Joneses of Canberra Family Tree 2018 Edition

o, when did all this Family Tree bizzo begin? Good question. I can remember asking Mum (Nancy) about her parents not long after Dad (Ivan, aka Snowy) passed away, as we already

had a bit of info about the Jones side (more about that later) and their convict history, what she could recall about her own mother and father.

Not surprisingly, she became quite emotional when she spoke of her father (Harold), remembering the times she had with him with nothing really standing out except when she said,

"He had some Repat medicine with the name Edison on it."

Say what?... To say the spider senses started to tingle is somewhat an understatement. So, here's me grabbing pen and paper and asking, "Edison?"

"Yes, Edison with an E", she says… "OK, that makes sense, Edison does start with an E," says me.

You know that look you get when your Mum just knows you are a blithering idiot? That's the exact same look I got. "Not 'ison', it's 'eson', with an E," she fired back.

Now it was my turn to give Mum a WTF look. That very first scrawled note is what started what followed over the next 14 or so years. And here it is:

This was put on the backburner until Mum passed away in 2006 and I happened to look for Harold via the NAA.gov.au website's WW1 records and found this:

Who the heck is this "Comfort" character? Hang on, Mum's Mum was Alice, so what gives? Well the answer to that burning question is what drove me into the

frustrations of family research, which my second attempt of gathering info from the Victorian Library knows only too well:

Eventually a lot of Comfort Edeson's (nee Renfrey) story revealed itself. I already had a lot of it right in front of me, but just couldn't understand the detail, but I still don't

know the "why" of Comfort and Harold's marriage break-up, but I am now aware of many of the details as you can see if you follow the "Maternal" arrow link and follow

what you can under "Harold Edeson (aka Wade)".

If Harold was a mystery with all the name changes and movements around country South Australia and Victoria and all, what was Comfort….?

With the Project Harold webpages (ver 1.1 and 2.0), I received a number of contacts from newly discovered Edeson relatives; John, Glenda and Bill, who provided a

great deal of further info on the 'lost' branches of the Edeson family, with John eventually stitching together all the clues that we'd gathered about Comfort, finding

her final resting place and even producing a comprehensive documentary on his Edesons (Comfort being a direct ancestor) and I even had a short scene in it.

Honestly, the stuff these characters got up to would be enough material to supply a multi series T.V. drama.

Let us not forget, the other parts to this story. Alice's father was Danish, with his own story to tell and whose descendants from New Zealand I have contacted, along

with confirmed Ancestory DNA matches and family stories etc with other Olesen family members, with a special thanks to Erin and Judy.

We shouldn't forget the "Thomas Jones and Ann Agnew - 'We weren't lagged here.'" story researched and written by Margaret, which eventually dragged

me kicking and screaming into the world of Ancestory.com in 2014 (cancelled my membership today by the way) and one of their DNA tests which led me, some say

mistakenly, down a path to nowhere and a possible a wrong turn, however I'll stick with the DNA results which pointed me there and can be followed via the Margaret

McDonald line through the Helen McHattie page/link on the Paternal side of the coin.

As this document was created using Microsoft Exel (Office 2013) and saved as an .xlsx workbook and converted into a .htm document webpage, some of the functions

will not be like many other webpages I have created. I recommend viewing on a desktop PC rather than a laptop and certainly not a handheld device.

Within the following pages, those with corresponding documents will have a link below their name. When you visit a link, you will need to use your Browser's "Back"

button to return… or you could 'right click' your mouse and 'Open in a New Tab' to view the document or photo. Documents will be in .pdf form with any relevant

text highlighted so you don't go cross-eyed looking for the person in question. Some files are large, however there size will be shown. Some photos will be .jpg files.

This will be my final attempt at creating a Jones/Wade/Edeson/Olesen Family Tree. If anyone would like to continue, or start their own, an Excel template is here:

Any spelling/grammar boo-boos are mine and mine alone.

Cheers,

Wayne

5 October 2018

p.s. I may just do a Harold v3.0 to update known Comfort info