Not Just a Lonely Planet but a Small World Too Part Two!

A postscript to my last story on how I met the Lesocks. When my parents and sisters moved to Roslyn Street, Burwood in the late 1960s, Frank Lesock and his family were living in Parer Street, just one street parallel to Roslyn, and were there for at least a few years into the 1970s, going by the electoral rolls. I touched on the fact that his children and my sisters were possibly attending St Benedict's Primary School at the same time. Well a couple of years after that article was written, after my parents had passed away, I was left with the family photo albums, including many of Wendy, Sue and Cathy's school photos. I was amazed to discover that not only was my sister Sue in the same class as Frank's daughter Cathy Lesock (in at least Grades 2 and 4), in the Grade 2 photo of 1962 they were actually seated next to each other! Second cousins who probably never even realised that they were related!

St Benedicts Primary School, Grade 2, 1962. Cathy Lesock is seated front row, bottom left, with Sue Phelan next to her (as shown in the enlargement below)

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Tommy Roundhead: The Most Lawless Lawless of All

With the number of Lawlesses in my family tree, it was only a matter of time until I found one that truly lived up to the name. At first, I was incredulous at the discovery of this man's litany of 'drunk and disorderly' and obscene language charges, incurred far and wide. But upon closer reading of a handful of his convictions, I realised there was a darker and more disturbing side, and that this was perhaps a very troubled individual. Mugshot of Thomas Lawless from the records of the Bathurst Gaol Thomas Lawless was the second child of Patrick and Catherine (Kitty) Lawless. He was born about 1844 in Macedon, Victoria, but currently we know little about his early life. However, the Ancestry website revealed several 'hints' to NSW Gaol Description and Entrance Book records for a Thomas Lawless born about 1846 in Victoria, so thought I might be onto something. I had to be careful though, as there was more than one Thomas Lawless in the colonies around this time. A sea...

The Wreck of the Nashwauk

Back in October, I wrote about my Italian ancestor Antony Gasperino 'jumping ship' from the General Hewitt at Portland, Victoria in 1856. A little over a year before Gasperino's unconventional arrival, his future wife Hannah Hourigan (sometimes known as Hannah Hogan) had her own eventful introduction to Australia. Hannah was born about 1837 in Cork, Ireland; her father Matthew was a blacksmith but we do not know the name of her mother. Possibly Hannah was orphaned at a young age and with Ireland reeling from the devastation of the potato famine, was one of many single girls enticed to improve her lot by emigrating to Australia. And so on 14 February 1855 at Liverpool, 18-year old Hannah was one of 130 single Irish servant girls boarding the Nashwauk : an 18-month old, three-masted wooden-rigged sailing ship carrying 300 emigrants bound for South Australia.* Captained by Archibald McIntyre, the Nashwauk had an uneventful 89-day voyage to reach Gulf St Vincent. Having...

A Sacrifice, By Any Name

Prologue Before launching into today's story, I thought I might give an update on how my research is going. I started this blog back in 2019 as a way of communicating some of the more interesting stories about past family members, as I embarked on a 'redo' of all my original research. Having completed my Family History Diploma the year before, I'd learnt the importance of verifying information, and my family tree had plenty of information with no proven sources. Across the last four years I have completed the 'redo' of seven lines of the family: Phelan, Gasperino, Cowan and Davenport on Dad's side, and Atkin, Collins and Kenny on Mum's. I have also done a lot of work on the remaining maternal line, Lawless. But this line's Australian history goes back an extra generation, and has not just one but five brothers who emigrated here, so it represents by far the largest chunk of work to get through. As of now, I estimate that I've completed about 85%...

Phelan and Atkin Family History

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