Speakers
1 April
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Megan Neilson - A Tale of Two Translators
Many BBFHS members need no introduction to Megan. She has been a member since 2005 when while attending an Open Day, she was "shamed" into joining. She has not been sorry. On that occasion she had tentatively gone along to enquire about researching her Scottish great grandmother Matilda Jane Millar who in 1852 ad arrived in Victoria aged ll, seemingly unchaperoned. On the Ballarat goldfields Matilda Jane was later to marry Megan's Chinese great grandfather Chin Kit. There was a romantic family myth about how they had met but the records said otherwise. The unravelling of the true story is the basis of A Tale of Two Translators, a presentation she recently gave at the biennial Dragon Tails conference in Wellington NZ. She is pleased to reprise this for BBFHS, adding some brief background about Chinese-Austalian history.
Megan retired in 2004 from a 40 year career in academic and clinical research at the University of NSW and its teaching hospitals and has a PhD in what was an emerging interdisciplinary mix of mathematics and neuroscience, now known as neuroengineering. When not doing family history, she continues publishing in that field with Peter, her partner of 60 years. They have authored many peer-reviewed papers for scientific books and journals and have regularly presented their work at major conferences in the UK, Europe, the USA and Australia. Along the way they acquired two children and six grandchildren. When she set out to solve a family puzzle Megan never expected to fall headlong into history, a subject she'd had nothing to do with since primary school. However, on entering the unfamiliar world of archives, record databases and the like she was happy to find that good scientific research experience and a knowledge of computing transferred easily. These continue to help, not only with how to chase dead people, but with the historical exploration of the geographic, social, economic and political circumstances that influenced the how, when,where and why of the lives discovered. Which is what family history is all about. |
6 May
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Scotland in Australia - Jean Campbell
BBFHS member Jean Campbell is a retired Primary School teacher, who has taught at Marton and Sutherland North, in the Sutherland Shire.
Jean joined BBFHS in 1994 and has held a number of positions since that time. Currently, she runs the Research Centre and is the Education Officer. Since February 2008, she has been in charge of the Scottish Interest Group. Her father was born in Edinburgh,Scotland and her mother's mother was born in the Shetland Islands. Being of 3/4 Scottish heritage, Jean has always had an interest in all things unique to Scotland, after being taken to the Highland Games, in Sydney, every year since a small child. Jean will speak about why our Scottish ancestors came to Australia - according to the 2016 Australian census, 119,416 Australian residents were born in Scotland, while 2,023,474 claimed Scottish ancestry. The first Scot was Forby (Forbes) Sutherland, from the Orkney Islands, who was buried in Australian soil, on 2 May 1770 (250 years ago). Then followed a few convicts, gold rush settlers... and then others began to arrive, through force or persuasion. |