Welcome to the stories of our Ancestors.
These are the stories of interesting characters of the past. Gypsies, Kings, Convicts and extraordinary humans. The page also has a table of all the folk in our family history who emigrated to Australia, when, where and how. The page is available to all who join the site.
Of course the main story is how did we get here, to Australia?
To see who emigrated, how and when, click on the button below, titled “Immigration Table”. This table contains the names of all those people who made the journey by ship or plane to establish roots in Australia. Some came as families with infants, other as single people looking for a new life in a new land. Some came one year after settlement in SA, others as part of post WW2 immigration programs to help build this nation. All have stories to tell. As you drift through the list think about the journey they undertook. There are links to the ships and the passenger lists within the table.
To research a family more, Click on the button of the family you wish to Explore
John Foster emigrated to Australia in 1850 with his wife Elizabeth and children. Aboard the SS Garonne, so started the history of this branch of the Fosters in Australia. His son William, married the daughter of a convict, my grandmother, Sarah Birkill. Sarah’s father James, was transported to Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania) in 1832 for 14 years. Unfortunately both my grandparents had passed away before I was born.
At 10 years old Korota was Jan Van Reibeck’s house maid. Van Reibeck, was the father of the Dutch Colony at the Cape of Good Hope. She married a Dutchman and the line led to Phyllis Cholwich, grandmother to Michael Copeland, our son.
The Apartheid Policy in pre 1990 South Africa was very divisive. It created a volatile political system where assassinations, constructed murders were conducted by the state regularly. As a political journalist that often found himself at odds with the regime, Thomas Copeland found it was no longer safe for he and his family to remain in the country. The packed their family up and moved to Adelaide South Australia. in 1986.
Manslaughter, the Irish famine, diamonds, gold and a life of service to others lead to the story of Sue Hemingway, my nephew, Jason’s, beautiful wife.
Post War England was a difficult place to raise a family. Stan (44) and Vera Hemingway (40) and their twin sons David and Peter (12 at the time) packed their bags, bought a ten pound ticket aboard the RMS Strathnaver and headed off to South Australia to a new life. They settled in Clearview, an Adelaide suburb and established thr roots of the Hemingway family tree in Australia.a
