Historical Society - tracing family histories

History Notes

This time of year seems to be “tracing family history time”.  There have been several requests, some for large families, but unfortunately some return home and then make a request.  Hopefully we will see them in the spring.

As I write these notes it is unlikely there will be markets next weekend as everyone seems to be busy with school holidays – we have only 2 stall holders ready to go at this stage which is hardly enough.  Be prepared to have a really good market in August on the Saturday before Ag-Quip – in nice spring weather.

Last week’s notes on the Cobbadah School created a renewed interest in country schools so I thought perhaps another countryside topic could be of interest.

Plenty of older Barraba residents will remember the names of paddocks and localities which have now largely disappeared.  Our country was first settled into four or five big properties and then the smaller settlers selected land to grow enough food for their large families.

The next generation were able to purchase the smaller holdings and make money off the land.  The paddocks in these holdings were larger and often held the name of the early settler – Perry’s, Cameron’s, Duncombe’s for example and some paddocks carried their original name before they became part of a bigger holding, Milldam is an example.  The Brickiln, where the clay for Barraba’s early bricks came from, was part of Barraba Station.  Perhaps some of our readers can come up with some more such names such as the School Paddock south of Barraba.

The two requests for family history last Friday – Jones and Carter – have included a few other families along the way.  One of these is Duncombe family.  Lewis Duncombe was born in NSW and his wife, Vasthi, was born in New Zealand, although she was not registered in either country.

Vashti’s parents had come originally from England about 1840, they lived in Sydney for a couple of years, then went to New Zealand and later returned to New South Wales – can you imagine the difficulty in sorting out this Smith family!

Eventually Lewis Winter Duncombe caught up with Vashti Smith and they married in Mr Lanagan’s house on Gineroi Station which is north of Bingara.  The young couple had eleven children born in half a dozen places and we have marriages for ten of them including the Charles Jones marriage to Selina in 1885.  Sometimes these requests take quite a lot of work to sort out!!