There are so many ancestors I would just love to meet – preferably with a notebook and pencil, or recording device in hand! I'd like the chance to chat with (read - interrogate) just about every ancestor, especially ones with blank spaces in their details in my tree, along with every one I've heard an interesting story about - mainly for some verification. If I could choose just a couple of individuals, they would be the ones who I have found most elusive, the ones who disappeared from the family and turned up in unexpected places – or who didn’t turn up again at all.
I would start with my great grandfather, James Nicholas Clark, and his parents, John and Ann (nee McGoverin). James Nicholas Clark was born in Bristol, England or possibly Launceston, Tasmania in 1856, just as the family emigrated to Australia. James’s sister Annie Amelia Clark was born 31 March 1857 in Port Sorrell, Tasmania, where the family lived for at least 12 years before they crossed Bass Strait and settled in Victoria. I would love to be able to question them about why they decided to leave England, why they chose Tasmania to settle, and then what prompted them to pack up and start all over again in Victoria. Such moves would not have been undertaken lightly, and travel with a growing brood of young children back in the mid 1800’s would not have been easy. I would have more questions for James’s mother Ann, whose marriage records indicate she was born in Scotland around 1830, as she have for several years been one of my brick walls. Getting some dates, places and details from this family would be just so exciting.
Another ancestor I would like to meet, for fairly similar reasons, would be Carl Friedrich Beseler. Known in Australia as Frederick, he was born around 1810 in Hanover, Germany. He was a shoemaker in Germany and a farmer in Australia, arriving in Adelaide on 1 April 1848 on the ship Pauline from Bremen, Germany. Passengers listed were Frederick Beseler, Shoemaker, Mrs Beseler and 5 children. The family lived in South Australia for 7 years before travelling overland to Victoria, where they settled near Ercildown. Several members of the family are buried in Learmonth Cemetery. Again, I would like to know what prompted this family, with young children in tow, to pack up and move halfway around the world, settle in one state of Australia, then pack up and move again several years later.
Finally, I would like a chance to talk to my paternal grandfather, Frank Walter Noble Green. Frank died when I was just 4 years old, and I have few memories of him, but I would love to know more about his life in England before he and his wife Rosa May moved to Australia (there seems to be a theme here – why did you move across the globe?). According to family stories Frank spent two years in America prior to emigrating to Australia – what did he do in the United States and why did he then move his family to Australia instead of returning to the States?
