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My ancestors who sailed the seas

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I recently developed a presentation called Ancestors who sailed the seas for the GSQ Wednesday morning Zoom help meeting. The aim of the presentation was to highlight a range of resources for finding information about sailors, the ships they served on, and the shipping companies that employed them. I used examples from my own family to illustrate what I found and where I found it. Who were the sailors in my family? Unsurprisingly to me, they were on my maternal … Continue reading

The Box in the Museum.

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Often when travelling, I’ll visit the local museum to gain an insight into a town’s history, be it a gold mining area, a farming community, the hometown of a person of note or perhaps where a remarkable discovery has been made. Last year I visited Surat, a sheep grazing region of the Maranoa District of South West Queensland. The picturesque township played a significant role in the Cobb & Co era of the late 19th century when passenger and mail … Continue reading

A Carpenter in Law

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The last of my Killyleagh siblings in this series of blogs is my great-grandfather, Robert Gilmour Irvine. I’ve written about the other ten siblings including the birth of Robert’s twin brother Andrew in 1849 in a previous GSQ Blog.[1] It appears that Robert was a devout Christian and in April 1867, when 18 yrs old he was confirmed along with his elder brother, James. With planning well underway for his emigration to join his brothers in Queensland, before he left … Continue reading

Love Letters to Maggie.

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This tale begins with the landing in Brisbane of the vessel Ariadne on 3 January 1864, that turbulent year for the city with two major fires in Queen Street.[1]  One of the passengers on Ariadne was James Carothers, a young 19 yr old lad from Fermanagh.[2] The young lad worked hard and by 1870 he had established a farm at Bulimba Point; Bulimba had been serviced since 1850 by Samuel and Matthew Buckley operating a rowing boat. In 1864, John … Continue reading

Finding family connections in unexpected places

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As many regular readers may know, I migrated to Australia in the 1970s and was convinced that I was the only family member to have made that long journey, apart from my sister and her family who migrated to Australia in the same year. As my family history research has progressed, I’ve discovered a number of connections to this great country, on both my paternal and maternal lines. Some of these have arisen by chance when working on another project … Continue reading