You will have your own reasons for interest, however, this is my thoughts.
Remembering the passing parade of character
Mottos: Vice, Virtue and Valour / perseverance / fortitude & prudence / stimulus
Hope: Families can provide us with a sense of belonging, from our earliest days and support us into old age. This formative maxim may be so, whether or not the primary care giver is related or has assumed the position.
Ancestry is revealed through discourse and recorded material. It may be reworked into narratives, descendent or pedigree reports and charts and can then be further presented through inspired poetry or prosaic forms of fiction as an historian's view can only be.
Historians in both dissertation and writing, seek discourse with others and build a narrative based on precedents, even after decades of learning, the author generally does not presume to present historical truth. When the cognitive processes analyse both the material at hand and it's presentation technique there should in turn, be a continued discourse on the matter.
A reader who seeks truth, whether of history or family heritage, avails themselves of much source material and becomes informed; then begins an interpretation of fact and fiction, brought together and made meaningful through discussion with others; particularly where first hand information can confirm our information..
Genealogies do not simply list names or provide an historical record, rather, multiple literary and socio-political functions lay behind each event and our imagination is key to exploring such matters.
The dead cannot rest and though gone, are not at peace until their story is told.
- adapted from Discourse 15-30 by Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975) -
A popular book narrative genre originating in the sixteenth and seventeenth century was the 'picaresque novel'. It follows "the adventures of a rogue, presented sympathetically as a lovable villain, through an episodic series of tricks and frauds perpetrated on others". One may suspect such stories of gallant cavalier highwaymen influenced Benjamin Carver, long before allegedly in 1791, he held up and robbed the Reverend (Vicar) Thomas Knowles with his wife and daughter Sarah Knowles Underwood.
Dictionary of National Biography, Volumes 1-20, 22
Chalmers' General Biographical Dictionary Volume 19 > 409
…on the King's Road. We still enjoy period novels and clever story lines and probably watch an occasional historic play or movie and we may even collaborate in the revealing of such tales through the Internet or a social web. Stories help recreate our own memories, and preserves folklore for future generations.
Arrivals in New Holland and Career thereafter
My earliest known maternal ancestors arrived in New South Wales from London, in 1792, one as a convict, Benjamin Carver and another a free woman, Sarah Dibbs, both abroad the Royal Admiral. Sarah travelled alone under an arrangement agreed with the Home Secretary, Henry Dundas, that committed her to be married on disembarkation, and enabling her to request her husband be appointed to her.
Each generation in Australia can double the number of direct ancestors from their parents through to those who arrived from foreign land. Earlier arrivals came some as convicts, others were soldiers and most were settlers. So the count extends by 2: 4: 8: 16: 32: 64: 128: 256: 512: 1,024....
Our paternal linage arrived as free settlers from Tipperary, Ireland introducing James Stormont who arrived in Port Phillip Bay in 1844, went to work near Geelong then onto the goldfield sites, starting near Ballarat.
In 1859 Bridget Egan nee Lynch from County Tipperary and Clare, Ireland arrived with six children and established new accommodations near Campbelltown New South Wales, where her sponsor Maria who had arrived earlier and married A Pollock. Their children no doubt embraced the change, found peace and prospered. Michael Egan worked as a Fettler and ganger on railway infrastructure and Jas Stormont was innovating a quartz crusher on the Black Hill.
Others developed business ventures including the transport of people's and goods by coach and by dray, they acquired properties and stocked them and exchanged them. They were shepherds and cattle men, farmers on small holdings, butchers and engineering technicians and architect. In the Public Service they were surveyors and border agents, soldiers and airmen, railways staff, teachers, administrators and social service personnel. They were pioneers of the Colony and involved in church and community and after Federation they gained "wealth for toil" by joining in the formation of the Australia nation.
Genealogy research can give insight, via past ancestors's lives, into our personal relationships and circumstances due to changes in historic revolutionary cycles.
In remembering our ancestors, we may supplement available educational tools for our own critical thinking and transformation actions.
Documenting immediate forebears is an exercise in inclusiveness and compassion, wherein we may expand our own consciousness through acceptance of context in other lives in another time and place. The past is our future for a time.