Close encounters with Henry Hannington

On 20 September 1854, baby Agnes CONNOLLY died at the home of Henry Hannington and his wife Jane Crabb in Hardy Street, Prahran, then a semi-rural extension of the City of Melbourne. Later that day it was Henry who informed the Deputy-Registrar that Agnes had died of ‘convulsions’. Although Agnes was not seen by a …

Grace Neil: the move to Queensland

This map of the new colony of Queensland supplemented J. D. Lang's Queensland, Australia:  A highly eligible field for emigration and the future cotton-field of Great Britain published in London in 1861 by Edward Stanford, a prolific publisher of maps, books and atlases. Queensland is represented as a terra nullius waiting to be made productive …

Grace Connolly: early childhood (1854-1858)

Grace CONNOLLY / NEIL / OLIVE Mumma Olive, the matriarch of Mount Olive, had three distinct names during her lifetime: Grace CONNOLLY, Grace NEIL and Mrs E.A.C. OLIVE. Although in real life she transitioned fluidly (messily!) from one name to the next, the identities correspond to three distinct periods, locations, family groupings and personal identities. …

Evoking Grace

Grace CONNOLLY / NEIL / OLIVE (1854-1919) From my early childhood my grandmother Dorothy NORBURY / OLIVE (1902-1987) told me stories about her grandmother Grace CONNOLLY / NEIL / OLIVE (1854-1919) which were so vivid that in my mind's eye I could see Grace walking through the grounds of Mount Olive. I could hear her …

In search of Grace…

Grace One of the (few) high points of 2020 was solving the most frustrating mystery in my maternal family tree: the origins of my great-great-grandmother Grace, wife of Edmund Abraham Cumberbatch OLIVE and mother of 15 children. She died as Grace Olive, and is known by generations of descendants as 'Mumma' Olive, but while EAC …