I grew up with no paper and no proof, and for a long time that silence was the thing that made me doubt myself. So here is the paper. These are photographs of the actual register pages, held by the Tasmanian Archives, with my family's names written into them by a clerk who had never heard of me.
Clara Jane, born April 1886. Father: William Robinson. Mother: Ellen Robinson, formerly Smith. His occupation is written as sheep farmer, and the informant is William Robinson himself, giving his address as Dog Island, Bass Strait.
This one line is the hinge of the whole family. Everything above it goes back through Ellen Smith into the palawa families of the Furneaux Islands. Everything below it becomes Briant, because seventeen years after this entry was written, Clara married Alfred Ernest Briant at Scottsdale.
William Robinson and Ellen Smith, married on 25 September 1877 in the home of Mrs Margaret Mansell at Bridport. Not a church, a house, which tells you plenty about how this community lived and who they leaned on.
Ellen was sixteen. She was the daughter of John Tasman Smith and Jane Maynard, and through both of her grandmothers she carried the blood of the old people of the north east.
John Tasman Smith and Jane Janice Maynard, married in Launceston. John was the son of Nancy Pleenperrenner, the daughter of Mannalargenna. Jane was the daughter of Pollerwotteltelterrunner of Pipers River.
Register images are public records held by the Tasmanian Archives and Libraries Tasmania, located through the Tasmanian Names Index and, for several of these pages, identified for me by an archivist at the State Library and Archives Service of Tasmania. Reproduced here for family and educational purposes.
Eight generations, oldest to newest, with the photographs and the whole story.
R.O.D.