Tracing My Roots

In 1861, after immigrating to Australia from England, John Barnes and his wife Elizabeth built the first two buildings in an area between Sydney and Melbourne, Australia.  There were no buildings there, just open farm land where kangaroos roamed freely.  They called this area Cootamundra which means turtle in the local indigenous people’s language.  The two buildings were the Barnes General Store and the Albion Hotel.  They also built their home, called Clapham Cottage.  The town needed a church, so they brought in John Miller and his wife Rebecca.  As the area grew, the Millers started a sheep ranch and built a homestead called, “Littledale”.  These were my great, great, great grandparents.  My grandmother was born in Cootamundra and lived on Littledale until she was three years old.  Living in this area, with major droughts and fires was difficult so the family moved to British Columbia, Canada in 1909.

I hope you enjoy these pictures of me visiting the areas I had heard so much about.  It is amazing to walk in the same places my ancestors walked.