Skip to main content

The Disappearance of William and James Empey

My great-uncle Bill was the quintessential Empey family story-teller. About forty years ago, I remember him telling me the story of my great-great-grandfather, William Empey, and one of his sons, James Empey.[1] They had left Australia for South Africa in search of diamonds in about 1908 to 1910.[2] This story was quite feasible, as William was a miner and came to Victoria, Australia during the Gold Rush.[3] 
I became hooked!
I would go to the Public Record Office which was then situated in Laverton, Victoria for research.[4]  One by one I would slot a microfiche into the microfiche reader and comb through the microfiche looking for records. Sometimes, my mother, Lois, would come along to help too. 
However, I could not find any record of William and James leaving Victoria in the shipping records during that timeframe. In those days, I found it difficult to investigate what could have come of them in South Africa. I could only speculate.
Eventually, I purchased the marriage certificate of my great-grandparents, William Arthur Empey and Julia Warland Jones.[5] The puzzle thickened, as at their marriage certificate of 1893, it has that William’s father William is deceased.[6]
With the event of Trove and its presence online, I found a family notice in The Alexandra and Yea Standard which would bust the story wide open.[7] On 23 March 1887, William had died in Alexandra, Victoria.[8] I set up an account with Trove in 2010, and the doors opened enormously for my research on Empey stories in Australia.
But then, what became of James?
Jennifer Empey

BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Alexandra and Yea Standard.
National Library of Australia (NLA), ‘Trove’, Accessed 11 July 2018.
Public Record Office Victoria (PROV), ‘Family History’, Accessed 11 July 2018.
Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Victoria.
Notes
[1] William Empey to Jennifer Empey, discussion, [date unknown, possibly 1978].
[2] Empey to Empey, discussion, [date unknown, possibly 1978]; and William Empey to Jennifer Empey, letter, 3 September 1987, original held in recipient’s possession.
[3] Empey to Empey, discussion, [date unknown, possibly 1978]; and Empey to Empey, letter, 3 September 1987.
[4] Public Record Office Victoria (PROV), ‘Family History’, Accessed 11 July 2018.
[5] Marriage Certificate of William Arthur Empey and Julia Warland Jones, married 4 November 1893, Registrar of Births, Deaths and Marriages, Victoria, 5611/1893.
[6] Marriage Certificate of William Arthur Empey and Julia Warland Jones, married 4 November 1893.
[7] ‘Family Notices’, The Alexandra and Yea Standard, 1 April 1887, p. 2, Accessed 11 July 2018; and National Library of Australia (NLA), ‘Trove’,  Accessed 11 July 2018.[8] ‘Family Notices’, The Alexandra and Yea Standard, p. 2.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

8 January 1969 Fires in Victoria. (Content Warning: May be Distressing)

On 8 January 1969, the temperature climbed to a century . Sixty miles per hour winds swirled in a west-northwesterly direction. Percy and Ivy, my grandparents, left Bookaar and travelled home to West Footscray. Outside of Geelong, they rattled along the Geelong-Melbourne highway and neared Lara. ‘Look at the dark black smoke, Perc,’ exclaimed Ivy. ‘Something must be wrong,’ said Percy. Sweat ran down his face. ‘Cars are turning back. There must be a fire.’ He made a U-turn and headed back in the direction they had come. They pulled up on the side of the road, got down low in the car, and covered themselves with the blanket. A knock at the driver’s window startled them. Percy peeled back the blanket and wound down the window. ‘Are you alright?’ said the policeman. ‘Yes, thank you. We are fine, said Percy. Ivy peered out from under the blanket. ‘The fire has moved on. You can move out now. Be careful! Electric wires have fallen along the road. Up ahead, a pole...
Post a Comment
Read more

Panmure Cemetery Victoria

On the way to Warrnambool, I made a detour at Panmure. I was looking for the final resting place of my great-great-grandparents. I didn’t know so many Bants were buried there together. Imagine my surprise when I had driven past a dirt road named Bant St. [1] I turned off the highway in Panmure, the town where my granny, Ivy Bant, was born.  [2] I headed down a street, drove over a bridge up a hill, across the railway track and parked near the white wooden fence. I stepped onto the crushed bluestone path into Panmure Cemetery, which was surrounded by trees of different sizes. It was a dull, cloudy, cold day. My feet sloshed in the patchy wet grass, breaking the silence that prevailed. Near the entrance, I stood at a row of graves of my granny’s uncles. William and his wife had a stone slab with an engraved headstone. [3] William’s son, John, had a grave with an inscription etched in stone. [4] An orange-brown coloured headstone with a white painted wrought iron railin...
Post a Comment
Read more

Vikings

The next season of the TV series Vikings is nearly here.  And, it reminds me of my family history research. S omeone traced my family tree back to the brother, Sigurd, that Ivar killed in Vikings.  I don't know if it's been verified or not!  So, I don't know if it's true or not!  I just find it interesting that someone could trace a family line back to Ragnar and his sons, whether it's true or not.  So, it makes it a bit eerie to watch, especially Ragnar's sons doing battle.  But then, if I weren't interested in my family history, I would never have known and followed the breadcrumbs that someone left in tracing it back to them. Whether it was a true or false claim.  It just leaves me to wonder.  And, it makes history even more fascinating to me cause of all the ancestors that I stumble across. And, I want to learn about the kind of lives that they might have led.
Post a Comment
Read more