Di and I are now
home from our five week holiday, where we visited Indonesia, to see
my son Tom, and Australia. It was a wonderful experience to see just
a very small part of Australia, travelling the east coast from Sydney
to Brisbane and then moving on to Cairns and into the rain forest
where we stayed at the wonderful Bloomfield Lodge.
On
our return to Sydney, the Swinfield Gathering
took
place on Saturday 3rd May 2014 at the Calvary
Retirement Community, now home to Ray Swinfield. He arranged for us
all to meet there in what proved to be an excellent venue where we
could mingle and chat with the 45 people who came together.
Although
the majority were from the Sydney area of New South Wales, others
made the journey from other
parts
of
the state whilst others travelled in
from
as
far afield as Queensland,
Tasmania and Victoria! Ray's sister-in-law, Annette, ably supported
by his brother and nephew, the two Johns, brought in a wonderful
array of cakes and kept everyone supplied with tea and coffee.
There
was great
excitement
as people found themselves on the family trees which I had brought
with me from England, identifying how they were related, and meeting
newly-found cousins.
The attendees were
all from Families 3 and 4, being descendants of William (1804-1876)
and John (1806-1874), the two sons of Thomas and Elizabeth Swinfield
who arrived in very late 1848 and very early1853. The vast majority
are part of the very large pedigree 3, accounting for 38 of those who
were there. Three members of Family 4 also came, representing John's
family, which includes, as far as we know, no living Swinfields.
Di kept us all in
order so that we all knew exactly “who was who” and made sure
that we had a photographic record of what was a very enjoyable and
informative event.
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