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Rose(1) put “the tree” on paper for all to see and the picture that emerged tantalised the imagination. Hannah’s early life had been turbulent and culminated in transportation to the other side of the world. She married twice and had 7 (possibly 8) kids. Interest aroused, and, reading between the lines, two questions begged for answers – Was Thomas the father of Sara Ann and where did Hannah and Henry meet?

Crazy questions given the events happened almost 200 years ago.

Blissfully ignorant and armed with the romantic notion of actually finding answers we began the search.

To be totally honest none of us expected to answer either question, and we’ll never really be certain of our conclusions, but we weren’t disappointed. The real discovery was Hannah herself. In the course of time, Hannah, and to a lesser degree Henry, became more than names in records, gradually they emerged as real personalities. Which in turn fired up the drudgery of incredibly slow research.

Could our romantically silly questions ever be answered? Never.

Is the story over?

No.

Is there more information still to uncover?

Absolutely.

Is there anybody interested in continuing the search?

The short answer is “someone, hopefully”.

To put my departed dad’s concerns into some sort of perspective, he thought the Samuels line was dying out. If only he knew what we know now! Five generations on there are bloody hundreds of “rels” out there. True they’re not all named Samuels, but, my guess, catch any bus in Sydney and you’re probably related to about ¼ of the people on board, so be careful what you say about who to whom!

Lastly, in my attempt to understand something of the lives of Hannah and Henry I have applied a basic principle of Buddhist logic which in it’s simplest interpretation goes something like this – Actions > habit > tendency > character > destiny.

The “story” that follows would never have happened without access to information archived in the NSW State Records, The Mitchell Library, the State Library of NSW, the National Library of Australia, Society of Aust. Genealogists, and all of their wonderfully helpful staff.

The years of research would have been meaningless without the endless of hours of mind bending discussions, conversations, and phone calls with the Samuels Family archivist and historian Rebecca (Bec) Paltridge, and the list goes on: Ness, Rach, Trish, Cheryl and Peter, Irene and Garry, and anyone else willing to listen. A special thanks to Rose and Cecily who did an enormous amount of research “the old way” before the advent of the WWW.

The notation throughout the story refers to the documentation that revealed Hannah’s and Henry’s role in the creation of the Samuels line in OZ. Contact Bec if you want access to the primary info: becpaltridge@gmail.com

Bill (William Henry) Samuels – Bec (Rebecca Louise) Paltridge

January 2015