50-Day Family History Blogging Challenge - Day 28
Fragments of Family History – The Family of William Stephens and Mary Newman Buckman - Thomas Howard Stephens
Jennifer Jones from TRACKING DOWN THE FAMILY has initiated a 50-Day Family History Blogging Challenge. This is a big writing commitment, but I have decided to participate. I have decided my topic will be “Fragments of Family History”. I will write short posts of newspaper items or single stories connected to my family history. This may expand over the 50 days.
Thomas Howard Stephens
Thomas Howard Stephens was born in 1843, the third son and sixth child of William Stephens and Mary Newman Buckman.1 Like his brother George Spencer Stephens, he was baptised at St Mary’s Catholic Cathedral, Sydney.2
William and Mary followed the English naming pattern for their first four children but dispensed with it for Thomas’ elder brother George Spencer Stephens. Had they still been following it for Thomas, he should have been named William after his father or after his paternal grandfather. However, his paternal grandfather was not part of his son’s life, so he was unlikely to be named after him. They had no brothers or Uncles named Thomas.
Like his two brothers and two sisters before him, Thomas Howard Stephens did not live long. His name was not passed on in the family stories. I do not know when he died. New South Wales did not make registration of births, deaths or marriages compulsory until 1856. He may be in a burial register, but I am yet to find it. Like many of his siblings, he is only known through the entry on the death certificate of their mother, Mary.
New South Wales Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, NSW Government, Baptism Record of Thomas Stevens, son of William and Mary, Reference No. 336/1843.
Ibid.