Hi Megan: During the California Gold Rush, ships were daily sailing into San Francisco Bay with gold seekers from Australia and other countries in the world, including Wales.? California had one state census - 1852.? It won't say where your ancestor came from other than the country but you might find them there.? Did your check the 1870-1880 censuses for your ancestor?? And if he survived to 1900, it should say when he arrived in the USA, was he a citizen and when he became a citizen. I have a relative who was in San Francisco in April 1906 and was never heard from again.? I can only presume that he was one of those "unknown dead" from the San Francisco Earthquake.? His brother and later his nephew were never able to find anything on him. Annie? - Attached Message From: Megan Roberts <welshladymegan@yahoo.co.uk> To: VAL HAMILTON <vhamilton@shaw.ca>; dyfed@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [Dyfed] Ancestry.com Date: Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:28:49 +0000 (GMT) I think that you should never discount any source as you never know what it might reveal. In 1835 an ancestor (not a direct one) was transported to New South Wales for horse stealing.? He married out there, had 2 children who died young and then he and his wife to all intents and purposes disappeared and no further trace could be found. Then last year, on Ancestry.com I found an entry in the applications for American Naturalisation in Northern California in 1868, which could only be him as he has a unique name in the family tree, but there was no record of his wife.? A couple of months later I managed to confirm this, by finding in?an historic Australia newspapers a list of passengers departing Sydney for San Francisco, where lo and behold was this chap and his wife. For the moment the story ends there - I don't know why they went, or what happend to them, but you never know what records are going to pop up on the internet and move you one step on! best wishes Megan ____

Annie Thanks for you email.  I have not found him in any of the federal census.  It is possible that he was chasing the gold rush, or that alternatively he was just trying to make a fresh start and put his past behind him.  Having been transported for life, he could not return to Wales after he was given a conditional pardon, because as I understand it, if he had have done so, he would have been executed. Its also possible that he hadnt mended his ways, and American justice was less kind to him than the British justice!!  Maybe one day a record will turn up on line which will at least tell me when he died, but I doubt that any of us will ever know anything more than that. thanks again Megan ________________________________ From: "cardi2@aol.com" <cardi2@aol.com> To: dyfed@rootsweb.com Sent: Friday, 26 June, 2009 0:45:19 Subject: [Dyfed] Australia to California Hi Megan: During the California Gold Rush, ships were daily sailing into San Francisco Bay with gold seekers from Australia and other countries in the world, including Wales.? California had one state census - 1852.? It won't say where your ancestor came from other than the country but you might find them there.? Did your check the 1870-1880 censuses for your ancestor?? And if he survived to 1900, it should say when he arrived in the USA, was he a citizen and when he became a citizen. I have a relative who was in San Francisco in April 1906 and was never heard from again.? I can only presume that he was one of those "unknown dead" from the San Francisco Earthquake.? His brother and later his nephew were never able to find anything on him. Annie? -           Attached Message                         From:             Megan Roberts <welshladymegan@yahoo.co.uk>                             To:             VAL HAMILTON <vhamilton@shaw.ca>; dyfed@rootsweb.com                             Subject:             Re: [Dyfed] Ancestry.com                             Date:             Wed, 24 Jun 2009 14:28:49 +0000 (GMT)             I think that you should never discount any source as you never know what it might reveal. In 1835 an ancestor (not a direct one) was transported to New South Wales for horse stealing.? He married out there, had 2 children who died young and then he and his wife to all intents and purposes disappeared and no further trace could be found. Then last year, on Ancestry.com I found an entry in the applications for American Naturalisation in Northern California in 1868, which could only be him as he has a unique name in the family tree, but there was no record of his wife.? A couple of months later I managed to confirm this, by finding in?an historic Australia newspapers a list of passengers departing Sydney for San Francisco, where lo and behold was this chap and his wife. For the moment the story ends there - I don't know why they went, or what happend to them, but you never know what records are going to pop up on the internet and move you one step on! best wishes Megan ____ ================================ Dyfed list http://home.clara.net/daibevan/DyfedML.html ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to DYFED-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message