Our Family History

purcellgenealogypages
genealogy of a Purcell family of Queensland, Australia

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1920c - Annie Curtis (b. 1856)

Every Australian alive today is an immigrant with at most only a couple of hundred years of association with this land - a rather insignificant number when compared to the 40,000 years or so that modern enquiry estimates as the minimum amount of time that has passed since the first Aborigines sailed their boats across the waters that separate Australia from its nearest neighbours.

The day of 26 January 1788 would have dawned like any other to the three quarters of a million Aborigines estimated to have been occupying this vast continent at that time. The myth known to Europeans since antiquity as terra australis was about to be claimed, however, by a small seafaring nation on the other side of the planet (almost literally at the antipodes) - an act that would transform the country within one hundred years into the modern industrial state we call Australia.

The story of the ancestry of my children - Oska, Cella, Saxon and Axel - present an interesting and representative sample of the story of this transformation. From convicts that arrived on the First Fleet through to free settlers in the middle part of the nineteenth century to simple immigrants seeking a better way of life for their children in the early part of the twentieth century, the tale is one that I hope you enjoy reading.

I have chosen to organise this brief history by tracing the families of each of of my children's four grandparents back as far as the circumstances that led to them (or their ancestors) deciding to come to Australia. You can follow these lines by clicking on the buttons to the left of this text. For privacy reasons, personal details of living members of this tree have been cloaked.

I expect this project to be a work-in-progress for many years to come and would encourage you to comment, criticise or correct as you see fit no matter how small or insignificant you feel the detail might be. I would also encourage you to circulate the existence of this website to any of our relatives whom you feel may be interested in learning more about their roots and/or contributing data and media.

Andrew Purcell
July 2003

Most Wanted - I am looking for information about these ancestors. Can you help?

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If you have any questions or comments about the information on this site, please contact us. We look forward to hearing from you.

5 Jan 2009 - Added a whole new look to my site.

31 Jan 2021 - Finally putting some time into repairing my website and updating my database.