Author: Trevor Hazell

Welsh Ancestors – Great grandmother, Mary Jane Jones (Grandma Wilmott)

Mary Jane Jones was born in Rhymney in 1876 and emigrated to Australia when she was just 2 years of age.  Being so young it isn’t clear whether she was fluent in Welsh when she arrived, but clearly English was her first language for the rest of her life.

She was known by my brothers and sisters (and cousins) as ‘Grandma Wilmott’; Dad called her “Gran”.

Mary Jane was, by all accounts, a very intelligent and competent woman.  Dad referred to his Gran as “a very modern woman”.  Unfortunately, I never really pressed him on what he meant by that but what I think is that she was a very forward-looking and enterprising person who was actively involved in her community.

She lived all but 2 years of her life in Australia, her mother died when she was only 12, and her father and younger siblings went back to Wales.  Along with her brother Evan and possibly John (whose life history is yet to be uncovered), she was the only member of her family in the new country.  She would have needed to be very self-sufficient; becoming her own person and working out her own solutions to life’s challenges. Continue reading “Welsh Ancestors – Great grandmother, Mary Jane Jones (Grandma Wilmott)”

Welsh Ancestors – Mary Jane Wilmott’s Married Life

Grandma Wilmott and Goll lived in The Glebe (Newcastle) throughout their married lives.  For many years their address was 84 Wilton Street, but I am not sure when they first took up residence there.

After their marriage, the couple had two more children.  Granduncle William (Will) was born in 1898.  He married Mary Griffiths and lived in Wilton Street just a few blocks away from his parents.  They had two children Joan and Trevor (could I have been named after  my 1st cousin once removed?).  Next, granduncle David (Dave) was born in 1901.  later he married Edith Brownhill and the couple lived in the house next to Grandma Wilmott in Wilton Street.  They had one child, Colleen. Continue reading “Welsh Ancestors – Mary Jane Wilmott’s Married Life”

Welsh Ancestors – Aunties and Uncles (Brothers and Sisters of Grandma Wilmott)

As mentioned above three of our great grandaunties and one great granduncle went back to Wales after their mother died in Newcastle in 1888.  Eventually Uncle Thomas and Aunty Rachel later returned to Australia as adults.  Briefly, this is what we know of all of Grandma Wilmott’s siblings:

Evan Daniel Jones

(2nd great) Uncle Evan was born in Rhymney in January 1873 and was 5 years old when the family arrived in Australia in 1878.  While Evan had no natural children of his own, he married a widow Esther Payne (nee Thomas) and became stepfather to her children Gertrude, William and Thirza Payne.

Evan and Esther lived in Pelaw Main, near Kurri Kurri, where he worked in the local mine.  Esther died in 1928 and Evan, after he retired, moved to Newcastle to live with his sister Grandma Wilmott.  He died here on the 11th June 1949, aged 76 years.

Evan Jones was a volunteer in World War I and his war story is briefly told below.  He and “Essie” are buried at Sandgate Cemetery in the Church of England section.

See following post on Evan’s war record.

Continue reading “Welsh Ancestors – Aunties and Uncles (Brothers and Sisters of Grandma Wilmott)”

Welsh Ancestors – the lost Great Uncle John Jones

There is one of Grandma Wilmott’s brothers that I know almost nothing at all about after the emigration; that is her oldest brother John.  There is no indication of his death in Australia in the NSW records and he is not referred to in the funeral notices for his other siblings, Evan, Rachel and Grandma Wilmott.  It was usual for such notices to refer to those close family members still living;  John is not mentioned in any of these indicating that he was dead already by 1949.

One possibility is that John returned to Wales with his father.  I haven’t been able to detect any further trace of him in Welsh records.  As you can imagine, there are quite a few records for a person of the name of John Jones in the records of marriages and deaths in Wales and it is near to impossible to further determine whether any of these relate to our great granduncle John., without spending a fortune buying detailed details of the death of a “John Jones”.

If any relatives or friends of the Jones family can enlighten me on this I’d be happy if you could leave a comment or contact me at trevorhazell5@gmail.com

Welsh Ancestors – Uncle Evan Jones – his War Service

At the age of 41, Evan Jones enlisted in “Newcastle’s Own” 35th Battalion of the 3rd Division of the Australian Infantry Force that was formed to support Britain in the First World War.  This was in December 1915.  After training in Australia, he left for England aboard the “Benalla” on the 12th May the following year, arriving in Plymouth on the 9th December 1916.  There he undertook further training before embarking for France on the 16th January 1917.

While waiting to play his part in the war, Evan was stationed at the British camp at Étaples which from all accounts at the time was a very unpleasant experience.  The drawing above, by an Australian artist Iso Rae, depicts the Anzacs arriving into the camp.  (Details: Iso Rae, Troops arriving at ANZAC Camp (June 1916, pastel on grey paper, 50 x 65 cm, AWM ART 19601)).

Continue reading “Welsh Ancestors – Uncle Evan Jones – his War Service”

German Ancestors – Backgound

The gentleman in the photo below is my great grandfather Charles Hazell who was a first generation Australian of an English father and an Irish mother.  The lady is also a first generation Australian but both of her parents came from  central Europe in locations are part of the modern state of Germany.

I first found out that I had German ancestors when someone (I wish I knew who) gave my father (Bert Hazell) a copy of a book entitled “In the Shadow of Mount Dangar” by Geoffrey Meyer. Of course I quickly scanned the book to find any references to my Hazell ancestors and what I found was that my great grandmother was an Aussie-born child of two “German” immigrants.

Prior to this discovery, I didn’t realize that my family could trace its history beyond the British Isles, and that, in order to fully understand ourselves, I needed to broaden my  knowledge of the geography and historical events that go back many centuries in Europe and, as I later discovered, even to Scandinavia. Continue reading “German Ancestors – Backgound”

The Nebauer Family (pronounced similar to “neighbour”)

The first of my “German” ancestors to arrive in Australia was my 2nd great grand uncle Eugene, and his wife aunty Caroline (her family name was Umscheid) who emigrated to Australia from the village of Dorfprozelten on the River Main.  They set sail from Hamburg on the ship ‘Reiherstieg’, leaving on 3rd April 1852 and arriving in Sydney on the 5th August that year.  Their one-year old daughter Mary was with them.

In those days there were immigration centres in various parts of NSW and one of these was located in East Maitland and it appears that the Nebauers either chose to come to the Hunter region or were sent her by the NSW Government due to the need for migrant labour. In Bavaria, Eugene had been a stone mason, but he also had skills as a vine dresser (basically someone who was skilled in the pruning and cultivation of grape vines).  When he arrived in East Maitland however, his first job of work was as a coal miner at Four Mile Creek near Woodville (between Maitland and Newcastle) – actually the mine must have been pretty close to where my niece Megan now lives. Continue reading “The Nebauer Family (pronounced similar to “neighbour”)”

German Ancestors – Stoehr and Merkel Families

The next of our German ancestors to set out for Australia were the Stoehr family made up of my 3rd great grandparents Wendalin and Anna Maria Stoehr, and their son Charles who was around 20 years old at that time of their voyage. Anna Maria’s maiden name was Merkel.

Before emigrating, the Stoehr family had been living in a small town called Schriesheim (pronounced Shrees-hime) which is in the Baden district in the south-west of what is now the German Federation of States.  It is close to the river Rhine, and so near the border with both Switzerland and France.   Due to its location, the town has at times been under the control of states other than Germany .

At the time that the family left home, Schriesheim had a population of around 2,800. Today it’s population is around 15,000 (according to Wikipedia). From a nearby hill one can see the nearby city of Mannheim not too far away.

In order to leave Germany the Stoehr family would have had to find their way to the far northern city-state of Hamburg, one of the largest ports in Europe at that time. On Sunday 8th October, 1854, they boarded the barque “Johann Caesar” for what would prove to be a very difficult journey due to terrible weather. But this was the least of their troubles. Unbeknownst to the captain (H. A. G. Moller), the ship’s doctor and everyone on board, one of the other passengers was sick with cholera. Tragically, Anna Maria contracted the disease and perished on the journey to Australia and was buried at sea. Continue reading “German Ancestors – Stoehr and Merkel Families”

German Ancestors – the Meeting of Families at Giants Creek

Giants Leap near Sandy Hollow

It was around the late 1860s that the two German families (Nebauers and Stairs) moved from the East Maitland area and took up land at Giants Creek near Gungal and Sandy Hollow.  By then Eugene and Carolyn Nebauer had nine children, and Charles and Rosanna Stair had five.

Giants Creek rises near Bunnan (which is east of Merriwa) and flows south and then east to meet Halls Creek at Sandy Hollow.  Halls Creek itself then flows into the Goulburn River just a few miles south-east of there.  The area that our ancestors lived and farmed was on the lower reaches of Giants Creek, roughly that area between Gungal and Sandy Hollow. 

Giants Creek derives its name from a geological feature at the eastern end of the waterway known as “Giants Leap”: two small hills with a gap in between.  See photo above. Continue reading “German Ancestors – the Meeting of Families at Giants Creek”

German Ancestors – School days at Giant’s Creek

During the 1870s, the number of settlers in the district where our Hazell, Stair and Nebauer ancestor families had settled in the 1870s was growing and there was an increasing need for schools to be opened for the education of the children. The education department at the time was petitioned for the opening of two small schools, one in the small town of Giants Creek (at the eastern end of the creek itself) and another at the western end at Gungal. Continue reading “German Ancestors – School days at Giant’s Creek”