Although I had grown up in a family with a naming convention that that had resulted in generations of Alexander Frazers I wasn’t immediately prepared to be wary of  ‘name hazards’ when I started my family tree research. The Frazer branch of the family was close to me, and so I had the insider’s knowledge of the names that were used, and took the substitution of middle names and nick-names for granted. It was only as I began to trace the Stewart branch of my family that I was introduced to the myriad research pitfalls that can arise when alternative names are used, and when a given name is recycled within every generation of a family.

In the 1960s a lovely couple called ‘Sep’ and ‘Tottie’ Stewart were the owners of the property ‘Waratah’ which was close to my home, ‘Werona’. My great aunts, Alma and Grace Frazer (who were my grandfather’s sisters), told me that ‘Sep’ was their cousin. They said that their mother, Agnes Jane, was the sister of Sep’s father, John. I thought that as I knew the names Agnes Jane Stewart, and Septimus Stewart, that would give me a good place to start as I began to research the Stewart branch. Indeed those two names might have been a helpful combination, had the ’Sep’ that I knew, actually been named ‘Septimus’. I was to discover that he was named Lindsay Septimus Raymond Stewart. To make matters more confusing, his gentle wife, who I only ever heard called ’Tottie,’ turned out to be named Lillian Mary Stewart (nee Sabien).

Fortunately it emerged that while my great grandma Agnes’ nephew was legally named ‘Lindsay’, not  ‘Septimus’, she had a younger brother who was named Septimus. In this instance my ‘accidental’ coupling of those names proved to be helpful - once I had got all their dates sorted! The information I had was still very meagre, and Agnes Jane Frazer (nee Stewart)’s death certificate ended up being one of the small number of certificates that needed to be purchased to cast further light on the research path. The important details it provided were her parents names: James Edward Stewart and Zarah Doody.

With a certificate in hand I naively assumed that the identification of the name of Agnes Stewart’s mother as Zarah was a straightforward fact. I had known Agnes’s daughters, Grace and Alma, very well as a child. Grace did all the book-keeping for the ‘Werona’ property. When I saw her name as the informant on the death certificate I thought that any details she provided would have to be accurate. I began to search for information about my great, great-grandmother believing that she was named ‘Zarah’ Doody. What I slowly discovered was that the wife of James Edward Stewart had been known by several names: Hannah, Norah/Nora and Honora. Some records even referred to her as Annie.

I learnt that James Edward Stewart is recorded as marrying Hannah Doody in Goulburn NSW early in Sept. 1857. The couple moved around a great deal throughout New South Wales and Victoria. They had 9 children, including Agnes Jane, (who was born in Sandhurst, Victoria on July 31, 1871). By  the early 1880’s the family was living in the St George region of Queensland. 

On May 30 1892, their daughter Agnes Jane, married Alexander Frazer in Charleville, Queensland.

Other researchers have recorded the parents of James Edward Stewart as John Stewart and Harriet Walker. His wife’s death certificate was issued in the name Honora Stewart. The certificate recorded the names of her parents as being Daniel Duday and Katherine Dillon. I have not been able to confirm the names of the ships that James Edward Stewart and Honora Doody arrived in Australia on.