Dear All, A meeting will be held in remembrance of ANN REFFIN - At the old church hall (former Wesleyan schoolhouse), alongside the Castlereagh Chapel, Upper Castlereagh, on 20 June 2004. This is another reminder (i.e. I've sent similar earlier on) about the 200th year mark going to be reached in mid 2004 for the arrival in Sydney of the convict girl Ann Reffin. I myself am NOT a "family historian" per se, and sometimes even have trouble comprehending the structure of geneological chartings (fortunately my wife Ann understands relationships better than I do, so if I get too lost I just ask her). Although not a geneologist worth a crumpet, I do however have a strong sense of, and appreciation of, all history. As a geologist my own "history" interests go back millions of years of course. I am also one of those who firmly believes we should take lessons from history and try not to commit the same old mistakes which already should have taught humankind a thing or two. Hence I am keen to help preserve history, be it family history or local history. Ann Reffin was born in February 1783 in the small village of Walton-on-the-Wolds (http://www.geocities.com/doctorjohn72/walton.gif). Her parents were John and Ann (and commemoration of her arrival here is being organised coincidentally by another "John and Ann" pair way downstream on the tree or stream of time). Ann was put on trial at Nottingham Assizes on 11 March 1802 for burglary. She was sentenced to death, which sentence was two weeks later commuted to relocation to Sydney on a sentence of 7 years transportation. The transportation period turned into permanent settlement for her, as indeed it did for most transported convicts. Very few of them ever returned .. although one exception to that was Molly Morgan who'd managed to get herself back to the motherland but was re-arrested there and sent back to the penal colony of Sydney on the same ship that Ann travelled on. That vessel was the Experiment, a ship of 568 tons. It left England on 4 December 1803 - bound for Port Jackson with 136 female and 2 male convicts on board. Ann's shipmate Molly Morgan (http://www.geocities.com/doctorjohn72/mollymorgan.htm) was also a very interesting woman, and became an example of a successful convict business woman. She founded Molly's farm which is now the central business district of Maitland .. and the non-cash economy of the Local Exchange Trading System there calls it's 'currency' units Mollys. After arriving in Sydney, Ann married here an Irishman (David) who had been shipped out to Sydney in the wake of the 1798 great Irish rebellion for freedom and independence ~ which was the root cause, as most of us know, of the recently re-enacted event (battle of Vinegar Hill) on the road to Windsor. Ann had six children here to David: James, Ann, John, Esther, Catherine Sophia, Samuel. Parents, and most children and their spouses, all moved to Castlereagh. Ann died there on 26 July 1839, her death certificate recording that she was 56 years old and known as Ann Ralphin or Ann Boyonnes. Ann's grave is in the Byrnes-Jackson plot. This is in the northeastern corner of Christ Church general cemetery at Castlereagh, adjacent to the vault containing the Reverend Henry Fulton who was the well known local Anglican chaplain who buried her (and who was another 1798 Irish political transportee, pardonned soon after his arrival). Ann's grave is currently unmarked and friends/descendants are invited to contribute small sums to the eventual placement of a small memorial stone there. This will state that her remains lie "hereabouts" (as the exact spot can be determined with accuracy of only plus or minus a metre or so). Because all the families of early Castlereagh are quite extensively intertwined, back and forth (braided much like the early bed of the Nepean itself was, prior to weir construction), Ann's descendents may be found under numerous surnames - some of which may or may not still have local representation in Western Sydney region, or may even belong to AUS-NSW-PENRITH-L? It is believed that probably in common with other early convict women, many of the thousands of descendants which must now exist would be unaware of their connection with Ann. The purpose of the get-together (which is anticipated to have small attendance, as the degree of publicity is but small) will be to increase that awareness and hopefully to bring representative of various family and historical group interests together who may have a common link in the personage of Ann. The meeting will be day-long and will be held in the small "hall" (formerly the old Wesleyan Schoolhouse of Castlereagh) at the Castlereagh Chapel, Castlereagh Road, Upper Castlereagh. The agenda will include talks followed by visitation to where Ann lies buried. Talks might cover such things as the Leicesterhire Wolds where Ann came from, the history of Castlereagh, and branch family histories. Could anybody wishing to present a talk please contact me at john.mail@ozemail.com.au so that the agenda can be got in order. It would be appreciated if people could pass the information in this email, about the planned meeting, along to anybody who they think might be a descendant of Ann Reffin. Similar information about the meeting and about Ann may be had at http://www.geocities.com/doctorjohn72/reffin.htm Or see http://www.penrithcity.nsw.gov.au/Lib/LocalSuburbs/Castlereagh.htm for information on Castlereagh and how to find the Upper Castlereagh Methodist/Wesleyan church and cemetery. The meeting will be held in the building shown in the centre of the image http://www.penrithcity.nsw.gov.au/Lib/LocalSuburbs/Images/castlereaghMethodi st.jpg A descendant chart up to as far as Ann's children and grandchildren is available at http://www.geocities.com/doctorjohn72/david_ann.htm Beyond those few first generations, Ann's descendants via intermarriages or continuing along the same lines are not fully charted, or at least this information is not readily available via the internet (family historians would have sizeable chunks of it however). Her descendants will occur within many surname designations ... and early Castlereagh families are well-known to be intertwined back and forth over the passage of time. Families directly linked to David and Ann�s children are: Nicholson, Jackson, Harland, Ablett, Wilkinson, Harris, Lewis (and hence Fredericks), Gorman (and hence Lees), and Nicholas. Some of the families which will contain descendants of Ann Reffin would be those linked with David and Ann�s grand-children (Yeomans, Smith, Becroft, Wilkinson, Johnson, Cunningham, Ford, Dunbar, McCooey, Hamilton, Dyson, Quinn, Price, Harland, Fraser, Irwin, Wright, Dowling, Sheens, Lovell, Pullman, Hollier, Innes, Cummins, Haynes, Kirkness, and Stokes); and those linked to great-grand-children (and of those some who are descendants of their youngest son Samuel Byrnes will be in families Vaughan, Boulton, Flanagan, Parish, Richardson, McLenehan, Ness, Alfred, Hall, Mann, Dunstan, Handley, Nixon, Willett, Stanton, Collins, Ahleman, Anderson, Millen, Lenthall, Matthews, Downey, Gates, Forrester, Witcom, Lack, Hindmarsh, Viant and Miller. Also: Curry, Walker, Payne, Taylor, rightwell, Grant, Taylor, Bunyan, Winchester, Kendall, Upton, Weir, Cassidy, Kay, Clarke, Seach, Edgar, Gilbert, Rapley, East, Mason, Graham, Pond, Guthrie, Leschke, Woodleigh, Beecroft, Lines, Stonehouse, Seymour, Smith, Wilson, Tuckwell, Ahleman, Andrews, Bayliss, Grimmond, Kingsmill, Rose, Boots, Harvey, Webb, Piper, Allan, Curry, Andrews, Mosse-Robinson and Hair). Kind Regards, John Byrnes (geologist) Earth and Social Science Consultants PO Box 264 SUMMER HILL, NSW 2130