How can I find out what happened to Thomas McLevie after 1871?
Q I am trying to track down my maternal grandfather’s birth father after the 1871 census. My grandfather William Edward McLevie, born on 8 August 1879, was adopted between the censuses of 1881 and 1891 by William Lythgoe, after which he too was known as William Lythgoe.
William McLevie’s birth certificate shows his parents as Thomas and Mary McLevie, and I also obtained their marriage certificate dated 25 July 1879. I did find William with his mother as visitors on the 1881 census, but after that I have found no trace of either Thomas or Mary.
Janette Gill il
A The General Register
Office (GRO) indexes at www.gro.gov.uk/gro revealed that the birth of your great grandfather
Thomas Davies McLevie was registered in 1851 in the Wrexham registration district on the Welsh/
English border. You already know that he married Mary
Jane Morris in July 1879, and that his son was born in August 1879.
In outward passenger lists (1852–1915) from Victoria, Australia, available on the website of the Public Record Office Victoria ( prov. vic.gov.au), I found a “T McLevie” on the Rotorua in 1880. He was heading for Wellington in New Zealand. At 25 he was slightly younger than Thomas would have been, but the date of travel does fit with later evidence.
Thomas seems to have travelled to New Zealand in March 1880. When he died there in 1927, the cemetery records indicated that he had lived in the country for 48 years before his death. This would be c1879/1880.
The site Find A Grave ( findagrave. com) has a record for “Thomas Davis McLevie”, born 1851 in England, died 15 1 May 1927 in Dunedin City, Otago, New Zealand. The details indicate that after he came to New Zealand he married Charlotte (1858–1925), with whom he appears to have had two children: Muriel Mary McLevie (1896–1951) and Edward Mitchell McLevie (1901–1964). All four are buried in the same grave in the Northern Cemetery in Dunedin.
‘New Zealand, Marriage Index, 1840–1937’ on Ancestry ( ancestry. co.uk) has an 1887 marriage record for “Thomas Davis Mc Levie”. A record on FamilySearch ( familysearch. org) reveals that Charlotte’s maiden name was Haig.
Ancestry’s collection ‘New Zealand – New Zealand, Bankruptcy Notices, 1893–1904’ has an 1899 bankruptcy notice for Thomas served while he was working as a farmer in Cambrian. The site also has a record of Thomas on the New Zealand electoral roll in 1911.
His children seem to have had interesting lives too. For example, the National Library of New Zealand’s site Papers Past ( paperspast.natlib.govt. nz) has a photo of an Edward Mitchell McLevie, who may be Thomas’ son, from the Timaru Herald on 9 August 1934. The inscription reads, “S. P. Andrew (N.Z.) Photo. THE REV. E. M McLEVIE, curate of St. Matthew’s, Masterton, who has been appointed Vicar of Roseneath, Wellington.”
Another son, Ronald, named Thomas and Charlotte on his service records. They’re in the collection ‘New Zealand, World War I Service Records, 1914–1920’ on Ancestry. Ronald described his mother as Scottish.
Further research in New Zealand records should shed more light on Thomas, Charlotte and their children. Emma Jolly