This is the introductory use of my own Web Log (Blogger), so this page is likely to change as my skills improve.

WHO I AM:

Firstly, to introduce myself.My name is John Croft, I live in Perth, Western Australia, the most isolated capital city on the oldest continent on Earth. My CV is located on the web at gaia.iinet.net.au/CVJC.htm

A little Genealogical Information

I am a very rare being, as on my patrilineal side of the family I am a seventh generation Anglo-Celtic Australian. Thomas Croft, the first of my ancestors to come here, was born in Marden in Kent in 1794. He emigrated to Australia in 1818, when the first settlement was only 30 years old, and married a convict named Elizabeth Davis or Wakeman in 1837 in Van Diemens Land later renamed Tasmania. For anyone reading this who is not Australian Tasmania is the home of the Tasmanian Devil, and is the little triangular island beneath the mainland of Australia.

My great grandmother, Teresa Maud Croft nee Richards was also the daughter of a convict, John Kirwin Richards, born in 1820 or 1823 in Dublin. He was the son of a Thomas Richardsand Mary G. Richards, nee Kirwin. The birthdates and other details of these people I have no details. If anyone in Ireland or elsewhere has access to their genealogical records, I would be very grateful. John Richards was convicted 9th Dec 1848 in Liverpool for burglary, to be transported for 7 years. Transported as a convict in the "Pyrenees" departing Torbay, England 30th Mar 1851, he arrived at Fremantle, Western Australia 28th Jun 1851 (a voyage of 90 days). On 30th Jun 1854 he was given permission to marry Julia Tighe. Finally winning his ticket of leave (commutation of his sentence) in 1856. Teresa Maud's mother and Richard's wife Julia Tighe was a remarkable woman. She was born in 1824, the daughter of Michael and Julia Tighe in Kildare in Ireland, leaving Ireland for Australia as an 18 year old to escape the Irish Potato Famine of 1843. She was put in charge of a boatload of young Irish women sent to Australia during the famine, to help balance out the male-female sex ratios in the European population. She married John Richards twice - in 1854 in a civil service, and then in 1855 in a Catholic service conducted by Dom Salvado the famous explorer priest and founder of the Dominican Monastery at New Norcia.

My father's mother was a Catherine Herberta Derepas, and her great-grandfather, my great great great grandfather was John Henry Derepas, born in 1805 at Drogheda, Northern Ireland. He married a Mary or Margaret McDonald, born in 1809 in Edinburgh, the daughter of John McDonald and Mary Lothian. As a McDonald her ancestry goes back to the Viking-Gael Somerled, and into the ancient families of te Scottish and Irish High Kings, back to Heremon who is supposed to have married Tamar Tephra, the daughter of Zedekiah, the last king of Jerusalem of the House of David. Through this link I can trace my ancestry back to Adam! Derepas is not either a Scottish or Irish name, and seems to come originally from around the Dijon region of France.

On my maternal side, my great-great grandmother was a Margaret Pauline, who was born on the 18th Feb 1830 Low House, Northumberland, England. She married Paul Murphy, born on the 8th July 1831 Dublin, Ireland. He was a soldier in the British Indian Army, enlisting 8th Jul 1844, and served 13 years 73 days- dying at Secunderabad in India on the 12th Mar 1868 from dysentery. Margaret, gave birth to two children - Mary Murphy my great grandmother, born 31st Jul 1954 at Whilton near London, England and her sister Ellen. But Margaret predeceased her husband in India, on the 26th Apr 1864 at Bellary, and so my great-grandmother, Mary Murphy was sent "home" to England, to her father's brother, who won a medal from Queen Victoria for saving a mother and her chld from Fire (I still have the certificate that was presented). She married James Barnes of Proctor Fold, Osbaldeston, Lancashire
who born 1849 and who died when my grandmother, Margaret Ellen Morton, nee Barnes, was about 3 years old.

There is a mystery surrounding my maternal grandmother as we can find no record of her birth details and we know she lied about her age her whole life. She was a very big influence in my life, as was my mother's father, Arthur Morton. He was born 8th May 1884 Quorn, South Australia, and came to Fremantle, Western Australia at the age of 12, when his mother with 7 children fled a very unhappy marriage to William Morton, who was born on 5th Sep 1852 at Wilunga, South Australia. His wife, my great grandmother was born Anne Humphrey on the 17th February 1877, to the well connected Humbrey-Morphett family of South Australia.

And so we come to my parents. Teresa Margaret Croft, nee Morton wasthe third child to these grandparents and was born at Wyakatchem District Hospital in the Wheatbelt of Western Australia on the 17th April 1922. My father, Dudley Herbert Croft, was born in Perth, on the 27th September 1923, the only son of Herberta Catherine (called Trixie) Derepas and my paternal grandfather Dudley Everard Croft.

I am the eldest of 5 children, 3 boys and 2 girls, with there being 6 years in age between us. I am the father of Arwen Sophie Croft, aged 32 in 2005, grandfather to her daughter Juliette Trinity Mumford (age 2). To Lana Elanta-Fennell (aged 26), married to Michael Fennell, and to Pierre Andre John Croft (aged 24).

If anyone wants a copy of the Genealogy on which this is based, please email me and I will send you a copy. If anyone has genealogical details of any of these families, please email me at jdcroft@yahoo.com.