A COMPILATION OF CATO RECORDS IN AUSTRALIA

Compiled by Joy Whaite

This revision of "Cato Records in Australia" first published in 2002 has only been possible with the help of very many members of the extended CATO family, whose help has been acknowledged under each family record.

Because of new information continually being made available, especially on line, this compilation is most likely incomplete. Details of updates, extra data and errors would be much appreciated by the author.

Joy Whaite

P O Box 814 Wauchope NSW 2446 Australia

e-mail:history@whaite.com

Note: To preserve the privacy of living persons, Cato Records and Spouses Families stop at end of FOURTH Generation but details of later generations which have the notation "see 5....... are available on request to family members.

Copyright: Joy Whaite Bellangry NSW 2007

PART ONE: FREDERICK CATO CO- FOUNDER OF MORAN & CATO AND HIS RELATIONS

PART TWO: FAMILIES OF CATO SPOUSES - SPOUSES FAMILIES

PART THREE: MISCELLANEOUS CATO RECORDS

INTRODUCTION

In the course of researching my husband's WHAITE family history, the families of their spouses were also followed up.

One of these was Cato, the family of my sister-in-law Olive, whose father Leonard was one of the nephews of Frederick Cato.

Frederick was the co-founder of the now defunct grocery firm of Moran & Cato who, in their heyday, had stores all over the eastern states of Australia.

Frederick was descended from William Cato, the younger of two brothers, who came to Hobart in 1831, while his brother Joseph arrived in 1832. The brothers married into many prominent Tasmanian families and both their families are included in these records. By the end of the century, most Cato families had gone to live in Victoria, with a couple of families in NSW, Olive's family in SA and quite a few families had settled in NZ.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For more personal details of Cato families, I am thankful for a great deal of help from Ellen Davill of Broken Hill NSW.

Early details of the family in Tasmania were provided by Tasmanian Archives Office, whose card index has been checked for a few selected families [TACI].

The Hobart branch of Family History Society of Tas checked later newspaper records while details of Willam Cato's brief stay in WA were supplied by J S Battye Library in Perth.

The main sources re Frederick Cato are:

1. "Growing Together" written by Una Porter, Frederick's youngest daughter based upon his diaries and published in 1981 a limited edition of 1000 copies.[GT]

2. "If God Prospers Me" by historian Ann Blainey, written at Una Porter's request and published 1990 Melbourne Vic. [IGPM].

3. "The Keil Family in Australia" in 2 vols. by L R East published 1974 Mt Waverley has in Vol. II a great deal of material about Cato's. The author is related by marriage to George Kiel who married the elder daughter of William Cato's son Edward.

Details of other publications are shown in family records in the text.

GENEALOGY

1. Each person in this genealogy has a unique genealogical code made up of:

a. The generation they were born in.

b. The number of their family in that generation.

c. the place of the person in that family in order of birth.

2. In the heading "Family of" the first name is always that of a family member, with female surnames being shown in brackets and males in capitals, denoting the surname of the children that follow. The numbers after ex show the grandparents, while those after see show their descendents.

For example

The code for Leonard Frederick Cato is 4.28.10

The family of Leonard Frederick Cato is 4.28 ex 3.11.2 i.e. of Fourth Generation, Family 28 and he is 10th child.

Entry for 4.28.10 shows Leonard married Louisa Rennie (Pace) and see 5.57 shows their descendents. Though not shown in here, 5.57 is their family and 5.57.1 shows their only child Olive who married Harry Maitland Whaite.

Leonard's grandparents were Family 3.11.2 Edward CATO and Catherine (Nimmo) and ex 2.2.3 takes you back to the earlier generation.

All the info about a person is shown in their entry i.e. Birth, Death, any Witness entries and lastly Occupation, before their Residence upon Marriage. This is followed by details of their marriage, then the name of their Spouse, followed by her Residence at the time of marriage and then details of her Birth & Death and sometimes, if nothing further is known about her family, details of her parents in [ ]. Should further info be known about parents and family, this is shown in Section SPOUSES FAMILIES under Spouses Code No.

CERTIFICATES

Wherever possible full reference numbers are given in the text, so a certificate may be bought if needed from the appropriate State Registry or if in NSW, from a Transcription Agent. Reference numbers follow the year of each event. While certificates are shown in an index, they may only be available to family members, under various State Privacy Acts.

IMPORTANT: WHEN CHECKING CERTIFICATE REFERENCES, USE NAMES DETAILED IN " B/D/M/REG AS" NOT THOSE USED BY FAMILY MEMBERS.

Only those certificates marked * have been sighted by the author and full genealogical details are included in the text.

Unless otherwise mentioned, places shown after a reference are those where the event was registered, not necessarily where it occurred.

ABBREVIATIONS

as as recorded in the relevant index

b born

BC Birth Certificate

bp baptised

bu buried

crem cremated

d died

DC Death Certificate

F Father

m married

M Mother

MC Marriage Cert

PE Peter Evans of Melbourne - WWI records now available on line

reg registered

/ is used to separate 2 records of the same event e.g. b 3/5 Dec

THE SURNAME OF CATO

The only mention of Cato as an English surname, so far found, is merely its derivation from the Latin cat-us "sagacious".

The International Genealogical Index, compiled by Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, mainly from Parish Records has one English record as early as 1578 of christening of a John Cato, as well as a few others all from Tring in Hertfordshire up to the end of that century. Of course, there may well be some from other parishes, not yet filmed.

Scottish sources mention one English record, that of a Thomas Cato dated 9 December 1604 of Crimble near Cartmel Lancashire and say that Cato is a locational name and variation of Catto, from a hamlet in parish of Landmoth cum Catto near Northallerton in North Riding of Yorkshire

When it comes to Scotland, however, there are some differences as to the origin of Cato, mostly as a variation of other surnames

One account attributes the origin of Cato to the Boernician tribe of the Scottish-English border region living in Aberdeenshire well before the Norman Conquest and suggests it may come from "Chetel" an Old Norse and Old English given name. This reference mentions that the family lived in Norfolk

One Scottish derivation is said to be from pre 7th century Old English Catta, a personal byname from catt "wild cat" and Norse "oe" or "o" meaning an island. Another account has it as being a locational name from a "lost" village of Catto or Cattow in Aberdeenshire, the remnants of which are now covered by the waters of the Cattofield reservoir. Most derivations say that the roots of its Scottish origin lie near Buchan in Aberdeenshire, which county is most common in IGI records 1648 and onwards. There is an earlier record in 1576 of the marriage on 5 February of Isbell Catlow and Wilyem Duncan at St Nicholas Aberdeen.

An even earlier date of 1463 applies to a witness in Aberdeen named Andrew Cattoch of which name Catto and hence Cato is said to be a modulated form, as in Bullo from Bulloch.

Some European countries say Cato is a reference to the noted Romans of that name e.g. Dionysius a 4th century writer and Marcus Portius Cato 234 -149 BC a Roman statesman.

The origin of our Cato family as being from Ivinghoe Bucks England is problematical. It was mainly based on family vaults said to be in this parish, with inscriptions wrongly ascribed as early as 15th century. The vaults are no longer in existence, having been demolished or built over since about 1930, when a Cato family member visited them and noted down the inscriptions. The family story that mentions the existence of these vaults is based upon the recollections of a Cato child, then about seven years old, who is said to have been shown them by his grandfather, just before that child left to sail for Australia.

References:

Surnames of United Kingdom. A Concise Etymological Dictionary. Henry Harrison Vols 1 and 2 The Eaton Press London 1912

www.ancestry.com Learning Centre 11 Dec 2006 from Dictionary of American Family Names Oxford University Press ISBN 0-19-508137-4

www.historicalnames.com 5 Dec 2006

wwwhouseofnames.com 13 Dec 2006

www.surnamedb.com 11 Dec 2006