You will find it posted at: bhuntsinger.tribalpages.com or use the quick link in the upper right hand corner of this site titled MITCHELLS OF FORFAR.
My decision has come after pondering the 1841 Scotland Census. It shows that the James Mitchell in the Dame Nellie Melba's family was born abt. 1828. We know from the obituary for our James and from his tombstone in the Armstrong Grove Cemetery, Armstrong, IA that he was born in 1822. Unless we find an error in the future I just don't think the link is valid. We may at some point find that these people were cousins. Therefore I have removed William Mitchell and Ann Fraser and their descendants from my current work. William and Ann are clearly the parents of David, the Australia builder, and his siblings.
What has my attention is another Mitchell family from the same 1841 Census. This is a Mitchell family from Marykirk (parish), Kincardineshire (county). It shows the father as David (b. abt 1781) ; the mother as Jane (b. abt 1793) and children: Mary (b. abt 1812), David (b. abt 1814), Williamina (b. abt 1818), Peter (b. abt 1820), James (b. abt 1822), John (b. abt 1826) and Ann (b. abt 1828).
This draws me to the notes several of us have from Barbara Jacobson, whose mother Bernice was a sister to my mother and was 11 years older than my mother. Bernice helped to care for James in his final months (as did others).
She writes: "James had two brothers, Peter and David. David served in the English Army and was serving with General John Mitchell in the Union of South Africa when James and Susan moved to Canada in 1854. David later joined General John Mitchell and settled in Queensland, Australia. David married an English girl and were the parents of two girls, Susan and Nellie. Peter married in England and his wife's name was Susan and they were the parents of four boys. All settled about 65 miles from Melbourne, Australia about 1886 or 1887. Peter visited James Mitchell in Iowa in 1886 on his way to Australia to visit David. Then shipped his family to Melbourne soon after." Then she reflects on the story that Dame Nellie Melba was the daughter of John Mitchell and was a first cousin of Grandma Moore's.
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NOTE 3/23/07- Reviewing ships arriving in Australia during the period likely for this David and Peter going to Australia, I found the following:
NAME, AGE, SHIP, DATE
MITCHELL, David 23 Hastings 30 May 1857
MITCHELL, David 25 Prince Consort 30 Mar 1864
MITCHELL, Peter 17 Scottish Wizard 5 Jun 1883
Certainly there are many ship lists yet to be researched.
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[We know that Dame Nellie was actually the daughter of David Mitchell of Forfar, the builder, not John. Grandma Moore was Flora Mitchell, the mother of Bernice, my mother, etc. It has also become clear to me as I have researched that many Mitchells went to Australia in that period. It's quite possible that the chase has been after the wrong James and the wrong David?? ]
Barbara went on to write that her mom thought our James was born in Kelso, Scotland near the English border and at his age 6 the family moved 10 miles into England where they had a 50-year contract on land where they raised sheep.
(NOTE 3/23/07: Does this paragraph conflict with Susan's obituary which says they married in 1851 and lived in England two years? Does that suggest they were living in Scotland at time of marriage? Or were they living in England at the time of the marriage and stayed there two more years? And again, both obituaries refer to Forfarshire?)
[ The Kincardineshire Mitchell family is the first time that I have found a David, James and Peter together in a single family, along with the birthdate for James being the same as our James. We know that David the Australian builder did not go to Africa; he went directly from Forfar to Australia.
We have complete documentation of our James and Susan in Canada and I think we are all comfortable from that point on. The problem continues to be linking James and Susan to their homeland.
I hope to web base my file (over 5000 names) this coming Fall. I'm waiting for a beta test to be completed for the site. It will allow all of us to see the work I've compiled with the help of everyone and will then allow each of us to be able to add to, edit, etc. I hope this will allow each of us to pool our best thoughts and work in a central place as we all have our individual stacks of research. Thanks to everyone who has shared their work to date.
I would be interested in your comments as a visitor to this site and I would appreciate knowing of any relevant research that you may have found regarding these issues in hopes that one day we will make the connection to the homeland of the Mitchells and Macfarlanes. ]
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