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Sergeant - looking for decendants Armagh/Seagoe

Robert William SERGEANT b:1766

Stewart Sergeant b: 1808 Migrated to Australia 1853

Stewart Sergeant emmigrated to Australia to the Colonyof Victoria in 1853 and established himself in an area East of Melbourne called Box Hill

Stewart took an active role in public affairs in the early history of Box Hill. He was a member of the Nunawading Road Board before the inception of the Shire Council. He was greatly interested in establishing the first school in the district & it was erected on land on the opposite corner to his home where Box Hill College sits today. The school was christened Seagoe Common School after his hometown in Northern Ireland. He was one of the first to take up the matter of a cemetery in Box Hill after his daughters Emily, aged 20, and Sarah, aged 17, both died in 1864 & were buried at Kew Cemetery, quite a distance from Box Hill. He was a founding member of the cemetery trust & served from 1872 until his death in 1903 (29 years).

mdicko23@bigpond.com

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The tithe applotment records for 1834 have Stewart Sergeant farming in Bocomra townland (more commonly spelled Bocombra), in the parish of Seagoe: 

http://www.irishgenealogyhub.com/armagh/tithe-applotments/seagoe-parish.php

Bocombra today has largely been built on and forms a residential area in the new town of Craigavon. It’s on the Old Lurgan Rd. Nelson’s Body Shop and DFI Beds are in the middle of the townland (108 acres). But in the early 1800s it would all have been agricultural land.

If the family were Church of Ireland (ie Anglican) you may be able to find Stewart’s baptism.  Seagoe Church of Ireland has records from 1672 onwards (with some gaps). No other denomination has records for 1808. There’s a copy of the Church of Ireland records in PRONI (the public record office) in Belfast.

Griffiths Valuation of 1864 does not list any Sergeant households in Bocombra then so it appears they had either died out or left the area.

Elwyn, IrelandXO Volunteer ☘IrelandXO Volunteer

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