Tracing Family Branches

On our recent trip to Canberra we stopped at Jugiong in order to visit the Jugiong General Cemetery and locate the grave of my Great Great Great Grandfather James Henderson.  It does seem strange that my Great Great Great Grandmother Bridget Cooney formerly Henderson née Sheridan is buried at the Jugiong Catholic Cemetery while her first husband and son are at the Jugiong General Cemetery.  However her second husband Owen Cooney is buried at the Catholic Cemetery (with his first wife) not far from her grave and another son and one of her daughters are buried with her there too.  On the immigration documents for their voyage to Australia on board the ship Emily in 1850 James Henderson was listed as a thirty year old farm labourer from Convoy, Donegal whose parents Hugh and Isabella were both dead, his religion was stated to be Presbyterian, he could read and write and is it noted that he claimed to have married Bridget Sheridan prior to embarkation.  While Bridget Sh...

Back in November last year while coming home from one of my husbands medical specialists appointments in Canberra we finally stopped and had a good look at the Jugiong Catholic Cemetery.  Many of my maternal grandfathers family are buried there and I had been wanting to explore it for many years!  When I was a child we would frequently go on wonderful day trips to the Murrumbidgee river at Jugiong, passing the cemetery on our way to our families favourite spot on the river.  I knew family members were buried there but was not overly curious about it, as getting to the river and having a swim were my top priorities at the time.  The cemetery had been recently mowed on the day we went there and so it was easy to find my way around it.  It is quite steep in places and I would recommend wearing good hiking shoes if you are going to explore it. It is a beautiful cemetery and I hope to explore it further some time in the future as we had to cut the trip short as my hu...

After spending weeks with an ankle to groin brace on my left leg due to my tibial plateau fracture and doing not very much at all I decided to do something productive for a change.  This resulted in my deciding that as I have lots of free time on my hands I will restart my family tree again instead of having bits of information and random trees all over the place.  I started inputting information and rediscovered a bit of a puzzle, that twenty two years after starting my tree I still have not got answers for!  What happened to my Great Grand Aunt Bridget Green/e nee Stevens? Various trees have her death occurring in 1910 without any further details or evidence but that clashes with the newspaper articles that have her acting as Bridesmaid for her sister Clara's marriage to Robert Colbert in February 1911 at Cootamundra, New South Wales, Australia. Source:  WEDDING BELLS. (1911, March 10).  Albury Banner and Wodonga Express (NSW : 1896 - 1938) , p. 45. Retr...

My Great Grand Aunts Laura and Clara Stevens/Stephens were the twin daughters of Thomas Stevens and his wife Jane (nee Henderson).  According to the 1998 published 'Stevens Family History' the girls were baptised on the 23rd November 1886 at Adjungbilly, in the Catholic Parish of Gundagai.  Apparently Laura was recorded as Stevens and Clara as Stephens (Thomas was known to use both)  Maybe on that day they couldn't decide which was more appropriate!   The official family history contained few other details about them, believing that Laura had died at a very early age and Clara had married and moved away from the family. Laura Stevens 1886-1906? The only records I can find for a Laura Stevens/Stephens born c.1886 are the following:    NSW BDM Death Indexes Registration Number  Last Name  Given Name(s)  Father's Given Name(s)  Mother's Given Name(s)  District  14566/1906 STEVENS ...