Rohde Family Immigration

Where family lines left from, where they first arrived in Australia, and where they settled into colonial towns and goldfields.

Two Map Views Western Europe origins and Australian arrival or settlement places.

Western Europe: Places We Left From

Confirmed and likely family origin places before migration to Australia.

Australia: Places We Arrived and Lived

Arrival ports, early colonial settlements, and the goldfield towns where branches took root.

1853

Rohde

FromLübeck, northern GermanyToAvoca and Dunolly, Victoria

Widower Peter Hinrich Rohde and his 15-year-old son Johannes sailed on the Falcon in 1853, arriving the same year gold was found in the Pyrenees district. Five generations later the family is still in Victoria.

1850s–1870s

Yates and Molloy

FromYorkshire, England and IrelandToAdelaide, then Bendigo, Victoria

The Yates family emigrated from Thorne, Yorkshire, via Adelaide to the Bendigo goldfields. The Molloy family — all eleven of them — sailed from Ireland on the Star Queen around 1876, with four-year-old Maggie aboard.

1849–1868

Muecke

FromPrussia and SaxonyToAdelaide, Tanunda, then Walla Walla

Gottfried and Ernestina Muecke arrived on the Helene in 1859, part of the Lutheran exodus from Prussia. Their daughter Anna was adopted aged 6 and travelled by wagon train to Walla Walla in 1868 with the Hennersdorf family.

By the 1890s

Lowe and Johnston

FromLincolnshire and Staffordshire, EnglandToLilydale, northern Tasmania

The Lowes trace to Sleaford, Lincolnshire, and emigrated to Tasmania's Tamar Valley, where tin mining and farming drew settlers. Ronald Lowe and Inez Johnston were both born at Lilydale in the 1890s.

1817 and 1833

Keens and Shones

FromBedfordshire and London, EnglandToSydney, then the Albury district

Joseph Keens, convicted of stealing a green coat, arrived as a convict on the Lord Eldon in 1817. Susannah Shones arrived on the Layton in 1833 under the Female Emigration Committee. They married in Sydney in 1834 and settled on the Murray River frontier.

1849–1852

Gibbs and Miller

FromNorfolk and Chester, EnglandToVan Diemen's Land, then Urana, NSW

Two convicts on separate ships — George Gibbs on the Rodney, Susannah Miller on the St Vincent — who met in Van Diemen's Land, received official permission to marry, and built a family in the last years of the transportation era.

By 1888

Sheckelton

FromDublin, Ireland (via County Louth)ToCorowa and Urana, NSW

The Sheckelton name traces to Irish Protestant gentry — the De Renzy family of Molesworth Street, Dublin. John De Renzy Shekleton married Catherine Gibbs in 1888; both died in 1889, orphaning their infant son William Hope Sheckelton.

1850s

Saundry and Hopgood

FromCornwall, Berkshire and HampshireToTarnagulla and Eaglehawk, Victoria

Cornwall's tin mines were failing; Victoria's goldfields were booming. The Saundry and Williams families arrived on the Lord Raglan from Camborne and Perranzabuloe, bringing Cornish hard-rock mining skills to the quartz reefs of central Victoria.

1850s

Baker and Simpson

FromPlymouth, DevonToAdelaide, then Bendigo, Victoria

James Baker, a Plymouth butcher, and Hannah Simpson of Plymouth Dock. Their daughter Louisa emigrated to South Australia with assisted passage and married into the Yates line at Adelaide in 1854.