My mum was born a Haylock and there were family tales that some of the Haylock family went to Australia during the gold rush of the mid 1850s.
A while after I started my dad’s side of my family tree I hit a brick wall and moved onto my mum’s side. Whilst searching on the internet I found information on the family of my 3x great grand uncle and aunt John Haylock and Ann Guymer on Great Wratting Guymers.
Looking more closely I found the following:-
Elijah Haylock, Ann & John’s eldest son, had arrived in Adelaide aboard the ‘Catherine’ on 26th May 1851. The Haylock family spent 7 months in Adelaide before making their home in Kingston, Victoria’
So maybe the tales of them going to Australia were correct. I now had the name of the ship on which John and Ann’s son had sailed on, so off to Google I went. Typing in the ship’s name, I got quite a few hits and eventually came across the passenger list of the ‘Catherine’ recording Elijah’s name, on the site The Ships List: Passengers, Ships, Shipwrecks. He was described as an 18 year old agricultural labourer from Suffolk.
I then discovered that the rest of the family travelled to Australia the following year as I found them on the passenger list of the ship the ‘Omega’ on the same site –
Haylock John, 44, farm labourer, Great Thurlow, Suffolk; Ann, 42; Hannah, 21, domestic servant; Peter, 16, farm labourer; Daniel, 13; Ephraim, 11; Abner, 8; James, 6 and Thomas, 2.
I had further success in tracing the family in Australia when I found more information and photographs on the Monaro Pioneers website.
Amongst the interesting information I found on the site, I learned that after John Haylock and his family landed in Australia on 24th August 1852 they had made their way onto the goldfields of Victoria by purchasing a 96 acre allotment, adjoining the village of Kingston, east of Ballarat.
Both John and Ann died in the mid 1860’s and the family went their various ways.
Abner went into the carrying business and married in Campbelltown in 1867. In 1878 he bought land at Gunbar (between Hay and Griffith) which was sold after his death in 1920.
During the great drought of 1902 he bought ‘Coonerang’ near Cooma as relief country, which his eldest son Arthur ran before and after his father’s death, increasing the acreage over the years. Arthur’s brothers bought other land in the area.
Abner is my second cousin 4x removed on my mum’s side of the family.
Despite not knowing any of the family who are out in Australia, I’m glad that I found the information about them and feel as though ‘I do know them’.
yummy-mummy-of-2
© yummy-mummy-of-2 2007