First Fleet 1788

Using scattered colonial evidence (journals, musters, victualling/off‑stores lists, later baptisms, and other administrative records), Beneath the Pines Norfolk Island Marriages November 1791 reconstructs which couples were married by Johnson and questions the often‑repeated claim of a single “mass marriage” on 5 November 1791. It also shows that some couples long assumed to have married in 1791 were actually married later (e.g., by Rev Marsden 1795) or appear to have remained in recognised defacto relationships rather than formal marriages.