Joseph Ratcliffe travelled from his home near Alton, Staffordshire, England, with Phillipina Metzler of Wiesbaden, Germany, north to Scotland to marry and then emigrated to N.S.W. Australia. (The image is of the small church in Airdlie, Scotland, where they married.)

Elizabeth Logan (born late 1700s) walked from Ediburgh to Cambridge to find the father of her unborn child. He may have supported her anonymously as her child, Samuel, was able to start up a successful boatbuilding business on the River Cam. Samuel's grandson, Morris Arthur Ransome Logan came out to Australia pre-WWI.

James Irwin married Penelope Duggan in Tipperary, Ireland, and then made their way out to Australia eventually settling in the Bendigo area of Victoria around the time of the great gold-rush. Their daughter, Mary Irwin, gave birth to Ruby Irwin who married Morris Logan.

No doubt a colourful character, Johnstone was born in Co. Monaghan, Ireland and came to Australia in the 1880s. He married Rosetta Jacobs and they had a number of children, including my maternal grandmother, Gladys Anderson who married Joseph Aloysius Ratcliffe. Johnstone and Rosetta separated at some stage and he later re-married.

Captain Andrew Meaney, Master Mariner, was from Co. Wexford, Ireland and possibly arrived here as part of a crew and settled in N.S.W. He not long after married Bridget Maher who was possibly an Irish famine orphan brought to Australia under the Early Grey scheme. They had eleven children and, sadly, Bridget died in child birth at the young age of 32. Catherine Meaney married Wilfred Ratcliffe.