BLACK, James

1839 - 1908  (69 years)

• Name	BLACK, James  [1]
  Born	20 Jan 1839	Kirkwell Ireland   [1]
  Gender	Male
  Died	29 Dec 1908	Boulder, Victoria, Australia   [1]
  Person ID	I21955	My Genealogy
  Last Modified	16 Sep 2023

  
  

  Father	BLACK, Thomas,   b. 30 Nov 1806, Gerve, airshire
  Relationship	natural
  Mother	CLARK, Mary Ann,   b. 22 Apr 1812, Greenock, Renfrewshire
  Relationship	natural
  Family ID	F6332	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	MCCONNON, Marion,   b. 14 Aug 1843, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia ,   d. 4 May 1913, West Melbourne, Victoria  (Age 69 years)
  Married	Jan 1870	Hokitika, West Coast, New Zealand   [1]
  Children	1. BLACK, Abigail Vida,   b. 29 Dec 1873, Hokitika, Westland, West Coast, New Zealand ,   d. 10 Nov 1945, Toronto, Ontario, Canada  (Age 71 years)  [natural]   2. BLACK, Alexander James,   b. 24 Jun 1876,   d. 21 Dec 1943, Kogarah, New South Wales  (Age 67 years)  [natural]   3. BLACK, Thomas Henry Gilbert,   b. 1878, New Zealand ,   d. 21 Aug 1924, Perth, Western Australia, Australia  (Age 46 years)  [natural]   4. BLACK, Tasman Dingwall,   b. 19 Mar 1881, Tasmania, Australia ,   d. 31 Jan 1937, Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, Australia  (Age 55 years)  [natural]
  Last Modified	16 Sep 2023
  Family ID	F5906	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Notes

  Extract from “A THINKING REED” by Barry Jones The ancestor who travelled furthest was the Orcadian James Black, Abigail’s son-in-law, who left Kirkwall in the late 1860s for a gold rush in the south island of New Zealand, resettled in Tasmania around 1880, then joined the Western Australian gold rush. He married Marion McConnon, governess, in Hokitika, New Zealand in January 1870. I visited Orkney in February 2004 because I wanted to capture a sense of its remoteness, speculating on how far James Black had been pushed by poverty or pulled by a sense of adventure. Settled from the Stone Age, Orkney and Shetland were later invaded by the Vikings, belonged to Norway until 1469 and Kirkwall is the second most remote town in Scotland. Driven by poverty, Abigail and James must have shared an iron determination to travel so far. My descent came through my mother’s absconding father,Alec Black: he was Abigail’s grandson and James’ son. Educated in Tasmania, he joined the Salvation Army and was an evangelist in Auckland for some years, before returning to Australia and marrying Ruth Potter in Geelong. Charming, but treacherous, he deserted when my mother was six and I suspect this influenced her wariness of males.

  
  

• Sources

  [S320] Ancestry Family Trees, (Name: Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members.;), Ancestry Family Tree.