A Multi-Generational Family History
Seventeen voyages. One extraordinary thirty-five year window.
Between 1848 and 1883, my ancestors boarded seventeen ships and sailed toward a new life in Australia. They came from Ireland and England, from Germany and the Channel Islands — from poverty to promise, for opportunity and ambition. This is their story, told as faithfully as the records allow.
Explore the Family Tree →Navigate by Ancestry
Seven generations of ancestry. Click any name to expand or collapse that branch. Emigrants are highlighted in ocean blue — click their name to go to their family page. Hover for birth and death years.
The Migration Window · 1848–1883
Seventeen voyages made by thirteen family lines. Each carried a story of what was left behind and what was hoped for ahead.
England · Sussex
Arrived 1883
Born in Linchmere, Sussex in 1861. Arrived in Australia under a new name and built a life that concealed an extraordinary secret for decades.
England
Arrived 1851–1856
The precise date of James Bomford's arrival remains an open research question — one of the honest gaps this history carries.
Ireland · County Cork
Arrived c.1851
Born c.1831 in Cloyne, County Cork. Her parents were John Ryan and Catherine Rourke. The ship that carried her to Australia is not yet known.
England
Arrived 1848
Among the earliest of the seventeen to make the voyage, arriving in Australia in 1848.
England · Devon & Guernsey
Arrived 1857 · Morning Light
A sailor from Offwell, Devon who married a woman from Guernsey. They sailed to Australia aboard the Morning Light in 1857.
Germany · Hesse · Butzbach
Arrived 1855
Born 1836 in Butzbach, Hesse. His arrival in Victoria carried with it nine generations of Steinhauser ancestry traceable to Heidelberg in 1585.
England
Arrived 1848
A child when she made the voyage in 1848, accompanied by her parents. One of the youngest of the seventeen emigrants.
Ireland
Arrived 1851
James Coleman arrived in 1851, part of the wave of Irish emigration that followed the Great Famine.
Ireland (possibly)
Arrived 1860
Her origins are still under investigation. Irish heritage is possible. She arrived in 1860.
England · Dorset
Arrived before 1868
A pauper in Dorset who somehow became a riverboat captain on the Murray at Echuca, Victoria. The years between 1856 and 1869 remain a research gap.
England · Surrey
Arrived 1849–1850
From Surrey, England. He married Catherine Wherry in Australia — two emigrants whose paths converged in the new world.
Ireland · Earl Grey Scheme
Arrived 1850
An Irish orphan who came to Australia under the Earl Grey scheme. She married John White and built a life far from her origins.
Ireland
Arrived separately · 1857 & 1858
Husband and wife who crossed the world on different ships. Anastasia made the voyage with their newborn son Patrick — a passage of extraordinary courage.
England
Arrived 1871
Among the later arrivals, James and Isabella came to Australia in 1871.
England
Arrived 1854
Arthur arrived as a child in 1854 with his parents, part of the mid-century wave of English emigration to Victoria.
England & Wales
Arrived 1849
John and Elizabeth arrived in 1849, among the earliest of the seventeen to make the long voyage south.
From the Richard Cobb Chapter
He arrived in Australia as Charles Richards. He had been born Richard Cobb, in Linchmere, Sussex, in 1861 — a fact that would remain hidden for the better part of a century, buried beneath a new name, a new country, and a life built with deliberate care.
What drove a man to cross the world and remake himself so completely is a question the records do not yet fully answer. What they do reveal is a man who worked hard, who raised a family, and who left behind enough traces — in crown land files, in inquest reports, in the careful handwriting of a son — to make reconstruction possible, if not complete.
He died in a mining accident. The Barrier Miner reported it. His children left orphans and managing his estate and each other as best they could against the back drop of WWI. Their children carried the Richards name forward, never knowing — or perhaps never speaking of — the Cobb that lay beneath.