History Notes - Robert Genge family
History Notes
Although we did not have markets this week, members are having a busy time with enquiries, changes to the Dean Room, and a special lot of visitors coming this week.
The enquiries still keep on coming with another Thompson one this week. Unfortunately, there are several family memories, especially names, that have proved to be incorrect. The person who said Troth could mean Groth was absolutely correct as I found the wedding in our files and it was Groth, although not the Barraba line -this one seems to have come from Queensland.
There was also little detail around the death of Mrs Thompson, who obviously had a heart attack after carrying water, from the creek up to the house of her employer. Her husband was a miner at Teatree mines where she lived and it seems she walked overland to her job.
Unfortunately, she died in 1882 and there are no death certificates for Barraba at that time - I have an ancestor who died at that time but we do have a headstone for her. The only clue to where and when Mrs Thompson died is the memory of her employer, Mr Orchard, and his descendants. She is buried with the Orchard family.
This week I have also found a couple of pages referring to another resident who lived in and around Barraba for most of his adult life. It seems that Robert Genge was born in Wiltshire about 1808. He grew up with his family and as a young man made a living for himself there.
At about the age of almost thirty years he sold his property and came out to New South Wales. He managed to secure a station of his own but ran into the 1840 drought and lost it.
In the early 1850's he became a goldminer at Upper Bingara and this is where he met Sidney Saunders. They seem to have worked together at lronbark from 1861 until the diggings began to fail. Robert left and took on the management of Welbon for A. A. Adams - a position he held until the end of 1867.
It seems he went from Welbon back to mining as Sid Saunders noted in a letter to his parents in March "my old friend, Mr Genge, has taken to the pick and shovel again around Bingara".
Robert's health had deteriorated but he apparently ventured out to Moree in 1881/2 to manage a property. He then returned to lronbark where he lived for the rest of his life.
Robert had little contact with his relatives in England although he did receive 100 pounds in 1894 from someone in South Moulton which indicates he had some contact with family.
Robert Genge died on 24th September, 1897, at the age of 89 years and he is buried in the lronbark Cemetery. Mrs John Spencer advised the English family that he had died and received a letter from his niece, Clara Clothier, in reply.
The name Robert Genge has been used in the Spencer family in his memory.