Hello and welcome to our Family History Home page.

Since Christmas 2000 we have been joined by many members of our extended family in researching our Ancestors.  This has been a very rewarding experience and in June 2003 we finalised the 1^st edition of our collective work on a CDROM and circulated it to family members.  The work is ongoing and we have now amassed over 900MB of family data towards the next edition.  The WELLS, MURPHY, ANDERSON, FERGUSON, FOSTER, GREAVES and WOODMANSEY lines are our main interest, however we are also pursuing and recording all of the interconnected families as information is made available to us.  We invite you to visit our Family History Web Site, just click on http://www.wellshistory.com/ and view all of Allan’s WELLS Ancestors.  We hope to update this web site in the near future to include more material.

Allan moved to Canberra from Sydney on the 4^th of January 1966 to take up a position at the Australian National University and Rosalie came to Canberra from Casterton in Western Victoria to work for Malcolm & Tammie Fraser in 1968. We were married in Casterton on the 31^st of October 1970, returning to Canberra to raise four children (now grown up).  Michelle, (Journalist) now working for the National Health and Medical Research Council in Canberra; Julie, (Special Education School Teacher) works for the ACT Education Department; Andrew, (Sound Engineer) is currently a Sound Engineer with mcm entertainment in Melbourne, Victoria; and Bernard, who lives at home with us and works for Ozcro Furniture at Fyshwick in Canberra.  

Allan’s WELLS Ancestors came from Mayfield in Sussex and earlier from Croydon in Surrey, England.  Grandfather WELLS migrating to Australia (he was actually heading for New Zealand but left the ship in Melbourne - it is most likely but not yet proven, that he had a cousin already in New Zealand) in 1908.  His FERGUSON Great Grandfather John, along with his sister Mary (May) arrived in Sydney on the 8^th of January 1880. Rosalie’s MURPHY Ancestors came from Limerick, Ireland; Daniel MURPHY arriving in Portland Victoria aboard The British Empire in 1857.

Allan’s Great Great Great Great Grandmother Mary WELLS (1779-1816) of Mayfield in Sussex England was an unmarried mother, between 1798 and 1814 she gave the WELLS family name to her children; Thomas Wickham WELLS, (Allan’s GGG Grandfather whose father was a Thomas WICKHAM from Wadhurst), James, Elizabeth, William and Susan WELLS.  William, her youngest son, (whose father was a Joseph FOSTER) migrated first to Adelaide, arriving 1837, then to Melbourne circa 1841 and finally settling as a pioneer in Tasmania circa 1843.

One family mystery we are trying to unravel is the whereabouts of our German Cousins.  Allan’s Grand Aunt Edith WELLS (1841-c1956) married a German National, August Theodore Albert “Rudolf” KOCH at Shanklin on the Isle of Wight on the 3^rd of September 1908.  Rudolph was interned in England during WW1 after which the family moved back to Germany. 

Rudolf and Edith were residents of Berlin during WW2 and had three daughters; Claire Annie, Ailsa and Margrete KOCH.  Claire and her two youngest children died in very tragic circumstances the day before the Russians entered Berlin, her husband and oldest son survived.  Margrete was living with Edith in Berlin in May 1947 and Margrete’s husband was still a prisoner of war in France.  In 1988 Allan’s uncle Frank WELLS thought that Ailsa was living in Denmark.  If anyone can put us in touch or have any information that will help us to find our long lost cousins we would be most grateful.

Researching our Ancestors has made us many new friends and we have found many living “Cousins” around the world. In 2005 we went to New Zealand to meet a couple of these Cousins for the first time and also took the opportunity to have a wonderful holiday. Genealogy is a fascinating subject to explore and we do not know from one day to the next just where it will lead as the various official documents tracing our ancestors arrive in the mail. Perhaps one day we will even be able to visit the places our Ancestors called home, until then we look forward to meeting many more “Cousins” via the Internet.

Email us at mailto:wells@cyberone,com.au or visit http://www.wellshistory.com/

Andrew’s web site is at http://www.andywells.com/ to get all the latest on Computers, Games and the Net.