PART ONE

I am a proud Australian-I have a history that dates back to Ireland and the United Kingdom, part of five generations of women, I also have many interesting stories thanks to the incredible females who in one way or another, helped to shape my life. At the age of 18, I had a huge desire to trace my mother’s family tree and with much help from my Aunty, I was lucky enough to have gathered enough detail to start the ball rolling and today, have successfully completed my search! With the help of our Births/Deaths & Marriage office/s here in NSW, Victoria and Western Australia, the foundation was laid for a much more detailed search. Having access to the worldwide net an absolute bonus plus, taking me out of my homeland, and soon tracking down names in Ireland and the United Kingdom. Listing my relatives names and all neccessary information, many doors began opening in other directions, a surprise contact led to my meeting with a long lost ancestor from Western Australia! Enter, my cousin Bruce-He too had been doing the same family search, our paths crossing on one of the internet’s geneology websites! When I think about all the hundreds upon thousands who like us, track the hard yards to find just one snippet of information, I realise just how blessed we have been. It was through Bruce that I was able to obtain the above picture….his grandmother[seated on floor], sister to my great grandmother Lillian [see girl standing] -It truly is a small world, after all! My search unfortunately ended with the grandmother from Ireland, only due to the fact a fire apparently destroyed all public records back in the early 1900′s, so tracking down the rest of the family has come to a complete halt…..but I’m satisfied knowing we gave our research 110%…finding Great grandmother Jane Green, the 17 year old girl who was sentenced for stealing then shipped half way around the world to a convict settlement, a pretty big milestone and something which can now be passed down to my future female generations.