A short slideshow of flags.
The short answer is “yes, in some cases”. This is a discovery I made when researching the Brinston family of Queensland. I learned that they had lived in the state of Victoria before moving to Queensland. The children born in Victoria were registered as Brimstone and that is how the parents John and Mary appeared on the passenger list of the ship that brought them to Australia from Ireland. Irish records show that John Brimstone and Mary Birney were married in County Fermanagh, Ireland in 1853. Once in Queensland this family became Brinstons.
Since then I have added the variations of Brimstone and Brimston to my one-name study which was originally registered as Brinston and Brinstone. I have also started researching other Brimstones in Ireland. The Ontario Brinstons descend from Thomas Brinston and Catherine Barton who married in Ontario in 1859 and also came from Fermanagh, raising the question of whether they are related to the Irish Brimstones.
When the Brimstones immigrated to Australia and the Brinstons to Ontario, all of Ireland was under the Union Flag or Union Jack and had been since the 1801 Acts of Union uniting the Kingdom of Ireland with Great Britain to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Neither Australia nor Canada were independent countries. The Australian continent and British North America were both collections of colonies under British rule that eventually became united as countries, Canada in 1867 and Australia in 1901. The Australian flag was adopted in 1901 and the current Canadian flag in 1965.
If these surnames occur in your family tree please get in touch and help us add more pieces to this giant jigsaw puzzle.
Brinston Families Worldwide site