The past week saw only occasional research in Trove and the last stages of transferring all of my notes from Evernote to OneNote. The latter process included a bit of a review and re-organisation of my notes.

I look at a note that I had created for my great-grandmother, Mary Hosking (née Hiah), last November and there was mention of a record I had found in MyHeritage about the death of a “James Moloney Teagar,” son of Ellen Teagar. I don’t think this made much sense at the time and I had completely forgotten about it.

Now it makes a lot of sense, so today I obtained a copy of the death certificate from BDM Victoria.

The name had been incorrectly indexed and was actually for James Molony Teagar, who died in Geelong in 1885 at the age of 25. His death was reported by Christopher Molony, does not list his father, and lists his mother as Ellen Teagar. The Teagar spelling is obviously incorrect, but it is interesting that it is used instead of Taker. Molony would have known Ellen as Taker, and it is Taker that is used in the 1865 [01] and 1866 [02] court cases mentioned in the previous Research Note. It also seems to confirm the Molony spelling used in the 1866 case.

James is described as a Bookmaker and died on 31 May 1885 at the age 25 from a cancer of the mesentery, from which he had been suffering for 18 months. Christopher is described as an “authorised agent” from Batesford, near Geelong, and reported the death. As noted last week, Christopher was a former police constable and owned the Derwent Hotel. He was also James’ biological father, though he still does not acknowledge it on the death certificate.

Molony is the correct spelling as it is also recorded on Christopher’s will and probate papers. He died on 22 August 1908.