Gunning Historical Society Blog Making Family Connections

Post afternoon tea with Edith and John Medway at Crookwell

Shared Ancestors, Living Relatives

By Garry Norman Smith (Images by Garry and Malia Smith)

The research sources you use for your family history are many and varied. While little can match primary sources such as historical documents, eyewitness accounts, diaries and family photographs, it is the fortunate face-to-face meetings with people who share a family story that are arguably most valuable.

Contributing to the Gunning and District Historical Society (GDHS) Blog has brought several personal contacts. These contacts extend and enrich the research I have done on my Alchin family in Gunning, Dalton, Jerrawa, Crookwell and other places.

Morning or afternoon tea is such an enjoyable way to talk about family connections, such as I was delighted to do with newly-found cousins John Medway and Edith Medway (nee Clark) at Crookwell in late 2017. I uncovered, thanks to Edith – the real family historian in her family - several family links. This brought a new interest in the Bayley family, the Wheatleys, Waters and, of course, the Medways.

Edith Medway is a family-history gem; she has written two valuable books – Byalla, Bialla, Biala and Darby Murray’s Flats. She takes a keen interest in local historical features and their preservation. Her cemetery and graveyard tours are worth the effort. Edith has more to teach me and I am sure I can support her own family-history efforts; let’s hope so.

Coffee, Tea, Beth Aglio and Garry Smith at Castle Hill Library

The GDHS Blog has also helped both Beth Aglio and me. Beth has personally expressed the opinion that family history is more tangible through sharing it with historical groups. When we met and subsequently, both Beth and I have realised how our ancestors lived, how they worked and who they married.

Being a guest blogger has meant an expanding universe of family names. Beth and I were able to resolve the mysteries of early deaths, marriages and common places of residence in the district around Gunning. Beth’s connections include the Pollard, Brown, Thorn, Holgate, Southwell, Wheatley and Alchin families.

Beth, Edith, John and I are, as Beth puts it, living connections. Thanks to the GDHS Blog.

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William Brown’s Bible – “The best book to read"

By Matt Friend Personal objects can often be overlooked when conducting family research. It may be that they are seen as merely possessions, however objects can provide us with rich and invaluable information and stories. While consulting a well-crafted genealogy publication, concerning the Holgate family, I observed an interesting note. On the pages that were of interest to me at the time (those detailing members of the Brown, Whittington, Noakes and Alchin families) there was a small note at the bottom crediting the information provided upon those pages to a bible that was, at the time the author put the book together, in the possession of Isabell Alchin (nee Whittington). Mention of the Bible as it appears in the Holgate Family Genealogy Book by Daphne Holgate Isabell Alchin was my Nanna, and when she died in 1996 the contents of her home, in Jobson Street Dalton, were sorted, moved into storage or dispersed among family. It was possible then that the bible, mentione...

First Settlers in Lade Vale: Frank and Catherine Lawless

Is this the house that Frank built? Remains of a substantial granite block house on land once owned by the first settlers in Lade Vale, Frank and Catherine Lawless. It may well have been built by Frank when the family took up their circa 1826 land grant. While we cannot be absolutely certain this is his work, there can be no doubt it is just the sort of house a skilled builder/bricklayer such as Frank would have constructed to settle his family in. Frank and Catherine Lawless – The Lade Vale Years The Story So Far This is the second chapter in our look at early colonial settlers Frank and Catherine Lawless written by their 3rd great granddaughter, Carmel Peek, in association with GDHS. At the end of our last episode: Bricklayer Frank [as he was commonly called rather than by his formal given name Francis] had been transported to Sydney from Ireland in 1809 following his conviction for highway robbery; He compounded his failings and misfortunes in late 1810 whe...

Lees Family Origins: Links to Gunning

Waratah (now Warrataw) Street, Gunning, circa 1905. Article by Kim Lees The Lees family emigrated from Germany in the 1850’s as Bounty Immigrants under a scheme to bring citizens from various countries to Australia to assist in establishing farming and other industries. They came from the wine growing area of Grossbottwar, some 26 kms north of Stuttgart. It has been possible, through a German Ancestry organisation ‘Beyond History’, to trace the Lees family in Grossbottwar as far back as the late 1500s, some 6 generations before the family emigrated from Germany to Australia. In 2013 I visited Grossbottwar where I met with a cousin and his family who still live there. The Lees family (parents Johannes (48) & Louisa (44) and children Conrad (20), Adam (16), Jacob (14), Fredricka (9), and David (6)) travelled to Australia on the Dutch Barque ‘Helene’ with 215 other German Immigrants. The youngest child, a daughter Christiana (aged 5 months) died on the voyage to Aust...

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