Dear Donald,

This edition recaps the stories compiled and researched by Ray
Jerrems, our Genealogist, Historian during the year.

We welcome your feedback at any time.
All the best to all the Jerrems around the world.

Enjoy the future.

Don and Ray Jerrems

January – “Remember Us”: Stories behind the Photo


This article was part of our “Remember Me” series. It revolves around the descendants of Edwin Lewis Jerrems, one of the family which migrated to Australia in the 1850s. Until recently Ray had been concentrating on four of Edwin’s brothers, William George, Charles, Robert Cane and Arthur Reginald (all of whom have descendants who read the Journal), but had gradually assembled some disjointed information about Edwin and his descendants. Particularly he had been interested in finding more information about the people in a photograph from the South Australian Library’s archives which Donald had sent him. But who are the people in it?

Ray’s first source of information was a note written on the back of the photo “PORTRAIT: Arthur Jerrems with his sister Edie, daughter Edith Maud (later Mrs. E.L. Hogg) and Granny James. DATE ca.1915.” The place and date of the photograph. Upon inquiry cousin Doug Hogg (who Ray had located) advised that the photo was taken in Adelaide’s Botanical Gardens.

February – Journey to Scenic Monymusk Scotland


This is the first article about the ancestors of “Nicoll the Tailor”, probably the most famous of our Jerrems ancestors. It fills in one of the last great mysteries in Ray’s research. In this article Ray outlined the people in the families and then set the scene for the history of the Nicol/Nicoll families in Scotland by describing their changing environment and its effects on the families, the same as I did last year for Willingham.

Monymusk – The “second” and “third” generations were born in Monymusk, and it can be fairly safely assumed that the first generation (and very likely earlier generations) were born in that area also. Monymusk is a small town 20 miles north west of Aberdeen, which was (and still is) a major city and port on the east coast of Scotland. Monymusk lies at the edge of the Grampian Mountains, set in the sheltered River Don valley overlooked by the picturesquely named Pitfichie Hill, Cairn William and Bennachie. The town’s proximity to Aberdeen would have been an important factor in the history of Monymusk and the Nicoll family. However the most important factor was the significant changes introduced to Monymusk locality while the Nicoll families lived there. We are fortunate that unlike Willingham these changes, which no doubt shaped the future of the Nicoll families, have been thoroughly documented.

March – Revisiting Ray’s Grandparents Hometown


Ray writes: “Since writing the articles about my Sassall great grandparents (see Journals of March and April 2011) my wife and I spent several days exploring the Lithgow area to get the feel of my great grandparents’ environment.

The previous articles had been prepared from notes given to me, with my distant recollections; I had not been back to Lithgow for over 40 years. Most of the industrial areas which had been hives of activity have now gone. For someone like me who had seen the hustle and bustle of the steelworks and the railway shunting yards the silence is almost eerie. “

April – Mystery, Murder and Intrigue

Involving Our Family of Tailors in 19th century London


In Ray’s first article about Nicoll the Tailor in the February 2012 Journal we left his father in Monymusk, near Aberdeen in Scotland.

This article continued the family narrative and describes other prominent members of the family. Ray described this in article as a gripping story of mystery, murder and intrigue but this would be seriously overstating the situation. Instead I would describe it as Ray’s familiar unravelling of genealogical facts about some of our readers’ prominent ancestors.

There are well over a hundred Nicoll the Tailors descendants, second only to the number of “Jerrems” descendants, emphasising the importance of Ray’s articles about this lineage.

May – Followup – Before Settling in the U.S.


This is the third article about Nicoll the Tailor and his forbears. In the second article Ray concluded with the information that Nicoll married Elizabeth Powell in 1841 in Norwich (north east of London) and they had a grand total of ten children.

This article also spends some time on the previously unsolved mystery of where Nicoll spent at least thirteen years of his life in Australia. Rick and Darell Jerrems, Hobart, Tazmania.

First Contact: Alan Fitz-Patrick, Amsterdam. By email, Alan advises Ray and me that we are probably unaware of the South African branch of the Jerrems family. Which is true, but we said we will try to cover this gap in future editions.

June – John Jerrems

This article was about John Jerrems, one of Big Bill’s children, and his family. Although Ray had carried out some research on John and his immediate family some years ago he had lacked the highly desirable ingredient of knowing what had happened to his offspring.

Thanks to a recent email from one of his great great grandchildren, Alan Fitz-Patrick, Ray gathered a significant part of the answer to this puzzle. An extra fillip has been that one of John’s children migrated to South Africa, where his descendants still live, making them our first “Jerrems” connections from that country. (See November below.)

July – A Belated Wedding Announcement


We have reported on several weddings in our earlier editions. Best I can recall this is the first elopement announcement in the Jerrems Journal.

ELOPEMENT – ANNOUNCEMENT – published in the Chelmsford Chronicle on Friday 9th June 1837.
On Tuesday night, Mr T. Jerrems, the eldest son of the burgess constable of Gainsborough, having a chaise in readiness outside the town, eloped with the daughter of Geo. Jepson, Esq. a young lady of great personal charms. They galloped through Brigg, crossed the Humber at New Holland ferry, having first locked up all the oars and sculls to baffle pursuit, and at nine o’clock in the morning they were married at Sculcoates. A brother and uncle of the lady traced her, but arrived too late to prevent the nuptial knot from being tied.

Aug – Home on the Range


In Ray’s previous article in April 2011 he followed the route his great grandfather Fred Sassall took when he was delivering bread three times a week, concentrating on the Hartley Vale area (in the Blue Mountains area west of Sydney) where his father-in-law and his family had lived. He concluded in with a promise that he would continue the bread cart journey in a future article. In this article he described the next major stopping place for Fred was Rosedale House (its modern name), a level trip of about 15 km beyond Hartley Vale along the floor of the Hartley Valley. It was here that Fred first met Susannah.

Sept – Little Alice Jerrems

Has Ray finally gone bonkers, you ask. Who on earth was the quaintly named “Little Alice Jerrems” in the heading to the article?

Little Alice first came to his notice earlier this year when I was searching old newspapers, and he admited that for a while he had no idea who she was, or why she was named “little”. Was she very small, or was she a child? Was she really a “Jerrems” or was this merely a stage name? It soon became apparent that Alice was an actress, that she was a real “Jerrems” and at that time she was a child.

First Contact:
Greg Acland
Cornel University, New York


My connection to the Jerrems ancestry is thru my “Aunt” Jess Jerrems (nee Hetherington)* and her husband Charles. Jess was technically my 1st cousin once removed – her father (Thomas Albert Hetherington) being my maternal grandfather’s brother – but she was older than me, and I always knew her as Aunt Jess, and her husband as Uncle Charles. I have very fond memories of visits to them at their house in Brighton-le-Sands when I was a kid, living in Sydney. As I recall they had a daughter Gwen Sheekie (nee Jerrems), who was some years older than me ( I was born 1943), but I have totally lost track of her, and the rest of that branch of my extended family over the years. My recollection of Gwen is that she had been a missionary in New Guinea when I was a kid, and I met her from time to time when she was visiting her parents.

I’d very much like to hear from anyone with connections to or recollections of Jess and Charles, and family. I’m prettty sure I’ll have some photos of Jess and Charles buried in our old family snapshots – I’ll see if I can dig them out.

Oct – Elopers: Thomas and Elizabeth Jerrems

This article continues the story of Thomas and Elizabeth Jerrems, who eloped in such a dramatic fashion in 1837. In his previous article about their elopement Ray concluded with the death of his great great grandfather Thomas in 1867 and promised to tell you about his widow Elizabeth and some of their lesser-known children.

  • Thomas Cane/Cain (“Thomas Jnr”).Stayed in Melbourne after a sojourn in Sydney, moved later to South Australia
  • Elizabeth Sophia. Returned to England
  • Frances Jane. Possibly returned to England
  • William George. Moved from Melbourne to Sydney, then the United States.
  • George Jepson. Stayed in Australia (see later)
  • Edwin Lewis. Moved from Melbourne to South Australia
  • Charles. Moved from Melbourne to Sydney
  • Robert Cane. Stayed in Melbourne
  • Catherine. Stayed in Melbourne
  • Arthur. Stayed in Melbourne
November – Global Family Distribution

Readers may recall that Ray concluded his article in the June 2012 edition of the Jerrems Journal with the promise that: “In a later article I will continue my account of the family in South Africa”. “The family” was the Fitz-Patrick family, which began its connection with the Jerrems family when Ada Sarah Jerrems married Reverend Bernard Gowran Fitzpatrick in England in 1873 and they had nine children. In due course their descendants spread themselves across South Africa, Swaziland, Rhodesia, Malawi, Mozambique, England, Holland, Australia and New Zealand, making them by far the most travelled part of the Jerrems family.

Administrivia

Family Additions to the Jerrems Clan


Ray and Di’s
son Roger and Caroline had a boy on Wednesday 28th November (their second
boy, the first being Nathan). His name is Lachlan Daniel (neither name has
any ancestral significance).

Little Lachlan pictured.


Father Roger, mother Caroline and brother Nathan