >> Office (TAHO) have published their findings on the matter: >> >> http://www.scribd.com/doc/239126702/Tasmanian-Archive-and-Heritage-Office-Lambie-Family-Research >> >> The issue I'm really interested in here is whether Thomas HITE actually >> existed. Putting the collective wisdom of this list to work ... can >> anyone provide any confirmation of this one point? >> >> Douglas >> ------------------------------- >> AUS-Tasmania Mailing List Website http://www.rootsweb.com/~austashs/ >> Contact Admin AUS-Tasmania-Admin@rootsweb.com >> Search the Archive (type AUS-Tasmania in the list box) >> http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl >> >> >> ------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to AUS-TASMANIA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message