Topic: Immigration.

As an Australian, all my more immediate ancestors were immigrants. Australia’s very first immigrants were indigenous Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders who arrived over 70,000 years ago. The first European immigrants arrived with the First Fleet in 1788. So our history is very different and more recent compared to America’s.

My earliest Australian immigrants were Irish Hugh Vesty Byrne (1772-1842) and his wife Sarah Dwyer (1774-1872) from Wicklow, who were ‘persuaded’ to emigrate in 1806. Hugh was a political prisoner given the choice of rotting in an Irish gaol or being transported to Australia and given his freedom on arrival. My GGG Grandmother Ann Byrne was born on board the “Tellicherry” in early 1806 on as it reached Australian waters.

Ann Byrne’s daughter Susan Byrne (1826-1892) married my second earliest immigrant, Thomas Darchy (1820-1877) who was born in Bavaria and spent his childhood in Switzerland. He arrived in Australia in 1840 on the “India” – which was wrecked on a subsequent voyage.

Next was another Irish family, the Macloskeys originally from County Antrim but lived in Greenock for some years before emigrating to newly-established Melbourne in early 1853. They were John Macloskey (1789-1854) and his wife Mary Ann Brooks (1805-1886) and their 12 living children … their second youngest, Adela Wade, married Dubliner Frederick Wentworth Wade (1838-1912) who had arrived in Melbourne around 1859 and subsequently shifted to New Zealand about 1863. They married in NZ in 1865. Most of the Macloskey descendants are now in Australia but there are a few in New Zealand.

Yet another Irish line were Henry Prendergast (1813-1867) and Mary Costello (abt 1812-1902) who arrived in Adelaide in 1854 on the “Pestonjee Bomanjee” with seven children. Henry was a shopkeeper who set up a store not too far from the huge d’Archy property in western NSW. Their daughter Margaret (1844-1915) married one of the d’Archy boys, against some opposition! I have a huge number of distant Prendergast cousins.

My Scottish GGG Father Alexander Johnston (1829-1906) and his wife Margaret Lyle (1827-1925) were close behind, also in 1854. They went to Launceston, Tasmania. Their second child was born within weeks after their arrival. One of their sons married a daughter of Frederick Wade.

And finally my English and Welsh GG Parents – Edwin Hunt (1837-1895) and his wife Margaret Morgan (1838-1920) and eight living childfren arrived in Sydney on the fast steamship “Aconcagua’ in 1879. Their youngest daughter Lily Hunt, aged 3 at the time of arrival, married a grandson of both Thomas Darchy and Henry Prendergast.

What a wealth of Immigration stories they could tell! One arrived in convict chains, some in the basic transport level of early immigrant sailing ships, some in comparative luxury. They went to different parts of Australia and New Zealand. I was born in Sydney – proud of my multinational heritage.