My 4 X Great Grandfather, Soldier and Settler. Michael Griffin was born in Galway, Ireland and married Mary Amos in Gloucester, Cotswold, England in 1783. Michael enlisted in the NSW Corps at Chatham, Kent, on 28th of September 1789 and sailed to Sydney on the Third Fleet ship Britannia in 1791. Thomas was born on the voyage out from England.

Michael's wife, Mary, died 1st of September 1794, six months after the birth of their youngest child, Lydia. Ann was then ten years old, and younger brothers, Nathaniel six, and Thomas three years old. There is no record of who looked after the children after mary's death, but Nathaniel appears as Drummer on the 1798 pay list of Captain Johnston’s Company, NSW Corps. Thomas also enlisted as a Drummer in 1799 . Ann married emancipist, Thomas Bates, at St.Philip’s Sydney on the 12th of May 1800. 

Michael was  present on Musters until 1796 for the NSW Corps, then on the 73rd Regiment, Invalid Company 1812 Pay List. He appears on the November 1828 Census as Griffen, M, aged 85, CF (Came Free) Britannia 1791, Protestant, Lodger with John McDonald, Pitt Town, reference G1469. 

Michael died on the 20th of February 1833 and is buried at St Mathew's Anglican Church cemetery, Windsor, NSW, with his younger daughter, Lydia and her two husbands, the same cemetery as Dennis' Gt Grandfather, Theodore Trautwein.

© Marie Heilbrunn 2007