An Impossible Dream
Ancestral Journeys
Australia is an island nation. Every Australian has an ancestral line which started somewhere else. Even the first Australians, who have walked this land for millennia, likely journeyed from ancient Sundaland 65,000 years ago.
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My own ancestral line is much shorter. My ancestors arrived in this land around 150-170 years ago. Journeying mainly from the British Isles - England, Scotland and Ireland - the made their way to this seemingly deserted country to make new lives for themselves. This page records some ancestral journeys, and a few stories of the people concerned, as best as I have been able to reconstruct.
The Campbell Line
Great great grandfather Matthew Campbell journeyed from the Scottish town of Greenoch accompanied by his young son, to establish a new life in the Victorian goldfields. Arriving in June 1953 he journeyed to Ballaarat, There he established a meaningful life he established himself for the next decade. He witnessed the massacre at Eureka. He was the first Mayor of the Town of Ballaarat West, and the first Captain of the Ballaarat West Fire Brigade. Ill-health forced his to return to the old country to recuperate in 1864, and despite his intentions to return to the Colonies, he died in 1865. Read more about him here.
James Campbell, my great grandfather, was a fascinating man. Writer, traveller, politician, churchman. I imagine that had we met the two of us would be sitting around the fire in a smoky Victorian sitting room sharing stories. But we didn't, so the stories here will need to suffice.
Not to be confused with his father of the same name, James Campbell, a great uncle, was my grandfather's older brother. His time in the Boer War, his exploits on the Western Front (amongst other things), and his time in New Guinea (as it was) are fascinating. Elements of his life are recorded here
​My paternal grandfather. Along with at least his older brother (and possibly both brothers), a veteran of the Boer and First World Wars, another man I never got to know. I have pieced a little about him together, and it can be found here.
Norman's younger brother, and my father's uncle. Like his older brothers, a journeyman of intrigue. As with James, he spent many years in New Guinea, in places that I too had visited in years gone by. Parts of his story are here
An excerpt of my father's life story, here. The hardest of all the Campbell men to write about.
The Whittaker Line
To be added ...