Descendants of great-great-great grandfather George Ritchings and great-great-great grandmother Maria Ritchings (née Whitton). Composed by Aunty Nellie. This copy passed from Aunty Elva to Russell, 9 October 2000.
Two families crossed the seas to Australia and became one. Their story joins in the marriage of Frederick Ritchings and Ada Eliza Gregory, whose ten children branch into the generations below.
George Ritchings & Maria Ritchings (née Whitton). Parents of George, Frederick, Jane, Ted and Ern.
William Gregory & Sarah Gregory (née Peason). William died on the voyage and was buried at sea; Sarah later remarried Grandfather Knight at Marshall Mount, Sydney. The Peason, Knight, Dawes and Gregory families all came out on the same boat.
The two founding couples emigrated to Australia in the sailing-ship era. The Ritchings came from Wales and landed at Adelaide, South Australia — the colony founded in 1836 as a settlement of free (non-convict) migrants, a common destination for Welsh and English families of the period. Their son Frederick was born at Adelaide on 13 November 1866.
The Gregory family sailed from England bound for Sydney. William Gregory died during the voyage and was buried at sea; his widow Sarah (née Peason) completed the journey and later remarried a Mr Knight. The record notes the Peason, Knight, Dawes and Gregory families all travelled out together on the same ship.
Marshall Mount — recorded as “Marshall Mount, Sydney,” this is almost certainly Marshall Mount in the Illawarra, a rural district between Dapto and Albion Park just south-west of Wollongong (established 1829, named after Sarah Osborne née Marshall). This fits the family’s strong later presence around Wollongong, and it is where Sarah Gregory settled after remarrying.
Kangaloon, birthplace of Ada Eliza Gregory (16 Jan 1874), is a village in the Southern Highlands of NSW, about 16 km east of Bowral — where Frederick and Ada married in the Wesleyan Church in 1893. The name is Aboriginal for “kangaroo landing ground.”
Wooroolin (and the reunion site at Atkinson Dam, Lowood) are in Queensland’s South Burnett and Lockyer regions — the family moved north from the NSW Highlands to farm there, which is why so many later branches are Queensland-based.
I searched genealogy and local-history sources but could not yet verify individual arrival records for George Ritchings & Maria Whitton or William Gregory & Sarah Peason. The most promising next steps are the NSW, SA and QLD Births, Deaths & Marriages indexes, assisted-immigration and ship passenger lists for Adelaide (1840s–60s) and Sydney, and the WikiTree Ritchings pages. The specific dates recorded here (Frederick b. 1866 Adelaide; Ada b. 1874 Kangaloon; married Bowral 1893) are good anchors for a documentary search.
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