Carter family of Lubenham (England) & Reynolds family of Sydney (Australia)

David Kilpack (Killpack, Kilpat) was born in about 1757, possibly in London.  He was tried at the Old Bailey on 26 February 1783.  His crime:  stealing poulty (”one live turkey cock, one live cock, two live hens, two live ducks and one live gander”).  His defence:  he supposed they had been dropped from some cart or waggon.  He was sentenced to 7 years transportation to America.

On his way to America, a group of prisoners took over the ship - so he found himself back in England, only to be recognised and apprehended.  This time (10 September 1783) the sentence was death by hanging!  However, luck was on his side and he was pardoned on condition of transportation for life.

Unfortunately, his life was not to be a long one.  The Scarborough, one of the vessels of the First Fleet, sailed from Portsmouth on 13 May 1787 and arrived in Sydney on 21 January 1788.  David married Eleanor McDonald (a convict who arrive on the Lady Juliana on 3 June 1790) on 15 June 1791.  They had 4 children, Martha b.1792, Elizabeth b.1793, Eleanor b.1795 and David (jnr.) b.1796 (but died 1798).

David died on 30 November 1797, at the age of 40, and is buried in Sydney.

Following is the information I have about my father’s family.  As he has now passed away, I am not always sure of the details.  Most of the information is either from recollection, or from U.K census information available online - so 100% accuracy is not guaranteed. 

Eric Carter was born on 18 May 1897 in Lubenham (near Market Harborough) - near the border between Leicestershire and Northamptonshire.  He had siblings named John (always known as Jack) b.16 Dec1898, Charles Edward b.1895, Ethel Mary b. 1894, Winifred Stella b.1900, Nellie b.1901 and Constance b.1903.

His father was Edward b.1862 and his mother was Stella Collins b.1874 in East Langton.  Other members of Edward’s family were Jane b.1851, Eliza b.1853, Mary b.1856, Louise b.1858, William b.1870, Ellen b.1866 and Evelyn b.1868.

 Eric Carter joined the British Infantry, and fought in WW1 in the trenches of France.  After the war he sailed for Australia, and headed to Kalgoorlie to search for gold.  There he married for the first time, and had four daughters (one of whom died as a child).  Later he moved to the east coast of Australia, and settled in Shoal Bay, Port Stephens.  He  married for the second time  and raised a second family (of three girls).  He lived through the death of his second wife (my mother) from cancer, and survived to a good age of 91 years, having an active community life until quite near his death.

     My Dad’s brother was always interested in family history, but my Mum insisted it was boring!

      When I visited Uncle Jack in England in 1981, I was given a copy of the family tree he was working on - but I’m afraid I wasn’t all that interested at the time.  The busy lifestyle of being a young adult meant that my copy of  his work was lost.

      About 10 years later, along came the invitation to a weekend course on genealogy, run by the Society of Australian Genealogists - so along I went, just to see what Uncle Jack found so intriguing, and I guess, with a little curiousity about why my Mother thought family history was so boring!

     We were given a good start on how to trace your family in N.S.W. (Australia) - and then permitted to use the Society’s resources to try out the techniques we’d just learned.  I started the afternoon with only the names of my maternal grandparents, and 3-4 hours later, had found what I thought was a link back to Australia’s convict past.  I remember there were tears in my eyes, seeing what I thought was my ancestor’s name on a list of ship’s passengers from 200 years ago!

     But I’d just learned that you had to be thoughout, it was easy to make mistakes - so I ordered the certificates, and waited for everything to arrive.  And the certificates confirmed it.  My maternal ancestors were convicts.  This may seem appalling to some readers, but in Australia now it is considered quite a priviledge, almost, to be able to trace your family back to the First Fleet.  These people came from hardship, and endured even more, almost unimaginable, hardship to build a nation that we are very proud of today.  So now I knew what my mother was hiding - but I wasn’t ashamed or embarrassed, I was intrigued.  And thankfully it went all the way back to the First Fleet.  My great-great-great-great grandfather, David Kilpack, was among the first group of Europeans to set foot on Australia’s shores.

    This was in the days before the internet, so research involved spending time in the library.  Luckily I worked near the State Library of N.S.W., so I spent many lunchtimes there trying to fill out some details, but eventually hit enough brick walls to lose interest.

      Then along came a marriage and a child - so genealogy took a back seat for a while.  Until one day I heard on the radio about an information afternoon on how to trace family history on (this new-fangled thing!) the internet.  Out of curiousity about what the internet was, along I went.  And as anyone else who is researching their family roots online knows - suddenly there was a world of information at my fingertips - limited only by my reseach skills and the speed of my internet connection.

     I’ve now got a fair of idea of who my ancestors were, where they lived when, and about their family groups, etc.  Now I want to know how they lived, and where all their descendants live now.  So I’m hoping that some of you might come across this one day, and leave a message to expand the story of the Reynolds family of Sydney, Australia, and the Carter family of Lubenham (near Market Harborough) in the United Kingdom.

To be continued…..