In February 1844 William Inskip and his wife Maria Carter from Maulden, Bedfordshire, arrived in Australia, aboard the Neptune. They had gone to Australia as much needed farmers on an assisted package.
There is a very good list of all their descendants on the Monaro Pioneers website.
William was one of 11 children. He was 5ft 4in, had brown hair, grey eyes and a mole on his chin. He had not had an easy time in Maulden, and in his teenage years had been to jail for assault; his brother George was also jailed for injuring a tree!! In 1842 William was a sexton in the village.
My own gx grandparents were William’s brother John and, possibly Maria’s sister, Elizabeth Carter. In 2000 I had the pleasure of meeting up with Gina Meyers (nee Inskip) one of William and Maria’s great x grandaughter in Monterey, California. It did feel quite epic for the two parts of the family to be meeting again after 150years. But the strangest twist in the tale was how similar current family names were – Gina and I both have a father John, a brother Nicholas, and a son Mark. Well they do say blood is much thicker than water !!!
PS (Gina has done a lot of excellent research on the family in Australia – maybe that’s in the blood as well)
