So far, my blogs in May, August and November 2023 have covered my research process into finding three great grandfathers of my late wife, Helen Barlow, and exploring their lives. Her remaining paternal great grandfather was born Albert August Bahlow to Michael Friedrich Bahlow and Caroline Wilhelmine Jahn in Schmelze, Brandenburg, Prussia, in mid-August 1858 and christened later that month.^[1] It was such a relief to find this confirming information on Ancestry after years of snail-mail exchanges with a cousin (before emails), who had kindly provided copies of Queensland Marriage and Death Certificates from the General Registry Office, Brisbane.^[2] Like most subscription sites, Ancestry adds many new records each month and so a recent search brought up images of relevant church records.^[3] Some of the information on the hard-copy and online records was vague, absent or inaccurate and different records had multiple spellings of the surname, such as Bahlow, Balow and Bulow.

Albert August Barlow and wife, Alice Iland (written permission to use photo gratefully received from Ms Lyn Nielsen).

Several records reversed the forenames, so some had Albert August while others had August Albert, adding to more confusion when searching. It seems he preferred the name, August, as his Marriage Certificate to Alice Iland bears his name as Augustus Barlow.^[4] His Death Certificate in June 1923 shows his full name as Albert August Barlow with his father as Michael Barlow and his mother’s name on that Certificate as Caroline Milhelmine.^[5] No name for his mother is entered on his Marriage Certificate. For years, I had searched for a Caroline Milhelmine but could not find the necessary link to her husband, Michael. Finding the original images of the German church records on Ancestry finally showed her full name as Caroline Wilhelmine Jahn.^[6] Without that important surname, Jahn, and her correct middle name, there was no way I would ever make the right connection. My basic high school German was not enough to be able to read and translate all the old German handwriting on the church records. However, the names and dates were quite clear and the transcription accompanying the images confirmed the place names.

I found that Caroline was buried in Brandenburg in May 1865, at age only thirty-four.^[7] It is therefore no wonder that August may not have remembered his mother’s name for his Marriage Certificate. He would only have been six-and-a-half years old when she died. His father remarried about a year later to Dorothy Johanna Caroline Charlotta Klaats, according to his father’s Death Certificate.^[8] The certified copy of the Death Certificate showed the father’s surname as, ‘BALOW’.  This second marriage produced a brother for August, Karl Frederick.

With his father, brother and step-mother, twelve-year-old August embarked for a new country on the other side of the world – Australia. They arrived in Maryborough on the ship, Reichstag, which had brought them from Hamburg.^[9] It seemed a joyous occasion when the steamer, Lady Bowen, brought the German immigrants from the ship in Hervey Bay to the Maryborough wharf in the late afternoon of Thursday 9^th March 1871. The immigrants had been singing on board and the crowd that had gathered on the wharf and river bank cheered as they arrived. That newspaper record via Trove further detailed their journey, which seemed comfortable and incident-free, with good winds.^[10] Newspapers can certainly add colour and realism to a story so I always try to find relevant reports or snippets.

I found no record of August’s early years in either Prussia or Australia. His next appearance in recorded history seems to be his marriage to Alice Iland in Maryborough on 19 Nov 1880, when he was twenty-two years old and Alice was nineteen.^[11] The Certificate records that ‘Augustus’ was born in Germany and Alice was born in Sheerness, Scotland. Nowhere else did August use the name ‘Augustus’ and Alice’s stated birthplace sent me on another wild goose chase looking for more records of her in Scotland. In fact, the 1861 England Census has her at one month old, with her family in Sheerness, Kent, England.^[12]

The desire to vote in elections may have led August to seek naturalisation, because in 1900, he appears in the Queensland ‘Register of Aliens to Whom Oaths of Allegiance were Administered’.^[13] Subsequently, August and his wife appear in the Queensland Electoral Rolls, which give their address variously as Copenhagen Bend, Yengarie, or Old Tollbar, Gayndah Road, depending on the year, though all of these were the same residence.^[14] From these Electoral Rolls, August’s occupations over the years include labourer, timber-getter and dairyman.^[15] On both his Marriage Certificate (1880) and his Death Certificate (1923), his occupation is stated as ‘butcher’.^[16] In an obituary after August’s death in 1923, he was described as ‘a slaughterman, of the butchering firm of Maitland and Co. for a number of years’.^[17]

Headstone at grave of Albert August Barlow and wife, Alice Barlow (nee Iland) in Maryborough Cemetery. Photograph taken by author on 21 July 2004.

Since Australia has had a policy of destroying Census documents after data has been extracted from them, Electoral Rolls are the next best substitute. One can find names of adults with the same surname in the same household, their address and their occupations. Another useful source is the Queensland Government Family History Research Service, which conveniently provides an online search facility for birth, marriage and death certificates in Queensland.^[18] From this one can order relevant certificates. The site is also useful to find a spouse, a parent or a child and their date of birth, marriage or death if the event occurred in Queensland.

August and Alice had ten children, most of whom lived to ripe old ages ranging from mid-sixties to early nineties.^[19] One son, Charles August, married Mary Jones in Maryborough and this couple became my late wife’s paternal grandparents.^[20] As might have been common with large families at the time, Alice Barlow, a sister of Charles August, married Herbert William Jones, a brother of Mary.^[21] August died on 16 Jun 1923 in St Mary’s Private Hospital, Maryborough and his funeral left from the house of his son, Charles on 18 June.^[22]

Lessons learnt in researching this great grandparent are many. Be flexible with name spelling. Various records had the German spelling as well as the anglicised ‘Barlow’. Certified copies of Certificates are not always accurate. The copier is human and can make mistakes in transcription. If a child loses a parent when they are very young, they may not know or remember their parent’s correct name or exactly where they were born if the family moved a lot. There is no evidence that Alice Iland’s family were ever in Sheerness, Scotland. Don’t be afraid of checking records in a foreign language. Key facts such as dates, names and places may still be recognised and verified. Newspapers can add everyday information to an ancestor’s life, including their journey by ship from overseas. At the very least, there may be an obituary that provides some insight into how they lived.

In my next series of blogs, I intend to explore the lives of my late wife’s four great grandmothers. Finding relevant information about female ancestors can be a challenge. I hope I can make their stories an interesting read.

[1] Church Birth record, Albert August BAHLOW,  Brandenburg, Germany, Transcripts of Church Records, 1700-1874 [database on-line], Original image, Ancestry.com, accessed 14 Mar 2024; Church Baptism record, Albert August BAHLOW, Germany, Prussia, Brandenburg and Posen, Select Church Book Duplicates, 1794-1874, Ancestry.com.au, accessed 14 Mar 2024.
[2] Delphine Nagel to Ross Hansen, letter, 6 May 1983, original held by author.
[3] Church Birth record of Albert August BAHLOW; Church Baptism record, Albert August BAHLOW.
[4] Marriage Certificate of Augustus BARLOW and Alice ILAND, 19 Nov 1880, Certified true copy of entry in Register of Marriages, General Registry Office, Brisbane.
[5] Death Certificate of Albert August BARLOW, 16 Jun 1923, Certified true copy of entry in Register of Deaths, General Registry Office, Brisbane.
[6] Marriage record of Michael Friedrich Bahlow to Caroline Wilhelmine Jahn, 8 Apr 1858, Brandenburg, Germany, Transcripts of Church Records, 1700-1874, Parish Schmelze, original image, Ancestry.com.au, accessed 13 Apr 2024.
[7] Death record of Caroline Wilhelmine Jahn, 5 May 1865, Age 34, Brandenburg, Germany, Transcripts of Church Records, 1700-1874, original image, Ancestry.com.au, accessed 13 Apr 2024.
[8] Death Certificate of Michael Frederick BALOW, 3 Aug 1901, Certified true copy of entry in Register of Deaths, General Registry Office, Brisbane.
[9] BAHLOW family, Reichstag passenger list, Nov 1870, Hamburg Passenger Lists, 1850-1934, (image), Ancestry.com.au, accessed 14 Mar 2024.
[10] The German Immigrants’, Maryborough Chronicle, Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser (Qld. : 1860 – 1947), 11 Mar 1871, p.2, viewed 1 Sep 2022, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/148035944.
[11] Marriage Certificate of Augustus BARLOW and Alice ILAND, 19 Nov 1880, Certified true copy of entry in Register of Marriages, General Registry Office, Brisbane.
[12] Census Record for Alice IRELAND, age one month, 1861, living Bentham Square, Sheerness, Kent, Record Set Kent 1861, RG9, Piece 00531, p. 00205, The Genealogist, accessed 2 Jul 2024.
[13] August BARLOW, Queensland State Archives Item 841184, Register of Aliens to whom Oaths of Allegiance were Administered, 01/01/1893-31/12/1900, p.136, Entry number 195.
[14] August BARLOW, Yengarie, Occupations from Queensland Electoral Rolls, Queensland State Archives, Series ID: S162.
[15] August BARLOW, Occupations.
[16] Marriage Certificate of Augustus BARLOW and Alice ILAND, 19 Nov 1880, Certified true copy of entry in Register of Marriages, General Registry Office, Brisbane; Death Certificate of Albert August BARLOW, 16 Jun 1923, Certified true copy of entry in Register of Deaths, General Registry Office, Brisbane.
[17] OBITUARY’, Albert August BARLOW, Maryborough Chronicle, Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser, 18 Jun 1923, p. 4., https://trove.nla.gov.au/news-article151294054, Viewed 24 Sep 2021.
[18] Queensland Government Family History Research Service, Births, Marriages and Deaths registered in Queensland, https://www.familyhistory.bdm.qld.gov.au/.
[19] Queensland Government Family History Research Service BMDs.
[20] Marriage record of Charles August BARLOW to Mary JONES, 2 Aug 1905, Queensland Government Family History Research Service, 1905/C/1716.
[21] Marriage record of Julia Madeline BARLOW to Herbert William JONES, 7 Sep 1940, Queensland Government Family History Research Service, 1940/C/3889.
[22] Death Certificate, Albert August BARLOW; Obituary, Albert August BARLOW.