Follow Friday - An accumulation of my weekly research - 7

It is quite a while since I have published a Follow Friday- An accumulation of My weekly Research post, I shall put this down to annual holidays, Christmas and the shock of having to go back to work in the new year.

Over the past few weeks I have been researching sisters  Emma Jane and Mary Anne Weston who came to Australia at Christmas time in 1856.  Emma Jane was my great great Grandmother.  It is an interesting story of two young girls travelling to the other side of the world to find employment in Australia.

Both sisters have an interesting story, Emma married Thomas Lee in 1858* and settled into the Braidwood and then Nelligen Districts of New South Wales and Mary Anne married the same year to William Pronger  and moved to Gympie in Queensland. I believe William and Mary Pronger moved from the mining gold town of Majors Creek/Araluen district (near Braidwood) to Gympie in the early 1860’s when Gold was discovered there. I have found some very interesting resources on both of these areas which have assisted me in gathering a little of their story.  If you are researching the early gold mining days in NSW and Queensland you might find some of these links useful.

Braidwood/Araluen and Nelligen, South Eastern, New South Wales

1. The Glenville Post Office Directory for 1871, http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~hcastle/grevilles/grevilles.html.

This is  a great resource and list names of people, and their occupations, living in the NSW settlements in 1871.
2.  A brief history of Nelligen, Batemans Bay and the Clyde River,  http://www.clyderiverhouseboats.com.au/south-coast-history.html
3. The Forgotten Mines of Nelligen, http://www.southcoast.com.au/batemansbay/nelligengold/index.html
4. Araluen, a brief History, http://www.argylecounty.com.au/towns/araluen.html.
5. Braidwood settlers, http://www.visitbraidwood.com.au/bwd.
This has a short history on the settlers in Braidwood and some great photos of times past. 
6. Majors Creek, http://www.visitbraidwood.com.au/majorscreek. 

7. Araluen, http://www.visitbraidwood.com.au/araluen.
8. NSW Cemeteries List, http://www.australiancemeteries.com/nsw/index.htm. 
On this page it is possible to link through to cemeteries in Araluen, Majors Creek, Braidwood and Araluen.
9.  Images of Braidwood in the National Archives: http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-an11030053-17  
10. Braidwood Historical Society, http://www.braidwoodmuseum.org.au/links.html

Gympie, Queensland

1.   State Library of Queensland: http://www.slq.qld.gov.au/about-us/corporate/information-collections

(You can join this library online, and then have access to quite a large collection of e-resources).

2. John Oxley Library Blog: http://blogs.slq.qld.gov.au/jol/. 
This can be found on the State Library site and has some great articles on the history and people of Queensland.

3.  Gympie Now and Then, http://www.gympie.qld.gov.au/library/thenandnow/. 
This site provides you with pictures from the past compared with photos of the same place as they are now). Very interesting.

4. Gympie Cemetry Trust: http://www.gympiecemeterytrust.com.au/

5.  Gympie Regional Council site: http://www.gympie.qld.gov.au/loadframe.asp?PageID=15&ID=154.
On this page there is a link to a PDF copy of “Cooloola Shire… a golden past”, which tells the story of the pioneers of Gympie.
 6.  Historical Index's for BDM in Queensland.  https://www.bdm.qld.gov.au/IndexSearch/BirIndexQry.m..
 The BDM Indexes are of course invaluable for checking vital dates.

Those Places Thursday - Acacia Farm, Nelligen

Acacia Farm, Clyde River, Nelligen

George and Catherine Lee

"Acacia Farm" has been part of our family history for over 100 years.  The old farmhouse was on the banks of the Clyde River, up stream from the small town of Nelligen, NSW, Australia. My great grandparents George Thomas Lee and his wife Catherine (nee McGregor) moved to the farm in the early 1900's, with their family of nine children.  

My Grandmother Christine Sterland Lee was their seventh child, and she and her siblings would travel by boat down the Clyde River to the small school in Nelligen.

 When I was very young I can remember crossing the Clyde River on the punt at Nelligen (in the days before the bridge was built).  In the Christmas holidays cars would line up for miles waiting for their turn to go across on the Punt.  We would get out of the car and look over the side and watch all the jellyfish in the river. There used to be thousands of them blobbing along in the water as we passed.

Waiting to catch Punt to cross the Clyde River, Nelligen

Dad used to tell stories of when he lived there with his grandmother (Catherine Lee) after his father, Malcolm Shepherd died following a logging accident. He described how they would row the boat down the river  to Nelligen for supplies and catch the tide on the way back to the farm. I can remember visiting there as a little girl with my dad and Pop. My Nan's brother Uncle Jordie lived there at the time. We walked down to the paddock towards The Point where there was a nice little sandy beach. Uncle Jordie was growing turnips and I remember he pulled out a couple and gave to me to give to Nan to make soup. The lushness of the farm made a big impression on me as at that time our family lived on a sheep station in the far west near Broken Hill.

The "farm" as everyone called it, was often the meeting place for family get togethers. Everyone would roll up with huge baskets of food and drink.  The big black kettle would be put over the small open fire in the old kitchen that my great grandmother used to cook in.  It was constantly kept on the boil to keep up with the copious quantities of tea that were made. The adults would sit around in the front garden, surrounded by huge old blue hydrangeas plants,  swapping stories  of days gone by, while all the kids would run wild, playing hide-and-seek etc. There were always strict rules not to go on parts of the old veranda, as the floorboards were rotten. At the back of the farm house there where huge old fruit trees and an outside loo and shed that was covered in a choco vine that had certainly got out of hand. Lots of great hiding places!!

After lunch, and more cups of tea, if we were lucky everyone would go up to the beach at The Point for a swim while the men folk tried their hand at fishing.  I  clearly remember spending time with my Nan using a stick with a short line and hook and bread  to catch little fish for bait. It was great fun. The farm has now been sold, but I do believe the old ruins of the original farm house are still there.