Family statistics

I like to play with statistics. In a previous post Individual Arrivals in Australia I blogged about which previous generation arrived in Australia. This time I decided to look at States of arrival, the arrival numbers in each branch of our families and then whether the arrivals were single, couples or family group arrivals. The results are interesting.





There is no real surprise here. My husband's families for generations come from an area about 1.5 hours from north to south mid way between Sydney and Brisbane. Most of them had land and were well settled. However, my families have tended to move around quite a lot and their State of Arrival patterns are more widespread. 


The graph below show the number of individual arrivals in both my husbands and my families. This prompted me to look further at the type of arrivals. Did they arrive as single individuals, couples or as family groups?




My father's branch is the only branch of our families that arrived as family units, parents with children. Two of the three convicts on my mother's side were married and their wives and children arrived later and are two of the three family groups. One of my mother's single arrivals may have been with a brother and sister but I can't find the shipping record. 

One family group on my husband's mothers side arrived en masse with three generations of family members. There were also two orphan sisters and a widowed mother and daughter who arrived together (I've counted them as families). My husband's great grandfather started his trip from Ireland with a wife and two children. His wife died on the voyage and by the following year both his children had died. Not one of our families arrived as a couple without children.

What prompted them to move across to the other side of the world? Sent, reunited, seeking a better life, adventure, hope, fear, loneliness, discrimination, arguments, tragedy, love or war. The list could go on. For some we know, but for others it may never be known.


Comments

  1. A post after my own heart Sharon. I find stats and graphics such a useful way to see our family details. I was so sad to read the story of your husband's great-grandfather. To set out with so much hope only to have it dashed so quickly. How they kept going I'll never know....no choice I guess.

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  2. Hi Sharon, I too found your post inspiring so I've done a little analysis myself based on your ideas and it has really got me thinking. I haven't done my husband's side of the family yet so I've just concentrated on my own ancestors. My convict ancestor first to come out to Australia in 1816. http://ancestralresearchjournal.blogspot.com/2013/01/crunching-numbers-in-preparation-for.html
    Thanks for the inspiration, Sandra

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  3. Off to look at your posts now Pauleen and Sandra.

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