LIST 20 - 1805 MUSTER - DEUXIEME DIZAINE - NORFOLK ISLAND

 
 
The second muster presented for Norfolk Island is the 1805 Muster which took 
place in February of that year and reputedly contained the name of every man, 
woman and child present on the island at that date. The list printed here 
contains a subset of those people, namely 100 members of the "Deuxieme Dizaine", 
(54 males and 46 females). 
 
The information presented on each child includes:
 
 family name
 Christian name
 date of birth 
 place of birth
 parents' names 
 parents' civil status at the time of the child's birth
 parents' marital status at the time of the child's birth 
  age grouping 
 whether on or off stores 
 surname as it appears in the original document
 reference number linking the entry back to the original source document. 
 
The list is presented alphabetically ordered; firstly on the child's father's 
name, secondly on the child's Christian name. This was done to preserve 
the family groupings. Just what determined the order of the names on the 
original muster has not been decoded at this time.
 
The date & place of birth and parental details are all "value added" 
information not found in the original muster.
 
All these children of the "Deuxieme Dizaine" were aged four and under at the 
time of this muster. Why Sarah Fletcher should be described as a "child above 
10 years" when she was only 2 would appear to be an error.
 
The dates of birth of eight of the children are unknown:
 
 Mary Beachey [D0874]
 Elizabeth Chipman [D0696]
 Henry Dutton [D0737]
 John Garth [D0765]
 Eleanor Hibbins [D0893]
 James Smith [D0748]
 Charles Westlake [D0795]
 Richard Westlake [D0792]
 
although further research may brings these to light.
 
The children of officials (Thomas Hibbins) and of the military (Richard Barnes, 
Samuel Beachey, Anthony Fletcher, Samuel Marsden, George Whitfield) are 
listed under their father's surname. As in the 1802 muster, in the original 
document, all the children with convict mothers, are listed under their 
mother's surname at the time of her arrival on the island. Exceptions to this 
rule being the children of; Henry Fulton, Thomas Hodgets and Joshua Peck. 
Perhaps the Hodgets could be explained by the fact that they were married 
at Port Jackson before coming to the island and the Fultons were married in 
Ireland.
 
"Place of birth" has three possibilities; born on the island "NI", born 
on the mainland "PJ", born overseas "CF". There do not appear to be any childhood 
arrivals on this list. William Barnes was the only child born on the mainland, 
all the rest of the children were born on the island. The place of birth 
of James Smith has not been determined.
 
There were 29 children "on stores" and 71 were "off stores". It was mentioned 
in the discussion of the 1802 Muster of Norfolk Island that there were a whole 
raft of children not mentioned in that muster because they were "off stores", 
well in the 1805 Muster here they all are ! 
 
As noted and regretted in the 1802 Muster, the exact ages or dates of birth 
of children are not recorded, they are merely lumped into one of three 
groups; "above 10 years", "above 2 years", "under 2 years". And this only 
applies to the children "on stores", for the children "off stores" the situation 
is even worse with the one all inclusive group of "child of all 
descriptions". No help to the genealogist here.
 
One of the few 'remarks' made about entires in this muster relates to 
Eleanor Hibbins and the sad fact that she had 'died since this return was made 
out'.
 
Of the 26 children in the 1802 Muster, exactly half 13 appear in this muster.

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