[roddy1960]

My crowd are mostly Celtic on Dad's side. I found records back to 1797 for relatives from Ireland about 20 years ago but didn't follow up on it. Dear old Shirley a second cousin now no longer with us also traced Scottish heritage back to the early 1700's once until the records got really hard to confirm . On Mum's side it's Irish with a little bit of English and French . My Great Grandmother was an immigrant from France and Mum recalled as a very young girl she used to have a sip even at Mass of spirit hidden in the hem of her long skirt pretty often .

As far as convict history , that'll be something to look into one day but I expect if no direct link somewhere there will be a marriage link in the spider web of most families..
As far as I know my only indigenous relative was my Auntie Agnes who was born on Cape Barren Island which hosts a fair degree of ethnicity to the First Australians and Agnes's family date back a fair way there . Of course not a blood relative as she married my Dad' older brother , Colin .

Off topic a tiny bit but Dad's younger sister Jean married Leon and one of their six kids, cousin Dianne , married and her eldest son was until fairly recently the Carlton Head Coach in the AFL . I knew Brendan Bolton when he was a little bloke but haven't seen him for a long time . What was he thinking coaching Carlton!!!