Gold Rush Ancestors

Prospecting Australia

Help Support Prospecting Australia:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Swinging & digging said:
My ancestors came to Australia in 1851 arriving in Ballarat to dig for gold during the gold rush!
Family again turned to mining in the 1930s, they nearly starved to death looking for gold @ Turton's Creek in Gippsland.
The following year they headed to Bendigo and reworked an old gully washing and puddling the ground left between old alluvial shafts they survived by catching Rabbits etc.
After the gold supply in that gully petered out the next gully over the hill with no evidence of mining was tried, an amazing discovery was made and some very nice specimen gold was discovered, by looming this was traced to a reef. A claim was registered and a shaft sunk, quartz was crushed @ the Bendigo State Battery, for 3 years 3 families survived the 1930' depression on the gold obtained in the Reef. The mine was visited by a mines dept official and a favourable report was written about the discovery and the miners hard work ethic. They later applied for a government grant to further develop the reef but were unsuccessful in obtaining the funds?

I have spent some time trying to locate the old shaft with no success? I suspect somewhere in the bush remains a shaft and reef prospect with potential but nobody has connected the shaft with the history etc?

Perhaps some specimen gold remains on the slope nearby?
Click to expand...

utterly fascinating reading, trueblue golden ancestry - i dips me lid t' yer cobber

thanks for sharing and i hope that you find the old shaft.

casper
 
My g g grandfather, aged 35, arrived from England in 1851 and must have went straight to the goldfields, he married and they had their first child at the Lamplough diggings. The next mention of him I can find in the Argus is the claim made by him and his father in law for the 300 reward for finding the Four Mile Lead at Moonambel circa 1860, the claim came up in the Victorian Parliament again in the early 1880s and was again knocked back. Anecdotal evidence suggests he worked in gold mines until around 68 years of age and then became the local rate collector (probably due to his experience as a solicitors general clerk in his previous life) until his death at age 72. Pity Four Mile is now private land as I'd love to swing a detector over where my g g grandfather prospected.
My g grandfather is mentioned in the Argus a couple of times in the early 1900s after having a couple of lucky escapes during blasting at Tormey's Freehold mine, he also had a greengrocers shop in Moonambel.
 
My claim to fame are the Grimmetts from Lanacourie.
My Mothers side of the family.
 
My great grandfather James Abel Cause Snr. had a mining claim on the Gympie goldfields. My wife's ancestor Peter Mangan also had a claim and was amongst the first to find gold on the Gympie gold fields he had a ring made with one of the first nuggets to come off the Gympie fields. They were both there around the 1860's.
 
gcause said:
My great grandfather James Abel Cause Snr. had a mining claim on the Gympie goldfields. My wife's ancestor Peter Mangan also had a claim and was amongst the first to find gold on the Gympie gold fields he had a ring made with one of the first nuggets to come off the Gympie fields. They were both there around the 1860's.
Click to expand...

Wonderful, is the ring still in the family?

casper
 
:D
TenOunce Tone said:
Awsome bit of Aussie History in your family there Casper, good to see the family tradition lives on!

Cheers, Tone
Click to expand...

Thanks Tone, Yup the tradition lives on.......... we're both "would be" miners that's for sure :D but the history i'm uncovering indicates that he was happier working in the saloon than in the stope :D

casper
 
Trove just keeps on giving up info on my gold rush ancestors - this one from the Ballarat Star

1402189255_picture_9.png


it is especially poignant given the current modern day attack on our prospecting rights re sluicing.....

1402189047_picture_10.png


Advance Victoria !!

casper
 
surprise surprise

i got a family tree for christmas

Great great grandfather Daniel Ryan left Ireland around 1862 and travelled to the Victorian goldfields , settling at Glenrowan , met and married Bridget Power who was a daughter of Harry Power ( member of Ned kelly's gang ) , and gave birth to 11 children in that town.

They later relocated to the goldfields at Greymouth , NZ

family trees are awesome when you can get the history ,There are surnames here i never heard of

Iskirka ( Polish ) , Carnell ( English ) Piggin & Mckeown

do i have any long lost relos here ? LOL
 
Ryans are related to the Kelly family by marriage, but Bridget Power is not the daughter of Harry Power the bushranger. Harry Power is an assumed name. The bushranger known as Harry Power is really Henry Johnston. He had no children as he spent 30 years in gaol for many offences and never had a wife or girlfriend.
Harry was also not a member of the Kelly Gang. He was a friend of the Kelly Family and helped the family after Ned's father died.
Harry did take a young Ned out bushranging, and taught him the craft. He was Ned's mentor.
The Kelly Gang was formed at Stringybark Creek when Ned, Dan, Joe Byrne and Steve Hart became the Kelly Gang. The common bond was the killing of police.
On one occasion when Ned and Harry were together committing a crime they were shot at by a landowner. Ned was so scared as the round flew close by him that he couldn't move for fear. Harry grabbed him, dragged him onto a horse and took him home to his mother. He told Ellen Kelly that her son would never be a bushranger. When Harry Power was captured asleep in his tent at his hideout near Tolmie, he believed, until his death that Ned had ratted him out. He didn't.
You no doubt are related to the Kelly Family through the Ryan connection but not to Harry Power.
Oh and a side note. Daniel Ryan was known in the area as Dinny Ryan.
Hope this helps.
 
Puddler Bill said:
Ryans are related to the Kelly family by marriage, but Bridget Power is not the daughter of Harry Power the bushranger. Harry Power is an assumed name. The bushranger known as Harry Power is really Henry Johnston. He had no children as he spent 30 years in gaol for many offences and never had a wife or girlfriend.
Harry was also not a member of the Kelly Gang. He was a friend of the Kelly Family and helped the family after Ned's father died.
Harry did take a young Ned out bushranging, and taught him the craft. He was Ned's mentor.
The Kelly Gang was formed at Stringybark Creek when Ned, Dan, Joe Byrne and Steve Hart became the Kelly Gang. The common bond was the killing of police.
On one occasion when Ned and Harry were together committing a crime they were shot at by a landowner. Ned was so scared as the round flew close by him that he couldn't move for fear. Harry grabbed him, dragged him onto a horse and took him home to his mother. He told Ellen Kelly that her son would never be a bushranger. When Harry Power was captured asleep in his tent at his hideout near Tolmie, he believed, until his death that Ned had ratted him out. He didn't.
You no doubt are related to the Kelly Family through the Ryan connection but not to Harry Power.
Oh and a side note. Daniel Ryan was known in the area as Dinny Ryan.
Hope this helps.
Click to expand...

awesome

Yes i know Harry Powers original name , that is identified in the book i have here but yes you could be right about Bridget Power not being harry's daughter , the notes i have here do say "possibly his daughter" due to the surname and age group , plus with Glenrowan being a "one horse town" but the family member who wrote it did say "possible"whereas i leaped to the conclusion that it must be so.

I will pass this on to the family historian and she can work through it.

Let me know if you have any more

thankyou kindly :)
 
HeadsUp said:
casper said:
Fascinating stuff coming out here - are these your people HeadsUp http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cg...0.2.8&srpos=2&e=-------10--1----0bridget+ryan--

casper
Click to expand...

correct

thankyou

She drowned in the river at the back of their property on 10/7/1905 while Daniel Ryan was working for BHP

who would have thought BHP was around way back then ??

thanks casper
Click to expand...

I found mention in the NZ Papers of a Daniel Ryan who applied to the (Mining ?) Warden for a "special" claim of 100 acres...... could he be your man too ?

casper
 
casper said:
HeadsUp said:
casper said:
Fascinating stuff coming out here - are these your people HeadsUp http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cg...0.2.8&srpos=2&e=-------10--1----0bridget+ryan--

casper
Click to expand...

correct

thankyou

She drowned in the river at the back of their property on 10/7/1905 while Daniel Ryan was working for BHP

who would have thought BHP was around way back then ??

thanks casper
Click to expand...

I found mention in the NZ Papers of a Daniel Ryan who applied to the (Mining ?) Warden for a "special" claim of 100 acres...... could he be your man too ?

casper
Click to expand...

Its possible , have to look at the year and maybe even addresses on the paperwork

Was it Greymouth or Coromandel ?
 
casper said:
West Coast!! ... Grey River Westland or Stratford Northland - i'd have to look again 'cos there are so many Daniel Ryan references.

casper
Click to expand...

thanks . Its appreciated but i dont want you to go to so much work for us , didnt mean to put you to work or anything lol :8

I did wonder if i might find some relos with direct connections to the goldfields tho

you never know
 

Latest posts

Top