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This wonderful old photograph is of my grandparents, Alex and Yvette Bell, coming outside after their wedding at the time of the Spanish flu epidemic in Sydney in 1919. Although not recommended, my grandmother slipped off her mask, as a bride has to be seen smiling on her big day after all!

Researching your own family tree is another way to experience the fascination of, and get insight into, the past, and learn what makes your family who they are. It should also sort out the stories that have been passed down for generations into real fact and fiction.

How to Start Your Family Tree
     Talk to older members of the family – parents, grandparents, great uncles and aunts - about your desire to know about the family’s history. Sometimes there may be secrets some feel the need to keep - reassure them how much the world has changed, that there is no longer a stigma attached to events such as an unmarried pregnancy or having a convict relative, but don’t push the issue. You may also find out about someone in the family who has already started this research to whom you can talk.
      Make as many notes as you can about earlier family members. Ask about photos (if possible scan copies), names, occupations, and, if known, approximate years of births, deaths & marriages, when they arrived in this country, and how (as a free settler, sponsored by a businessman etc.). Don’t take family hearsay as fact, as with research it may be disproven, although write it down. Decide any areas you would like to concentrate on, such as investigating these stories.
     On a sheet of A4, or larger, with the paper in landscape orientation, put your name in the middle of the bottom (with your siblings’ names if required), then put your parents directly above, then all your known grandparents directly over each appropriate parent, and so on, using straight lines to connect them. This will just be a rough sketch to start with, but it will collect as much information in one place as possible, and help show where the gaps are. Stick to only your immediate blood line to start with, to make it simple, so leave out great uncles etc., at this stage unless there is a special reason to include them (e.g. they were famous for something).

Next comes the need to obtain birth, death and marriage certificates of the people involved from the country in which they occurred. This will  make sure you have the right ones and give you more information to go on with. This step can become quite a costly and time consuming exercise, and in NSW is cheaper through a transcription agent. While you do need to start with your own birth certificate, you will find some of your more recent relatives' ones will be protected  by privacy laws and be unattainable, but hopefully you will have living people to fill in the gaps till you get far enough back to the ones considered historic and available for public scrutiny.Remember to consider the times in which your forbears lived, as that would have had an impact on why they did certain things.

Useful websites on Australia's history and writing your own-

http://www.nla.gov.au/oz/histsite.html - is the National Library of Australia's pages on Australian history's selected websites

http://gutenberg.net.au/aust-history.html - this is Project Gutenberg Australia's site which has many free ebooks, created from writings by early pioneers, thus relating directly to Australia's history

http://www.jenwilletts.com is a website for facts about Australia's past and its people in Newcastle and the Hunter Valley, neatly compiled into readily available information. It's title, Free Settler Or Felon?, gives the major focus of this useful site.

http://www.writing-world.com is a veritable smorgasboard of how-to-write articles, with a number on writing history, your family history, memoirs, combining historical facts with fiction etc. (see under SF/Fantasy, Fiction, Creative Non Fiction).

The Story of a Truly Inspirational Pioneering Woman in Australia - Molly Morgan

In the Hunter Valley in NSW Australia, lived a convict pioneer about whom much has been written. On one hand she is presented as a thieving drunken tart and on the other as a naïve young girl who grew into a praiseworthy and thoughtful woman. Add to this the intrigue of her burial, and you have a compelling personality. Only a reader presented with all the facts can decide who she really was.

Molly Morgan was born in Shropshire, England as Mary Jones on January the 30^th 1762. When she was born it was the custom that all Marys in the area were called Molly, hence her use of this name. Molly's father, David Jones, was a rural labourer who eked out his meager income by catching rats. Molly is said to have done well at school and been considered a bright child.

Her education coupled with her becoming a beautiful, shapely young woman, caught the attention of a local land holder, Thomas Gough. He needed a quick replacement for his dead wife, to look after his two very young children. Molly moved in with him at sixteen years of age, no doubt encouraged by her mother Margaret, in the hopes of a better life for her. After living with Thomas for approximately five years, Molly bore him a child in 1783. Unfortunately Thomas refused to marry beneath him, leaving Molly desperate.

In 1785 Molly married a wheelwright and carpenter, William Morgan. On March 19th 1786, her son James was born. William decided to start black mailing the recently remarried Thomas, for more of little Mary's maintenance. But Thomas appeared to use his influence and their home was raided, with thirty six lengths of 'hempen yarn' found, stolen from a local whitening yard.

Molly was arrested, while her husband apparently escaped over the back fence, and her nursing baby and young daughter taken from her. Subsequently she tried to commit suicide by cutting her wrists. Even though the evidence of her part in the theft was circumstantial, Molly was sentenced to fourteen years transportation. This was twice the usual penalty, again showing the power of the incensed Thomas Gough. In 1790 Molly was placed on the Neptune, which became the hell ship for prisoners of the second fleet going to Australia, and she was lucky to survive the horrific five months journey to the new colony.

1793 saw Molly serving her sentence in Parramatta. Her recently convicted husband then arrived to inform Molly that their children were on their own in England. Imagine how this made a grieving mother even more desperate to escape! By 1795 she had persuaded the captain of the Resolution to take her back to England. In England Molly found fourteen year old Mary and ten year old James and took them to live in St. George's Terrace, London, where she became a seamstress.

On November 8, 1797 Molly bigamously married Thomas Meares, a brass founder/whitesmith and bell-hanger. When his house caught on fire and burnt down, Molly moved back to London, this time to the parish of St. George's Southwark. Her son went to sea with the Royal Marines and her daughter's whereabouts was unknown, historically.

Molly was again arrested, the reason unclear, and once more sentenced to transportation. She arrived back in Australia on the Experiment in 1804, aged 42.

About 1818 a new settlement was started in the vicinity of Wallis Creek, later to be included in the town of Maitland, a central part of the Hunter Valley. In 1819 Molly, now aged 56, was permitted to occupy a small holding of land there, of approximately 30 acres. So she became one of the first European settlers in the Maitland area. Her later land grant of 159 acres, which today would have been most of Maitland's business district, was made official from the 1st of January, 1829.

Convicted Thomas Hunt, a brick layer from London, was allocated to Molly as a worker and on 5^th March 1822, Molly became Molly Hunt, aged 60 to his 31years. Although it appears Molly kept her looks well into old age, it was her kind personality most commented on. She was charitable to all, and many of the inhabitants owed their survival in the settlement to her generosity.

In 1826 Molly built the Angel Inn in High Street, Wallis Plains to service the increasing traffic by settlers and teamsters travelling to and from Morpeth. Both Molly and her husband were reported as industrious and of good character, which doesn't fit the tales of drunken debauchery that came after her death.

The Angel Inn was mortgaged on March 5, 1835 to John Terry Hughes and John Hosking. With her reputation for being bountiful perhaps Molly was too much so, and this happened as a result? For example, in one amazing instance in 1826 she gave 100 pounds, representing nearly a third of the final cost, towards a school that was built in the present East Maitland. The Hunts also owned 203 acres at Anvil Creek near Greta and Branxton. It is here that there are two small hills, one commonly known as Molly Morgan Hill, where Molly built her final home, near a tract of land called the Molly Morgan range.

Travelling around the Hunter you will probably come across other places that commemorate Molly's life. In Maitland there is a motel named the Molly Morgan Motor Inn not far from Molly Morgan Drive. There is even a vineyard bearing her name.

Molly is credited with visiting the sick, building her own rough hospital, aiding settlers, helping with flood assistance and as having real concern for convict welfare.When Molly Morgan died aged 73 in June 1835, she was buried on her Anvil Creek land and to this day her grave site has never been found. The myth of the bag of gold or treasure that was buried with her on or near her hill, also still remains a mystery.

Molly's life was one of disaster, legendary escapades and romantic tales resulting in her becoming known as the Queen of the Hunter Valley, a real peoples' champion. There is no doubt she was, and still is, a fascinating character.

All the above written information is protected by the authors' copyright and can only be re-presented with their permission, and proper acknowledgement.