As mentioned in the previous research note, Charles Cruickshank’s life had been proving elusive. There were no Charles Cruickshanks who married or died in Victoria between 1852 and 1910 – other than two who married in 1880 and 1906, which seemed a bit late. There were scant mentions on Trove and too many on Ancestry and Find My Past . What was needed was one crucial link. The identification of Charles Edward Cruickshank from the Blue Books provided that link.

After completing the previous research note, I decided to do another search on Trove for family notices for “Cruickshank.” To my surprise, up came a death notice for “C E Cruickshank, for many years clerk of petty sessions at Sandhurst, Ballarat, and Castlemaine.” He died in Fochabers, Scotland, on 3 August 1871, so a return to the old country and a death [01]. A matching death notice in the Elgin Courant and Morayshire Advertiser was then found on Find My Past . This had him as simply Charles Cruickshank [02].

Referring back to the previous research note, the man who was a clerk in Sandhurst, Ballarat and Castlemaine in the Blue Books was listed as C Cruickshank. The man who was previously a clerk in the Audit Office was the one listed as Charles Edward Cruickshank or C E Cruickshank, so the clerks of courts and audit were the same man.

Next was a search on the invaluable ScotlandsPeople website for a Charles Cruickshank who died in Scotland on 3 August 1871 and there he was [03]. His death registration gave me his age, his parents (John Cruickshank and Jane Cruickshank née Scott), and the fact that his father had been the “Minister of Glass,” a parish in Scotland. The Scottish Deaths and Burials Register on Find My Past also gives his birth date as 11 December 1815 [04]. A further search on ScotlandsPeople for a birth in around 1815 found a Church of Scotland attestation record for Charles Cruickshank, born on 11 December 1815, to John Cruickshank, minister of Glass [05].

With some firm foundations of birth and death, it was then a lot easier to find records and family trees on Ancestry , Find My Past , and Find a Grave .

What made the link particularly surprising was that the records in Scotland were for Charles Cruickshank, not Charles Edward Cruickshank. If not for the death notice on Trove for C E Cruickshank, the link to the Scottish records would have continued to be difficult.

Cruickshank was 36 when he was appointed Assistant Commissioner of Crown Lands for the Gold Fields [Assistant Gold Commissioner], so what was his career up to that point and when did he arrive in Victoria?

Charles appears in the 1851 England, Wales, and Scotland Census (30 March 1851) [06] as a visitor to his brother-in-law’s family at The Manse in Glass, Banffshire, Scotland. William Duguid had married Charlotte Cruickshank and succeeded John Cruickshank as the minister in Glass. Charles is recorded as 35, unmarried, and “Late commandant anamaboo.” More on this in a later Research Note.

This also helps us with a timeframe for his migration to Victoria. Charles would have arrived in Australia some time between August 1851 (allowing for a minimum of five months after the census) and November 1852, when he was appointed Assistant Commissioner of Crown Lands for the Gold Fields.

Charles also appears in the 1871 England, Wales, and Scotland Census (2 April 1871), living with his sister, Jessie, in Fochabers, Scotland, where he died later in the year. He is 55 and a “Retired officer victorian civil service” [07]. Accordingly, he returned to Scotland between June 1869 (four months after his last known entry in the Victoria Government Gazette) and April 1871.

A question remains… Where did the middle name “Edward” come from, apparently in Australia only? Sometimes the Blue Books and Victoria Government Gazette used a middle name or initial to differentiate from someone else with the same name, but so far there is no hint of “Edward” outside of the Victorian Government documents and that one mention on Trove .