It’s long been known the brothers Peter and George Telford came to Victoria from Roxburghshre. Peter married and had many descendants, includding myself, unlke George who remained single.
What little was seen of George was always in the vicinity of Peter and he died in Apollo Bay where Peter lived.
But then I came across this small newspaper article in the Melbourne Leader in 1891
He had so little in the way of assets but his relatives were scrabbling to get their hands on it . And so a Trove search on George and his executor led me on to a different search. and another branch of the family.
The first surprise came in George’s will where his main beneficiary was his sister Janet Forsyth of Bankhead, Hamilton. I knew he had an older sister Janet who I thought was safely tucked up in Scotland. I had never found any evidence to show she came out to Australia.
The second surprise came when I found that the executor, William Steedman Greig, was Janet’s son-in-law, married to her daughter Jane. William was formerly of Bank Head but by then a storekeeper at Macarthur.
I’m thinking that Bankhead was the name of a farm, particularly as that was the name of a farm in Linton near Kelso in Roxburghshire, an area with which both Janet and John had connecions.
Janet’s husband John Forsyth had died in 1875 and left her with a comfortable sum . Janet was the executor of his will and her brother George made a statement to the effect that he was not a beneficiary of the will but having lived in the Western District for many years he could testify to the value of the property.
All of this seems to suggest that George was well known to Janet and her family and had not been his brother Peter’s shadow for all his life in Australia.. It suggests that George was familiar with Hamilton and I wonder if he lived there for some of the time, rather than just visiting.
Thanks to Trove leading me to one small newspaper article I was able to expand the picture of our C19th immigrant Telford family from Scotland.