Welcome to the Taylor Family History Site. This site contains information about the ancestors of the Taylor family of Perth, Western Australia. It has a companion site – Our Genealogy – which contains detailed genealogical information about the Taylors. This blog […]
Two boys played under a tree in front of the house. Diana Roser watched them through the window until a shower of rain sent them scurrying home. Diana turned back into the room reluctantly, her eyes adjusting to the darkness, […]
The arrival of the barque Scindian at Fremantle on 1 June 1850 signalled the start of Western Australia’s period as a penal settlement. Then known as the Swan River Colony, the State had been founded as a colony of free […]
On a fine day in the autumn of 1861 a group of farmers put on military uniforms and took to the parade ground at Lyneham in the Devon countryside. After weeks of rain the weather was finally suitable for harvesting […]
The Rosers arrived in 1842 on the Simon Taylor, a ship that brought labourers and tradespeople to the Swan River Colony, a small enclave of settlers on the west coast of Australia. The settlement was just over a decade old and […]
Jessie was the eldest child of Thomas and Mary Sinclair, born in Dunrossness, on the 2nd April 1852. She spent her childhood in Dunrossness, where she went to the local school. The 1861 census recorded her as a ‘scholar’ living […]
The usual story about the discovery of the Norseman goldfield is that it was accidentally discovered by a horse named Norseman. For example, Rica Erickson said: Station hands left work, sometimes without giving notice, to go prospecting, Larry Sinclair among […]
Janice Young named her book In Search of Elizabeth after Elizabeth Roser, daughter of William and Diana, whom she believed had disappeared from the family home. This is how she explained it: Among the first of William’s tasks, was to […]
My wife’s great great grandfather was Thomas Sinclair, a Shetland Islander who was, at the time of his death in 1868, an assistant warder with the Convicts Department. I have discussed him elsewhere on this site. As the old records […]
The year after Thomas Sinclair arrived in Western Australia he got a job as an assistant warder at what was then called the Convict Establishment in Fremantle. After the convict era was over the establishment was utilised as a regular […]
What made people migrate to Western Australia? In the early years of the State, or the Swan River Colony as it was called, there were a couple of main reasons which depended upon the social and economic background of the […]
© 2024 — Michael Robinson, Bedford, Western Australia.