My collection of stuff on family history.
Historical Information on the Pollock, Smeaton, McPherson, Meier and Related Families
Studies of these boat people of the 1850s-1870s tell us much about the establishment of European settlement and the values held by those communities. This research on my forebears was done mostly in the late 1980s. Additions and corrections are needed and stories will be warmly appreciated
- Pollock
Alexander Pollock and wife Mary Jane Kilpatrick hail from Ulster Scot farming families. They joined a significant migration of relatives and community members from Stranorlar, Donegal in the 1870s. Seeking a new beginning these people helped establish wheat farming, as well as the fabric of new communities, in the Lower Goulburn Valley and the Riverina.
- Smeaton
From the gritty mining and industrial landscape of lowland Scotland, Peter Smeaton and Helen Stalker followed her parents to goldrush Victoria in 1855. They settled in the mining town of Creswick. When the boom had busted their son Peter (junior) married a highland Scot, Catherine McIver, at Mooroopna. They moved to wheat farming in central western NSW
- McPherson
Forced from the highlands by the preference of the lairds for sheep rather than people, Colin McPherson and Catherine Cameron moved to lowland misery weaving wool. In 1855 Australia provided a release and they enjoyed well-being in the golden city of Ballarat. Son Colin (junior) married Jessie Melville born into a desperately poor family of Dundee flax weavers
- Meier
Heinrich Meier and Lena Leschen, from Hanover and Schleswig-Holstein, made the journey to South Australia, circa 1850. Starting from Klemzig in Adelaide the family moved across into Victoria. Son Lou Meier married Maud Grange - her father from Essex and mother arriving on an Irish bride ship aged 16.