Charles Thomas Walter McKinlay of New Zealand, part 2

In Charles Thomas Walter McKinlay of New Zealand, part 1 I described what I had found concerning the reason why someone on Ancestry had listed "Panama in route to New Zealand" as the location for his death. In my search I had added a few to do items:

1. who is this F. B. Thomas that his mother married?
2. find details about his marriage to Isabella
3. find a notice of death in the newspapers
4. what else can I find?

I started with #3, seeing if I could find a notice of Charles' death in a newspaper. So I turned to Papers Past which is a digitized archives of not just newspapers but of magazines, journals, letters, diaries, and parliamentary papers for New Zealand. I was hoping to find the Auckland Weekly listed for 1918 but no such luck so I did a focused search in the hopes of finding another article about Charles.

Search results from Papers Past for "McKinlay", in the Otago region between 22 Apr 1918 and 31 Dec 1918.

Note the circled article, "Late Private C. McKinlay" from the 24 May 1918 edition of The Clutha Leader. A quick click on the link brought up the following article found on page 5 of The Clutha Leader:

"Late Private C. McKinlay," The Clutha Leader, 24 May 1918, p. 5, col. 5; digital images, Papers Past - National Library of New Zealand (https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/ : accessed 21 Jan 2018), Newspapers.

The above clipping provided more details about his death and his funeral that were not found in his service file. The same article was repeated in the Bruce Herald on 27 May 1918.

What about Charles' marriage to Isabella? For that I went to the New Zealand Births, Deaths & Marriages Online Search and Order Historical Records site. There I did a search for a bride with the forename of "Isabella", a groom with the surname of "McKinlay" and a date range starting at 1 Jan 1902.

[Why 1902 you ask? Charles would have been 14 years old that year. Although English Common Law allowed girls to marry at age 12 and boys at age 14 it was rare but you want to take in account those rare cases in your searches. The ages weren't changed in New Zealand until the Marriage Amendment Act 1933.]

Search results from New Zealand Births, Deaths & Marriages Online Search and Order Historical Records for bride's forename "Isabella", groom's surname "McKinlay", starting 1 Jan 1902.

ND$ 25 later for a "Marriage printout from 1 Jan 1875" and waiting a week resulted in the digitized copy ending up in my inbox of the "Copy of Register of Marriage" for Charles Thomas Walter McKinlay, son of James McKinlay and Johan McKinlay Thomas (m/s Riddell) and Isabella Margaret Emily Smith, daughter of Alexander Thomson Smith and Mary Maria Smith (m/s Williams) that took place on 25 Oct 1915 in the Congregational Church on Great King Street, Dunedin.

As for what else I found? I dropped by Findmypast.com but nothing new appeared for Charles Thomas Walter McKinlay that I hadn't found in Archive New Zealand, the Historical BMD site, or on Ancestry. However, on FamilySearch.org a record was listed in the "New Zealand, Archives New Zealand, Probate Records, 1843-1998" collection. After downloading the 10 pages from that file [You do save documents you find on the Internet to your own computer, right?] I read the file. No surprises were found in the file but it is always good to gather all the documents and details you can find when doing your research.

You might have noticed I still haven't answered the question concerning who Charles' mother, Johan Riddell, marry after the death of her husband James McKinlay...that is for another day since I'm still working through the various records to untangle that particular mess. However, as a teaser to a future blog post, the only New Zealand marriage recorded between 1888 and 1906 for a "Thomas" with the initials of "F. B." is Frederick Blanchard Thomas to Annie McKinery. The ordered marriage registration unfortunately only clouds the issue since many recorded facts in the document don't match the details previously recorded for Johan Riddell. Such is the life of a genealogy and family history researcher!