Here is a bit of info about William, I will have to dig through some papers for his parents and siblings and will get back to you.
Cheers Pongo
Hi Pongo
I've just found this site and having read the background information that you and the others have posted I am very pleased I have.
I have been researching my family history to find a link between Major General William Stewart and my great grandmother.
Her married name was Elizabeth Stewart Fraser and her maiden name was Mackay. She came from Melvich in the North of Scotland.
There has never been any doubt from my Grandmother before she died and all the other family members that my great grandmother was a descendant of William Stewart and the family photo albums have photos of Abercrombie House in them.
Up until now I imagined that My Great grandmother's mother must have been one of William's daughters but having read your list of William's children I can't see where she fits in.
I can't imagine she was one of James' daughters who would all have been Australians
as my mother knew her and she was very Scotish.
Any help in this direction would be gratefully received.
Great to touch base with you and all the others
Gordon
The first member of the family to set foot in Australia was:
William Stewart (1769-1854)
Born at Dounreay, in Caithness, Scotland, William joined the army in 1796 and became Colonel of the Third Regiment of Foot. From 1825 to 1827, he served as Lieutenant-Governor of New South Wales. In 1827, he was given a grant of land at Mount Pleasant, near Bathurst. The same year he went to India with his regiment and was appointed Major-General. He returned to Mount Pleasant in 1832 where he remained until his death in 1854.
While in Canada in 1814 he married Ann Sylvia Wolfe by whom he had the following children:
Caroline Madelaine - Born Montreal, Canada, in 1815. She married, firstly, Captain Donald Stewart, a cousin, and after he was killed in action in 1844, she came back to Mount Pleasant and married Charles Henry Green, at one time Commissioner for the Western Gold Fields. In 1855, she and her husband went to Queensland where they settled on the Darling Downs. She had no children and the date of her death is not known.
Elizabeth - Born in Saint Pol, France, in 1817 where her father was stationed after Waterloo as part of the Allied Army of Occupation. She married the Reverend Mr K.D. Smythe, Presbyterian minister at Bathurst. She and her husband went to Scotland in 1863 where she died in 1908.
Ann - a twin of Elizabeth who died at the age of 18 months.
Letitia - Born in Edinburgh in 1820. She married a Mr David Kennedy, manager of a bank at Bathurst. They had three sons and Letitia died in 1894.
William - Born in 1822, he died at Strath of Bylster, near Wick, Caithness, in 1829.
James Horne - Born in Edinburgh in 1825. He was named after his father's uncle, James Horne of Stirkoke, Caithness. He came to Australia in 1834 with his mother and the other children when they rejoined William at Mount Pleasant. James was educated at the Australian College in Sydney and in 1855 married Harriet Eliza Boyce (1839-1923), the daughter of the Reverend Mr William Boyce of Sydney. Harriet and James had five children.