Finally I have done it.
My quest to trace the family tree started in 1977, when I on trip to England I tried unsuccessfully to locate my paternal Grandmother. I looked at the Inverness birth and marriage records with no luck. Remembering the family story that she was not a doctor’s daughter from Inverness but a pub keeper’s daughter from Battle in Sussex, I made my way to Battle. Family names were found in the cemetery there but nothing concrete to say I had found her or her family. The reality was I didn’t know enough to gain any benefit from a search of the Battle cemetery.
Back in Australia I decided to start at the beginning with her marriage certificate. It confirmed the story that she was born in Inverness. (This has later been proven to be false) Disheartened I then started to look for my Grandfathers family tree. This quest has taken 25 years and may branches remain empty. Grandfather was not an only child as previously thought but had several brothers and sisters, with his father marrying twice.
My mother has assisted greatly by looking at many microfiche to locate immigration records, publican licences and more importantly managed to get my father to visit the Rylstone cemetery where she wrote down information on all the headstones with the name Walton. None of them could be connected at that stage of the research, but a few years later those headstone transcripts miraculously provided the stepping-stone to the next generation. Several trips have been made to check the headstones and those of the extended family. A few years ago I arranged for the Headstone of John Walton (our first settler) to be repaired as it was close to collapsing.
Mum and I spent a couple of sessions with a lovely gentleman, who ran the Rylstone Historical Society. Inexperience costs us lots of information as he would wander from topic to topic and a long time later tie it all in, by then we had both forgotten some of the important details suspecting that the gentleman was “mentally wandering” and not paying enough attention. A tape recorder on the last visit solved a lot of that problem.
I have over the past few years used the Internet to locate information. Every year more information is made available. I have joined several genealogy chat rooms and thanks to those chat rooms have been able to locate information on the English and Australian family.
Returning to the question of who my Grandmother was, well 25 years down the track I am not that much wiser. I do know that she wasn’t born in Inverness in 1887 but Sussex in 1889. I have managed to “find” her family but she remains a mystery whom future generations may be able to solve.
But Christmas day my present to various members of the family is a bound 300 page story of my family.
Merry Christmas to everyone
Robyn
