This is my first visit to this page as a member. ableliz sent me here in the hope that someone here might be able to help me. My great-grandfather was a seaman who was known variously as Joseph Rock and Henry Rock. He seems to have changed his name after he was imprisoned for a year in Australia 1866-1867 as Joseph Rock (Alias Abrahams) 'Eastern City' 1857 because in 1869 he married in Greymouth, New Zealand as Henry E. Rock and again in Dunedin NZ in 1875 as Henry Edwin Rock. I can find no record of the death of his first wife having died in New Zealand or Australia or of a divorce. The Grey River Argus of 18th April, 1871 has a report of him being stabbed by a fellow crew member of the 'Storm King' and being hospitalised in Melbourne and mentions that he was formerly connected to the 'p.s. Despatch'. Following his marriage to Alice Jane Horne in Dunedin in July, 1875 he fathered six children in New Zealand, two of whom didn't survive and they then moved to Australia in January, 1883 (can't find which ship) and had five more children in Sydney where they remained. On his Marriage Cert to Alice and on the NZ children's Birth Cert he is Henry Edwin Rock, born in Geelong, but his Death Certificate 5-12-1920 states Joseph Henry Rock aged 78 years, born in Dublin, parents Charles and Ann, 61 years in NSW.

I have not been able to find his birth in either Geelong or Dublin up until now. Quite a bit to unravel here but I do hope someone can help me with this.