Australian Family Connections

During my third day in Melbourne I spent several hours at the Immigration Museum, and was surprised and pleased by the wealth of information there on the immigration of Swiss-Italians to Australia beginning in the mid 1800's. It was superb way to prepare for my next stop - visiting a 3rd cousin and the Australian home sites of my paternal great great grand parents and great grand parents when they immigrated to Australia from Switzerland, and where my grandfather was born.

By way of background, my paternal ancestry, indeed my surname, is Swiss-Italian, and my great great grandparents and great grandparents immigrated to Australia from Switzerland beginning during the first Australian gold rush. In addition, my paternal grandfather was born in Australia, and lived here until he was 8 years old and his immediate family moved to California.

What's a Swiss-Italian? There is no “Swiss” language – the population of Switzerland speaks German (64%), French (23%), Italian (8%) - (the three official languages), and Romansh (less than .5%). The Italian-speaking population primarily reside in just one southern Canton (similar to a USA State), south of the Alps and bordering Italy. Why this Canton (Ticino) remained part of Switzerland rather than joining with fellow Italian-speaking Italians in Italy is an interesting topic for another day.  My ancestors come from two villages/towns in Ticino - Someo and Gordevio, previously blogged about here.

What Caused Swiss-Italians to emigrate to Australia in the 1850's: This is a challenging question that I've blogged about before – here. Essentially the emigration started with the Australian gold rush – but as with all migration – there are lots of reasons - individual and social.

Where Did the Swiss-Italians settle in Australia: The heart of the Australian's gold rush territory was in the areas surrounding modern day Daylesford – about an hour and a half northeast of Melbourne.

So, on my fourth day here, I met (for the first time) and stayed with the cousin and met his brother/brother's wife and mother who today own the property where my great grandfather built a residence, across the road from where my great, great grandfather built his family residence. This cousin is an expert on family geneology and we spent considerable time looking over and discussing his extensive research materials and family tree knowledge and visited the prior home sites.

It was a wonderful day of family connections and reflections on my roots.

Here is all the remains of my great grandparents home in an area then called Boots Gully - today called Basalt: