This is either Margaret Fernie Miller or her daughter Margaret Evelina Eason.
Biography contributed by Katherine Blakeley
Margaret Fernie Miller was born on 29 May 1849 in Falkland, Fifeshire, Scotland – the daughter of Matthew Miller, a carpenter, and Elizabeth.
Margaret emigrated to Otago in 1861 on the Pladda with her parents and seven siblings. She married Frederick William Eason, a wool classer, about 1867 and they had 15 children, two who died in early childhood and three who died in their late teens – one from consumption.
The family lived in Manse St, Kaikorai, Dunedin where Margaret signed the suffrage petition.
Around this time the family bought a farm at Owaka.
Margaret died at 'The Kowhaia', Katea, Owaka on 22 December 1906, she is buried in the Owaka Cemetery.
Frederick re-married in 1909 and he retired to Dunedin where he died in 1931, he is buried with five of their daughters in the Southern Cemetery.
Margaret Evelina Eason was born in 1871 in New Zealand.
When she signed the suffrage petition she was living with her family Manse St, Kaikorai, Dunedin working as a yarn reeler.
She married Charles Jelley, a farmer, in 1900 and they had two sons.
They lived, at first, at Katea near Owaka before moving to the Studholme Junction near Waimate in South Canterbury.
Their first son died at three years of age and their second son died at the age of 14 in 1920.
Seven years later Charles died and their farm was sold.
Margaret died in Waimate on 20 August 1954 - she is buried in the Waimate Cemetery along with Charles and one of their sons.
Sources
BDM online NZ https://bdmhistoricalrecords.dia.govt.nz/
DCC Cemetery Records http://www.dunedin.govt.nz/facilities/cemeteries/cemeteries-search
Family Search https://www.familysearch.org
Otago Nominal Index http://marvin.otago.ac.nz
Papers Past https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz
BDM Victoria https://online.justice.vic.gov.au
Clutha District Council https://www.cluthadc.govt.nz/
Waimate District Council https://www.waimatedc.govt.nz/
Click on sheet number to see the 1893 petition sheet this signature appeared on. Digital copies of the sheets supplied by Archives New Zealand.
Community contributions