Looking for William Frederick Hamilton - b.abt 1830 Fredrikshald, Norway
Thank you, Tracy for your warm welcome email the other day.
Geoff Morris suggested I join this group while talking the other day through Rootstech.
My name is Brooke and I live in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
I have been working on my family tree for some years now, but as we all know far too well… those brick walls are just annoying.
This one relates to Norway.
My 2nd GGFather – William Frederick Hamilton was born around 1830 in Fredrickshald, Norway (now Halden) and died in Eaglehawk, Victoria, Australia on 6th July 1902. He was 72 years old.
I estimate he arrived in Australia around 1848. I come up with this date from his death certificate as it states that he was in the Colony of Victoria for 54 years.
His death certificate states he was born in Fredrickshald Norway.
His death certificate states his father was James William Hamilton (Master Mariner) and Mother Annie Maria Hamilton formally Not known.
William Frederick married twice while in Victoria, Australia.
Marriage 1 – 1859 Mary Neilson
This marriage certificate states his father is William Hamilton (Customs House Officer) and mother is Maria Hamilton. William Frederick states his age here as 30 years old.
This marriage produced 4 Girls.
Marriage 2 – 1868 Charlotte Josephine Meurillion
This marriage certificate states his father is Peter Hamilton (Inspector of Customs) mother being Maria Kean? William Frederick states his age here as 34 years old, even though this marriage is some 9 years after the first.
This marriage produced 9 children 5 boys, 4 girls
Both Marriage certificates state he was born in Norway and so do all the birth certificates I have for the children.
As you can see, we have 3 different fathers stated over 3 different documents.
I managed to find on the Norwegian Archives the 1835 stat censes, Page 21 – Hamilton 248 and listing numbers of people and ages. Can someone please advise what the 248 means?
If my William Frederick was part of this family he would have been around 5 years old, but that age group is not marked on this document.
To date, I am yet to find a birth record for him or any emigration or immigration / naturalization documents for him.
I found this book the other day – SLAEGTEN STANG on page 381- it states May 25 1842 Fredrikshald shop that belonged to Merchant Hamilton and now wholesaler Carl Meyer.
Could this be my Hamilton? I searched this book and this was the only entry with Hamilton.
Geoff suggested to try looking for the Customs Records for Fredrickshald to see if I could find the father, as being a Customs officer was a pretty important job. Can anyone assist as to where to look for these?
Back in 2017 I had an Ancestry ProGeonealogist help with this brickwall.
What she came up with was, there were 140 Hamilton’s listed in Norway and the vast majority of them lived in Fredrikshald and they were mostly in the shipping industry but some were clerks and merchants. There seemed to be an enclave of them… most likely from Scotland. I do have some Hamilton’s in my tree from Scotland, but they are connected to a different branch of the family.
She could not find a birth record.
She mentioned the Halden History Book and said that there is a name register, but it is in Norwegian. Is this history book available online to view, or could someone please take a look at this book and see if there are any Hamilton’s listed?
I had my grandfather’s DNA tested some years back now, he is 98 and going strong. He is the grandson of William Frederick Hamilton and the reason for my research on William Frederick Hamilton.
Thank you and stay safe in this crazy world we now live in.
Regard
Brooke
個答案
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I'll have to study through your information more than I have the time to right now, but here is a start for you. A couple of years ago, the Norwegian National Archives put a global search box on their home page for all their transcribed records. Also, over the past year they have greatly accelerated the rate of transcription of their records. Here is the result of just putting Hamilton in this global search:
https://www.digitalarkivet.no/en/search/persons?s=hamilton
I suspect by the time you assemble these 756 results into one family tree you will find your man even though not all records are transcribed yet.
Putting in William Hamilton gives these results:
Putting in William Frederick Hamilton doesn't given any results with all three terms but that may be a spelling issue.
There are better ways to do more specific searches and use wildcards I'll try later. Also there are quirks in the database to be aware of, such as the fact that a birth record in the 1830 will usually not include the child's surname. Including a surname will only give fathers and mothers.
Here is a search from specifically birth records, searching for last name hamilt* with roll of father:
Look at these 59 results to see who the children are.
I've got to get ready to go off to work and will look more at this later unless he happens to be in one of those 59 records or if someone else on this board has solved this for you by then.
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Thanks Gordon,
I greatly appreciate your response.
I have some work ahead of me.
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Brooke,
As I’ve had time to think about your search on and off, I’ve come up with a few thoughts. I hope a few are original and not just things you have already tried!
1) Looking in Family Tree, if I search for Hamilton born in Norway,
https://www.familysearch.org/tree/find/name?self=%7Chamilton%7C0%7C0&birth=Norway%7C%7C1%7C1
there are 41 results. Not all are exactly Hamilton and not all are in Norway, but of those that are, have you gone into the Change Log and messaged every single person who has contributed to every appropriate match?
I would also suggest reviewing these records, attaching all the sources you can find from FamilySearch and from Digitalarkivet. This type of cluster research can sometimes bring up surprising findings.
2) Speaking of FamilySearch sources, going into the location search system for Norway and searching on last name Hamilton like this:
given 171 records with about half that are not attached to anyone in FamilyTree. Working through those and getting them all attached or entered into Family Tree might lead somewhere.
3) You stated that your grandfather has had his DNA tested. Which site did you test him with? There are a lot of Norwegians on My Heritage and if you did not test there, you should go ahead and upload his test results there or even consider retesting directly with My Heritage. Since William Frederick is your grandfather’s grandfather, that is well within the range of hoping for good matches. This does assume that some of your g-g-grandfather’s close relatives stayed in Norway.
4) Checking in My Heritage for Hamiltons born in Norway, there are at least ten people that have family trees that contain them. Have you tried to contact all of these people?
5) Looking at the 1865 census, there are only 21 results, as I may have mentioned before.
I think most if not all of these are already in Family Tree. It would still be good to attach these census records to the individuals in Family Tree to give a good starting base for cluster research and work back from these 21 to see what you can find by adding or confirming birth, marriage and death information and adding sources.
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