The Margaret mystery?

Before I get into the story of Thomas Henderson after his wife died, I have to go back to last weeks post. When finalising my notes for the draft chapter on Thomas and Margaret Henderson, I could not find the details of the birth of their daughter, Margaret. So I went back to the records and tried to find it again. It was not there! Then I re-checked Joan Taylor's work and I noticed that she quoted the registers at St John's Parramatta. She said that she could not find the death of Thomas Henderson's wife Margaret, but found the birth of a daughter Margaret baptised on 30 October 1803.

Luckily the register is available electronically, and I was able to do a careful check. I looked at every baptism between Robert Henderson in 1796 and the end of 1805 – no baptism for any child of Thomas and Margaret Henderson (or Anderson). But I was able to find 'Margaret Anderson' in the burials section of the register - on the same date that Joan quoted for baby Margaret's baptism. I think Joan would have been using a microfilm reader to search the records and the format for baptism and burial entries are similar, so I assume that Joan (or one of her helpers) mistook the burial for a baptism.

Burial of Margaret Henderson at St John's Parramatta. Rev. Samuel Marsden always recorded the surname as Anderson. [at this time  letter 's' was often written like the letter 'f'.]

I have checked and double-checked my findings, and I am certain that this was the burial of Thomas Henderson's wife Margaret. She is described as 'convict', which rules out the subject of the burial as a baby! It is entirely possible that Margaret died in childbirth, but the baby would not have been baptised if it was stillborn, so would not be mentioned in the burial.

Putting this together with last week's demolition of the case for John, I have come to the conclusion that Robert Henderson was probably an only child!