D is for...Ah, Dungog : a brief survey of its charming houses & historic buildings

 I've been researching my family history for over thirty years. Along this genealogy journey I have been supported by hundreds of books, many of which I have listed on my Librarything page. 

During the 2021 #AtoZChallenge I will be writing about two of my passions, books and family history. I'll be taking a trip down memory lane and revisiting some of those books that have enriched my genealogy experience.

My 3x Great-Grandparents Denis Tierney and Elizabeth D'arcy settled in Dungog NSW around 1840. As The Maitland Mercury newspaper ,which was first published in 1843, covered Dungog I have many stories about Denis and his family. Unfortunately I only have a couple of contemporaneous images from Dungog.

On a visit to The National Library of Australia back in 2015 I perused Ah, Dungog : a brief survey of its charming houses & historic buildings and enjoyed looking at the images within that gave me an idea of the environment in which my ancestors lived. 

My meanderings on the internet found a browsable copy of this book on the Living Histories site at the University of Newcastle.

Where do you buy a copy? 
https://ahdungog.pressbooks.com/front-matter/where-to-get-it/

Trove Tuesday - Irish invasions

At the moment I am focusing on my Irish research and revisiting research done years ago which I  had put in the too hard basket.

I am more than 60% Irish so I wonder about my Irish ancestors and the many members of their extended families who came to New South Wales and Victoria in the nineteenth century. The convicts, of course, had no choice in the matter but the others came of their own free will.

Knowing nothing about the numbers who came I turned to Trove to find some contemporary information on the subject. I learnt that over 200,000 Irish came to Australia between 1851 and 1876 and that huge numbers went to the US and Britain - perhaps I should be looking for cousins in those places.

1877 'EUROPEAN INTELLIGENCE.', Advocate (Melbourne, Vic. : 1868 - 1954), 9 June, p. 4. , viewed 03 May 2016, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article170436026

Many Irish arrived earlier than the dates covered in the article above. My Irish convict ancestors including Ellen Moore, Mariner, arrived in the 1820s and my famine orphan, Mary Criggan, on Derwent in 1850. The first three of my Tierney/D'arcy line arrived in 1839 on China.

1825 'SHIP NEWS.', The Australian (Sydney, NSW : 1824 - 1848), 14 July, p. 3. , viewed 03 May 2016, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article37071634

1839 'Shipping Intelligence.', The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1803 - 1842), 21 December, p. 2. , viewed 03 May 2016, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article2549634

1850 'PORT PHILLIP.', The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), 6 March, p. 2. , viewed 03 May 2016, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12916203