Monday, February 27, 2012

AUNTY VIC CARRIAGE

It is amazing to think that a daughter of Ethel Governor is still alive.

AN AMAZING DISCOVERY

I have just made an amazing discovery about Jimmy and Ethel Governor, and their first child, Sydney Golding Louis, born at Gulgong in 1899.
I have always wondered where his first middle name, 'Golding', came from.
What I have just found out puts a whole new light on his possible paternity.
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In November 1901, after Jimmy was hanged that January and his daughter born that April, Ethel remarried.
Her new husband was another part-Aboriginal man, Francis (Frank) Joseph Brown.
He was born in 1877 (two years after Jimmy) on the Clyde River, at Currawan Creek Reserve, and was five years older than Ethel.
His father was Thomas Golden Goulding Brown!!
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That appears to be where the name 'Golding' given to Sydney Governor came from.
Ethel's first child with Frank Brown was named Robert Joseph Golden, also it seems after his father.
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This begs the question of why Jimmy and Ethel 's child was named after this man, and what connection they had with the Brown family?
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Thomas Golden Goulding Brown was born at the Clyde River in 1838 and died at Currawan in 1909.
In the 19th century, the Brown family owned the land at Currawan Creek Reserve, but this was revoked in 1956.
[Source: National Parks & Wildlife Service, Coastal Custodians, Vol2Is7 Feb 2005 and Vol3Is1 Aug/Sept 2006]
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The Clyde River which enters the sea at Bateman's Bay is now also known by its Aboriginal name, Bhundoo.