It’s been 3 and a half years since I last wrote about George Marsh Halliday, and the one thing that always remained in the back of my mind was that I couldn’t kill him.
Until today.
I was supposed to be looking into the cross-pollination within the Australian Halliday families (which will still become because … webs …), and I wondered if there were any new avenues to look at since I last searched properly in 2018. And an Ancestry hint popped up regarding a newspaper article (thank you, Trove) reporting on a death in November 1862 in Reedbeds, South Australia.
Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner!
The exact same story had also appeared in the Adelaide Observer on 22 November 1862
I don’t know that it is exactly something to be hugely excited about – he gave his life, after all, trying to recapture a wild duck, and presumably he knew he couldn’t swim – but I am pleased that I am finally able to give George’s story some closure.
The fact that the article says he left only one child implies that his eldest son, Alfred, had also died before 1862 – the remaining son, Albert, remained in South Australia and managed to not marry someone he was related to (which is a minor miracle).
So never give up on your brick walls or your dead ends! You never know what else is out there that may pop up on a later search!
The Family Mess 
Albert Halliday was my great grandfather. From research I was lead to believe that his father was drunk and fell of bullocks wagon and died.
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Hi. I think George’s half-brother, Thomas, fell out of his dray after being at the pub and was found dead the next morning.
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Sadly I could have asked my grandfather about his parents and never thought too. At that stage I wasn’t interested in ancestory. It was only in the past two years that I realised that Albert was my great grandfather. His name had only been mentioned once that I recall as Bert. Bert had owned the house. Weird when I think about it as Bert was her father.
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