The Beasley family of Wiveliscombe SOM

In 1841 Lewis is living in the Wellington Workhouse with his mother, Hannah nee BARREL and his younger siblings, but by 1851 he is lodging with his older brother, James and his wife, Harriet nee FARRENT, his mother having died in 1847. Lewis migrated to South Australia on the Omega in 1851 and his brother, James followed with his family on the same vessel from Liverpool via Plymouth on 28 July 1852. Apart from James and his family, brothers Stephen and Francis, also came to Australia. Francis and his wife, Elizabeth nee BEATON first child was born 18 January 1846 at Payneham SA. Unfortunately it is difficult to find records of arrivals into South Australia in the period 1841 to 1846. There is no sign of the arrival of Stephen either.

As with all pre-1837 English records, for the most part researchers are reduced to looking at parish registers and while they are quite detailoed from 1812, prior to then their content details was totally at the discression of the parish priest or clerk. Although many records are finding their way online, some for a fee and others free, for the most part researchers based in Australia needed to either travel or engage a local researcher to search through County Record Office material to gain fuller pictures of the lives of their English ancestors.

At the time of writing all Beasley ancestry has been compiled from online material held on the following websites: FamilySearch, FreeBMD, FreeREG, FindMyPast, The Genealogist, Ancestry, Online Parish Clerks, Somerset Parish Registers at Roootsweb and Somerset Record Office (index only). The attached charts summarises the findings from online trawling. At himes the family structures have been difficult to tease out as there were ofen Beasley men with the same given names living at the same time and in the same areas and the parish records of the day were not always helpful due to a paucity of recorded information.

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