Small world department...
Two years ago on a long voyage around Africa and Australia, Fellette and I met a couple from Australia, the Melbourne area to be a little more specific. We were shipmates for about 50 days.R and L were returning home after about 7-8 months travelling North America, Europe and the UK. We became instant friends. R and L left on another Aussie trek in the spring of last year and visited with us twice at home. We toured up north in BC and had a great few weeks with them.
Somewhere in one of our conversations I remember L saying that she is descended from somebody who came over on the "First Fleet". That is a term for people who came to Australia as a form of punishment from Britain. Apparently about 218 odd years ago the jails in England were full, so they started putting offenders on ships instead. I suppose there was a surplus of sailing ships between wars or something. Eventually there got to be so many of them some Pom had an idea, let's "transport" them to the ends of the earth. Australia came to mind immediately no doubt!
The "First Fleet" as we were told, was composed of eleven ships. Eight with prisoners, the others escorts I assume. They landed at Botany Bay, near the now Sydney. That day by the way is January 26th, now known as Australia Day.
Our Aussie Tai Chi instructor gave a little chat on Australia Day, both he and his wife are descendants of first fleeters. During his chat he mentioned that his wife's ancestor was a 15 or 16 year old girl whose crime was stealing some cloth. She had earlier told me the story about this girl, who had several children with one spouse and two other relationships with offspring. She came over on the ship Prince of Wales, and lived to a ripe old age of about 90.
When I heard the story, I E-mailed my friend in Australia, and asked if L knew the name of the ship her ancestor came over on. A day or so later R got back to me with the information, Prince of Wales, and her name was Anne Forbes. I told my Tai Chi instructor's wife and you can guess the rest of the story. Same girl!
Small world.
posted by Doug and Fellette @ 11:31 AM
3 Comments:
you gave me chills.....
2 more sleeps until Cape Town, such memories.
LYF
There's a theory that we are each connected to every person on the Earth by six degrees of separation - your story provides evidence of the accuracy of that theory!
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