The D'Arcy Archive
The whole archive, read as one book

Contents

Every page of the archive placed in the order of its story: where the name came from, the line, the crossing, how the lines join, everyone, and how we know. The menus above remain as shortcuts.

Front

Front matter

The cover, what the archive is willing to say, and how every claim carries its confidence.

  1. F.1 The coverTwelve generations, and two claims too far.
  2. F.2 AboutAn evidence-first archive of the D'Arcys of Brisbane, and the rules it will not break.
  3. F.3 MethodEvery claim carries its confidence.
I

I. The name, and the house on the hill 🇫🇷 🇮🇪 🇬🇧 🇩🇪

D'Arcy was coined twice over, once in Normandy as the name of a place and once in Ireland as the name of a colour. The family tree runs the line back to a Yorkshire castle and an earldom and on to the kings of Denmark; this archive reaches a Gloucestershire yeoman in 1654. These pages set out the name, the two grafts it does not accept, the DNA that was its first check from outside the paper record, and the places its people can be put.

  1. I.1 The NameD'Arcy was coined twice over: in Normandy as a place, in Ireland as a colour.
  2. I.2 How Far BackThe tree reaches the kings of Denmark; this archive reaches a Gloucestershire yeoman in 1654.
  3. I.3 The Hornby ClaimWhere the descent to a Yorkshire castle stops being evidence and starts being hope.
  4. I.4 What the DNA saysThe first check this archive has had from outside the paper record.
  5. I.5 The AtlasEvery place this archive can put a person in.

Names in the disputed generations

  1. I.6 HowardThe name on the direct line and in the disputed generations.
  2. I.7 SuttonThe name on the direct line; born at Averham and Mansfield.
  3. I.8 SchombergThe name on the direct line; born at Heidelberg, Berlin and Cologne.
  4. I.9 von der PfalzThe name on the direct line; born at Heidelberg and Schwetzingen.
  5. I.10 von DegenfeldThe name on the direct line; born at Neuhaus and Heidelberg.
  6. I.11 StuartThe name on the direct line; born at Greenwich, Edinburgh and Dunfermline.
  7. I.12 NoelThe name on the direct line; born at Himley, Kirkby Mallory and Solihull.
II

II. An engineer at Chatham, a major of the 39th 🇬🇧

Fifteen generations are asserted on the direct line and six of them this archive will defend. The documented line runs from Robert D'Arcy, commissioned in the Royal Engineers in 1776 and buried at Chatham in 1827, through his marriage and children at Portsea and Chatham, to a major of the 39th Foot. These pages follow the spine, the chart, the generations the tree never held, and the household.

The line

  1. II.1 The treesEvery family this archive follows, and the two grafts that carry its claimed depth.
  2. II.2 The SpineFifteen generations asserted, six of which this archive will defend.
  3. II.3 Our line, drawnThe direct line as a chart, with every place the line stops marked.
  4. II.4 Not in the treePeople this archive can prove and the family tree has never held.
  5. II.5 D'ArcyThe name the archive carries.

Robert D'Arcy, Royal Engineers

  1. II.6 The CorpsForty-nine years of an engineer's career, every promotion cited to the London Gazette.
  2. II.7 The obituarySeventeen newspapers in three countries announced his death in May 1827.
  3. II.8 South LeithThe parish called untranscribed holds a baptism that names her father and her mother.
  4. II.9 WardThe name on the direct line; born at South Leith.
  5. II.10 Robert and Jean's familyFive children, four of them now documented.
  6. II.11 Two years of PortseaThe first record of this family found in England survives inside a twenty-two-month transcript.
  7. II.12 ChathamThe Royal Engineers' parish: a burial, and a christening eight days before a convict ship sailed.

The children

  1. II.13 Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph D'ArcySaint-Domingue, Sicily, Walcheren, and five years in Persia.
  2. II.14 George Abbas Kooli D'ArcyJoseph's eldest son, who governed the Gambia and then the Falkland Islands.
  3. II.15 Constantine D'ArcyA name in a burial register, christened in Barbados and dead at nineteen.
  4. II.16 Daughter of the late Major-General D'ArcyA death notice that calls the dead woman Robert's daughter.
  5. II.17 The Sussex sistersThree of Robert's daughters, documented from the public record.
  6. II.18 Miss Ludlam of GuernseyA marriage notice of 1805 and a rank gazetted six months earlier.
III

III. Gloucestershire and Bristol 🇬🇧

The archive's oldest claim is a Gloucestershire yeoman born in 1654. The line it called untestable is tested here against the registers at Berkeley, the hamlet the name comes off, and a muster of 1608; beside it are the Wakefields, a mason from Stroud who married a Berkeley woman in Bristol, the 1841 census page that holds the family, and two pages kept as wrong.

Berkeley and the Sanigers

  1. III.1 Six generations at BerkeleyThe line this archive called untestable, tested.
  2. III.2 Berkeley, GloucestershireThe oldest claim: a Gloucestershire yeoman born in 1654.
  3. III.3 Hannah was a Berkeley womanThe oldest open question in the archive is closed.
  4. III.4 One vowelThe document twice declared missing was indexed under another spelling.
  5. III.5 Thomas SinegarA labourer from Berkeley living a mile from Hannah Wakefield in Bristol.
  6. III.6 The Sanigers, reconstitutedEvery Saniger record in Gloucestershire, assembled into households.
  7. III.7 Saniger is a placeSaniger is a hamlet in Berkeley parish, and the name comes off the land.
  8. III.8 Every Spelling of One NameIndex entries under twenty spellings of one surname.
  9. III.9 The name in its own centuryA printed pedigree of the Swonhungers, checked against the deeds.
  10. III.10 The muster of 1608Eleven men of this surname, counted by the Crown in 1608.
  11. III.11 Chew MagnaKept as a wrong page: a Somerset birth that the Berkeley baptism contradicts.
  12. III.12 CottonThe name on the direct line; born at Ashton under Hill and Berkeley.
  13. III.13 JonesThe name on the direct line; born at Wotton-under-Edge.

Bristol and the Wakefields

  1. III.14 The WakefieldsA mason from Stroud who married a Berkeley woman in Bristol and took six children to Queensland.
  2. III.15 Drivers Fields, 1841One page of the 1841 census holding the whole family the oldest claim depends on.
  3. III.16 The Bristol chapelsKept as a wrong page: a catalogue of every Bristol chapel register.
  4. III.17 WakefieldThe Wakefields of Bristol.
IV

IV. The Potteries and the Sneyds 🇬🇧 🇦🇺

Every Staffordshire Sneyd record, assembled into households, produces the family the tree had been pointing at. The Keele descent, followed into the registers, was found to be wrong. The Sneyds then go out of Bristol and Kempsey into far western Queensland, married at Muttaburra and born at Boulia, and a Hanley grocer's son sails for New South Wales in 1832.

  1. IV.1 The Sneyds of the PotteriesEvery Staffordshire Sneyd record, assembled into households.
  2. IV.2 BlackbourneThe name on the direct line; born at Madeley and Castle Church.
  3. IV.3 Sergeant SneydA Hanley grocer's son who sailed for New South Wales in 1832 and finished as Governor of Brisbane Gaol.
  4. IV.4 The SneydsOut of Bristol and Kempsey into far western Queensland.
  5. IV.5 SneydThe Sneyds of Boulia and Brisbane.
V

V. The crossing, and Brisbane 🇬🇧 🇦🇺

Seven lines reached Australia seven different ways: a garrison posting, a convict ship, a free passage, a paid one, and three nobody has dated. A major of the 39th Foot reached Port Jackson in September 1826 on the convict ship England, with his wife and baby daughter in the cabin, and the General Hewitt followed in 1854. These pages run on to Brisbane, an inquest in 1902, the Great War and the graves.

  1. V.1 How they got hereSeven lines reached Australia seven different ways.
  2. V.2 AustraliaA major of the 39th Foot in charge of the guard on a convict ship, with his wife and baby daughter in the cabin.
  3. V.3 The General HewittThe passenger register gives how, when and on what.
  4. V.4 BrisbaneFrom a Parramatta boy who came north in the 1860s to a hundred and sixty years of Brisbane people.
  5. V.5 The Inquest, 1902A coronial file, read in full and published in full.
  6. V.6 The Great WarA sergeant, two brothers of his wife, and a cousin: soldiers of the Great War.
  7. V.7 The Search for ArthurTwenty-three pages of men trying to find out what happened to one private soldier at Pozières.
  8. V.8 Graves and BurialsWhere this family is buried, gathered from the tree.
VI

VI. The families they married, and how the lines join 🇮🇪 🇬🇧 🇩🇪 🇦🇺

A D'Arcy married a Sneyd, who was the granddaughter of a Wakefield of Bristol, and the line the archive is named for is one thread of thirteen families, out of Limerick, Monaghan, Cork, Ayrshire, Lanarkshire, Somerset, Bristol, London and Germany. These pages give each family, the marriages in date order, the women, the blood relatives, and how this archive joins the others.

Overview

  1. VI.1 The FamiliesA D'Arcy married a Sneyd, who was the granddaughter of a Wakefield of Bristol.

The families they married into

  1. VI.2 The AtkinsonsAn organist christened in Limerick Cathedral who emigrated in 1862 and installed the first organ at All Saints' Wickham Terrace.
  2. VI.3 AtkinsonOut of Limerick.
  3. VI.4 KentThe name on the direct line; born at Limerick and Norwich.
  4. VI.5 The MurdochsFrom St Quivox in Ayrshire to Maloney Street, Toowoomba.
  5. VI.6 MurdochOut of Ayrshire.
  6. VI.7 AtwellOut of Somerset.
  7. VI.8 BlumOut of Germany by way of Rockhampton.
  8. VI.9 CreechOf Limerick.
  9. VI.10 KeelingOf London, who married into the line at Brisbane.
  10. VI.11 MatsonOf County Monaghan.
  11. VI.12 RossiterOf Long Ashton, Somerset.
  12. VI.13 WattOf St Quivox.
  13. VI.14 WrightOf Lanarkshire.

How the lines join

  1. VI.15 The MarriagesEvery marriage the tree carries, in date order, and those this archive documented itself.
  2. VI.16 The WomenThe women of the family, and the children they bore.
  3. VI.17 Blood relativesChoose a person and the chart is built around them.
  4. VI.18 The Other ArchivesHow this archive joins the others, and why the join itself is not published.
VII

VII. Everyone

Everybody this archive can name and publish, in one list, and the people it met in documents and never had anywhere to put. The register holds every named individual found, with the source beside each; the households, the places and the timeline set them in order. A person's page belongs to the chapter of its index and links back to it.

  1. VII.1 The PeopleEverybody this archive can name and publish, searchable by name, year, place, trade or family.
  2. VII.2 Every NameThe people met in documents and never had anywhere to put.
  3. VII.3 The RegisterEvery named individual found, from any source, with the source beside each.
  4. VII.4 HouseholdsA couple and the children under one roof.
  5. VII.5 PlacesWhere this family was born and where it died, counted.
  6. VII.6 The TimelineWho this family were living under, and what it did to them.
VIII

VIII. How we know

Every claim on this site carries its confidence. The sources are counted and sorted into records and other people's trees; every source read and found empty is published; and the indexes, the open questions, the errands, the corrections and the work list say what is not yet known. The investigations at the end read the archive against itself.

The record

  1. VIII.1 SourcesEvery citation counted: which are records and which are other people's trees.
  2. VIII.2 What Has Been ReadEverything opened, whether or not it gave anything up.
  3. VIII.3 What the indexes actually holdWhat the indexes actually hold: the difference between a null result and an empty search.
  4. VIII.4 DocumentsReproduced whole, so you can disagree with what has been made of them.
  5. VIII.5 GalleryEverything the archive holds as a picture.
  6. VIII.6 Open QuestionsWhat the archive does not know, ranked by how much finding out would change.
  7. VIII.7 What This Archive Got WrongMistakes this archive made and corrected in public, with what caused each.
  8. VIII.8 ErrandsEvery one needs a login, a card or a reading room; drafted and ordered by what it would settle.
  9. VIII.9 The work listWhat is being done here, as opposed to what is known.
  10. VIII.10 What changedWhat it looked for, what it found, what it did not find, and what it took back.

Investigations

  1. VIII.11 The PapersA worked example of reading evidence rather than skimming it.
  2. VIII.12 Reading the archive against itselfOpen questions answered out of material the site had already published.
  3. VIII.13 Behind the paywallA marriage never found and four generations called untestable, all one subscription away.