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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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%...

A 'Painful Accident'? You're Not Kidding!

Perhaps it stands out when compared with the tendency of today's media to sensationalise, but the understatement of much of the reporting of yesteryear is remarkable. Take the following 'painful injury' to Martin Clohesy, a farming contractor of Leongatha, as reported in the Great Southern Star on Friday 5 February 1915. Martin Clohesy was a cousin of my great-grandfather Nicholas Lawless (as shown in the chart below), who some readers might remember was a hopeless alcoholic and ultimately divorced by my great-grandmother Margaret. You can read about that elsewhere in this blog. Martin was married and had two children at the time of the horrific incident, and had other relatives in the Leongatha district - including the Cantys mentioned in the article - so presumably his family were able to lend plenty of support in his farming work (he was later listed in the electoral roll as an 'onion grower').

The Record-Breaking Adventure of the Utiekah III

Today's post is about one of my distant relatives on Mum's (Atkin) side of the family. My 2x great-grandfather Samuel Atkin came to Australia from Lincolnshire in 1853, and three years later was followed by his older brother Henry with his family. Henry settled near Newstead (not far from Castlemaine), and his daughter Elizabeth married Charles Slee, the Slees being another prominent early Newstead family. Elizabeth and Charles had 14 children (!) and this story is about their grandson Mark Mackie - my third cousin once removed - and what would have been, for the time, a pretty incredible adventure. Mark Mackie was born in Camberwell in 1899, and was educated at Scotch College. He worked as a photo-engraver and had a keen interest in yachting. In 1927 he was one of several ex-public school boys to undertake an 8 month trip in the South Pacific, aboard a yacht named Utiekah III, a 37-ton, 56 ft, auxiliary ketch built in Tasmania two years previously. The Utiekah...

Phelan and Atkin Family History

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