Don't be afraid to ring absolutely anyone!!

When I'm looking for ancestors I'm a bit too much like a terrier in the hunt for information, & I won't stop until I find it. That process might take many years, but so be it.

Today I wanted to plot my ggg-grandfather's grave on Google Earth. John KING was born in O'Callaghans Mills in County Clare, Ireland, in around 1815, arrived here on the Neptune in 1841 for Messers Thos Entere & James, presumably to work for them. He had just married Mary ANGLIM and they brought out their baby daughter Catharine with them. He spent a lot of years working on the large property 'Bontharambo' (just north of Wangaratta, Victoria), where he died in 1889, age 74 or 76, and is buried at the local Boorhaman Cemetery.

All of my Googling today wouldn't reveal where the cemetery actually is, so I thought I'd ring somewhere local and ask them, seeing as I live 700kms away. Boorhaman isn't a very large town, but they do have a pub, so I rang there and prefaced my question with: "I know this sounds weird, but...". The friendly fellow who answered doesn't consider himself as a local, because he's only lived there 15 years, but he did know where the cemetery is, and he directed me to it while I followed along on Google Earth. And there it was!! Next door to the tip, but no matter.

Photo courtesy of http://www.gvcruising.com/cruises/19-buffalo-brewery-cruise-to-boorhaman

Headstone photos courtesy of Carol Judkins http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ausvsac/Index.htm 

Another descendant tells me that John's grave is the oldest in the Boorhaman Cemetery. I find it interesting that his son, my gg-grandfather, William KING, has made his own name more prominent on the stone than his father's name, whose grave it is. William was the youngest of John and Mary's 9 children, the rest stayed in Victoria, but William moved to Newcastle, NSW in about 1900.

The inscription reads: 

Erected by 

William King

Memory of

His Beloved Father

John King

Who died Augst 15 - 1889 aged 76 years

May his soul rest in peace

His age at death is 76 on his headstone, but 74 on his death certificate. His date of birth is still a mystery, which I will hopefully solve one of these days.

So now I have a bright yellow pin on Google Earth, so I'll know where to go when I'm next down that way to pay my respects to John King. Thanks to the random chap at the pub who helped me find it.