This chapter our my family history is about Charles Farrell of Mullingar, Ireland; Sydney and Port Macquarie, NSW; his wife Charlotte Meredith, the daughter of Frederick Meredith, a steward to the captain aboard the First Fleet, and their son Colonel William Thomas Farrell and his descendants. When my husband, Geoffrey Philip Farrell Rundle attended The King’s School at Parramatta in Sydney in the 1970’s one of his teachers told him that if he had two middle names then one of …
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This family chapter takes many Murray family members who migrated to Australia, back to Ireland, to correctly place them into their townships and homes in County Limerick. It includes the famous Murray family of Yarralumla and continues the story of the Wise family of Cork whose ancestor, George Edwin Wise, son of Ellen Frances Matilda Murray, founded the Western Stores of New South Wales, later to become Farmers Department Stores, Grace Bros. and now Myers. I had a lot of …
Five generations of my maternal family line are all named Lavinia, my great grandmother Lavinia Northey, my grandmother, Lavinia Moar, my mother Lavinia Fuller, my sister Lavinia Robson, my niece Lavinia Chrystal as well as my cousin Wendy Lavinia Fuller. It was armed with this name Lavinia, that I became determined to uncover more about why this name had been handed down without a break for over 150 years. The only other information I knew about my great grandmother Lavinia …
My earliest research endeavours on the Fuller Family were encouraged by my sister Lavinia Chrystal, who was keen for me to trace back the traditions of naming daughters Lavinia on the maternal side of our family, and to find out how far back this tradition had occurred. We were always told it went right back to Cornwall in England, where there were loads of daughters named Lavinia. It is a fact that my niece, sister, cousin, mother, grandmother and great …
The Kilpatrick family of Dublin, formerly Armagh, and the Cranwill family of Dublin City and Ballycanew, Wexford, have without a doubt been the most pleasurable and successful areas of my Irish family research. My paternal Grandmother Mabel Jackson Wise’s mother was named Agnes Amelia Kilpatrick. This information I discovered on Mabel’s birth record. I had never heard of Agnes, the wife of George Edwin Wise, however her oval photographic portrait and that of my Great-Grandfather Wise had hung as a …
I hope this factual account about finding James Kidd’s grave inspires others to locate their ancestors amongst the historic graves of Camperdown Cemetery here in Sydney. In writing the story about James Kidd’s life, I realised that I needed to delve deeper into his past, find out who his parents were, where he came from and how and why he came to be transported as a convict to Australia. In this quest I have uncovered an outstanding Australian citizen. My …
Our Robson family were from Wallsend, Northumberland, a town 10 km east of Newcastle upon Tyne in northern England. This general area is where our family had probably lived for centuries. Border wars between Scotland and England would have occasionally disrupted their otherwise peaceful community. The Robson clan were convenient border hoppers, depending on where the war was being fought, they would make sure they were on the winning side of the wall, thus ensuring their family’s survival from the …
In my five years of research into the family history I have, in all branches of the family started off with no knowledge beyond my grandparents and no expectations about what I would find. Family history is the ultimate in pyramid building and, like every modern day family researcher before me, I keyed in my own parents on my laptop to start my family tree. This particular avenue immediately opened up two unrelated areas of research, and by keying in …