Roadtrip

I've been on a ''Thelma and Tom" trip over 1850km actually. I decided to head back to the area where both my parents families are from and do some exploring for myself as my own family would be thoroughly bored by the whole thing I'm sure. I bought myself a little GPS named Tom and he had a lovely English accent to guide me down into NE Victoria over the mountains for a week of taking in the sights and discovering all about my family who have lived in that area since the mid 1850's when a convict named Roger John Newbound was transported from England to Sydney fulfilling his life sentence. My mums family came as free settlers and land selectors and there are still a number of the family farming the area today. The photo above is of the hay shed on my grandparents first property, it's sagging with age but still stacked with bales of hay today.

Mum's family before she was a twinkle in her dad's eye, the two little girls are the only ones still with us and they are my maternal aunts. This photo was taken in the late 1930's when the family were living in the house we referred to as kids as the ''ghost house" as it was derelict and vacant by the 1960's and throughout my childhood. I found that the house has been "modernised" and is a family home once again. It amazes me that I can look at the actual spot where mums family gathered for that snap so many years ago.

I visited many cemeteries, churches, schools, museums, wineries, and even a few living elderly relatives. I've come home knowing so much more about my family and where their lives in Australia began after the long trip out from England. It will take me sometime to add all the new information to my ever growing tree, almost up to 5000 individuals and to plough through all the photocopied family info I was most generously allowed to share.

All in all I had a great trip and I think I will be taking more of these Thelma and Tom roadtrips in the coming years. One week in a cosy little bed and breakfast was no hardship either!