Bobby and George would like to welcome you to our family tree website.

It is very much a continual work-in-progress and your input, corrections or suggestions are most welcome.

This project started life as the "Rhedey" family tree, but over the years it has grown to include many more families and now covers the family names of Richards, Scott, Neilson and many more.

Every individual in this database is linked either by lineage or marriage and you can determine the relationship between any two people by going to the CHART menu and selecting RELATIONSHIPS.

There are many features on this site and it is well worth the effort to spend a little time exploring the charts and rerports that are available.

So please enjoy your visit and remember comments and contributions are very welcome.

PS: If you are a visitor and would like full access, please go to the sign-in page and select the option to "request a new user account", or click HERE

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To read the history and background of a particular family, click on the name you wish to select...

RICHARDS   Surrey, England 

 

 RICHARDS   Simon's Town, South Africa

 

 RICHARDS   Rokewood, Victoria, Australia

 

RICHARDS   Waihi, New Zealand

 

RHEDEY   British Royal Family Connection

 

RHEDEY   Origins

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Richards

Clapham, Surrey, England

Surrey at the time was a very well to do area, which had many great

Abbeys, Castles and Palaces. Surrey recounts that one of the earliest

roads built in Surrey was made by the Romans, which went from London

to Silchester and Bath. It has no seacoast, only the River Thames. It was

also one of the smallest counties in England.

Clapham was known as a pretty little puritan village with a medieval church and was the most respectable village in England.

By the 1801 – 1831 period (the time our Richards were there) the town tripled in size, mostly because of the fast growing population caused by the building of the Vauxhall Bridge over The Thames to London. By 1888

Clapham had become part of Greater London. Clapham today is a busy suburb.

Clapham is well known for its Common, developed in the mid eighteenth

century by a committee of concerned local residents, mainly consisting of wealthy businessmen.

The Holy Trinity Church was situated at the end of the Common. It is a huge, solid, strong and dignified building, with heavy oak pews and galleries, not in the least ornamental, it is here that we find the earliest ancestor of our Richards. William Richards & Elizabeth Sainsbury 

Their six children were Christened at this church.

George 1st child b 1803

Jonathon Thomas 2nd child b 1808

Jane 3rd child b 1811 died at 6 months old

James 4th child b 1813 died at 7 weeks old

Frederick, Samuel 5th child b 1814 

Elizabeth 6th child b 1819

All information taken from Clapham Parish Records 1792 – 1819

When the children were born William and Elizabeth were living at the Polygon Buildings

Lower Road, Clapham.

 

The 5th Child Frederick, Samuel Richards  became a Mariner who started the journey that eventually brought his descendants to New Zealand.

Being of a Mariner background we find Frederick Samuel Richards in Simon’s Town. Cape Province, South Africa. No details have been found of his sailings, ship’s name or when he arrived.

 

 

 

Richards

Simon's Town, South Africa

Simon's Town is spectacularly situated between a 678m high range of mountains. It is about 36km south of Cape Town on the False Bay side of the Cape Peninsula and faces North, which helps to protect the town and beaches from the strong summer southeast winds. As early as 1671, a Dutch East Indian man sheltered there from contrary winds and named the bay Isselsteijn Bay. It was later renamed in honour of Governor Simon van der Stel. In 1814 the British converted Simon's Town into a naval base for the South Atlantic Squadron and it remains today the chief naval base of South Africa.

The anchorage in Simon's Town was very early utilized by the Dutch East Indian Company as a shelter for ships arriving at the Cape during the winter months. Thus Simon's Town became a commercial port, second in importance only to Cape Town.

Prior to the building of a lighthouse at Roman Rock in Simon's Town, the ship "Winchester" was stationed by the Rock as a "light ship" to guide ships into False Bay.

It is where we find Frederick Samuel Richards enlisted as an Able Body Seaman 1845. He served for 4 months and 22 days. His conduct and ability as a seaman was fair. His enlistment papers describe him as having been born in Clapham, Surrey UK.

It was here in Simons Town that Frederick met Charlotte Mary Ann Chamberlain  daughter of Henry and Ann Reichenbach of St Helena, and married 23rd October 1843.

 

It was during1800’s people from St Helena went to Simons Town to settle.

St Helena is a Volcanic Island in the Atlantic halfway between Africa and South America.

 

 

 

Richards

Rokewood, Victoria, Australia

    • Rokewood Junction Australia

      Rokewood Junction was once an old mining town along with Piggoreet, Monkey Gully,

      Jubilee Reef, Italian Gully, Staffordshire Reef, Scarsdale, Smythesdale etc.

      The first licenses that were issued for diggers was in September 1851. From then on

      everything rose in price in Melbourne and Geelong, Wages as well as the necessities of

      life. Every type of person regardless of occupation flocked to the gold fields to try their

      luck, by June 1852 there were 50 ships lying idle in Hobsons Bay deserted, by their

      crews who had also gone into the mines.

      It has been stated the first house erected in Rokewood Junction was in 1869 so

      Frederick Samuel Richards  lived elsewhere for the first 16 years

      of being in Australia. That is evident by the birth places of his children and grandchildren

      such as Emerald Hill, Raglan, then Rokewood Junction.

      When our forebears lived and mined there, it was a busy little mining town and had all the

      usual shops and conveniences for the late 1800’s onwards. Over the years the gold dried

      up and the miners left for other ventures.

      The following 6 children were born at Rokewood Junction, Victoria, Australia

      August 25th 1854 5th child Charlotte Elizabeth

      December 16th 1856 6th child Westley, died 1938

      January 1st 1859 7th child Elizabeth Louise, died 25th July,1907

      April 14th 1861 8th child Sarah Ann, died 8th February, 1944

      1863 9th child Eliza, died 24th December, 1870

      December 6th 1865 10th child Louisa Frederick Samuel died 17th October 1898

      Charlotte Mary Ann Richards  died 11th January 1888

      They are both buried at the Rokewood Cemetery.

  • February 5th 1877 Frederick Samuel Coleman Richards married Susan Everret 1st wife born 1863

    Wesley E. Richards 1st child born 1878 -1948

    Susan E. Richards 2nd child born 1880 - 1961

    William F. Richards 3rd child born 1883 -1939

    Ralph Richards 4th child born 1885 - 1959

    Ethel M. Richards 5th child born1885 - 1956

    Frederick S. Richards 6th child born 1887 - 1953

    Gordon B Richards 7th child born 1890 - 1964

    Susan Everret Richards 1st wife Died 30th May 1893 Rockwood Junction she was 30yrs

    of age.

    So it is not surprising with 7 children Frederick Samuel Coleman Richards

    would then look for another wife.

    Frederick Samuel Coleman Richards married Sarah Jarvis 2nd Wife 13th April 1895 at

    Ballarat.

    Having 7 more children 3 sons and 3 daughters born in Australia and 1 daughter born in

    Waihi New Zealand.

    Ivy May Richards 8th child born 1895 - 1982 Scarsdale, Victoria, Australia

    Rita Florence Richards 9th child born 1897 -1976 Italian Gully, Victoria, Australia

    Clarence Thomas Richards 10th child born 1900 - 1970 Scarsdale, Victoria, Australia

    Leonard Barton Richards 11th child born 1901 -1977 Scarsdale, Victoria, Australia

    Hazel Charlotte E. Richards 12th child born 1906 - 1956 Snake Gully, Victoria, Australia

    Lionel John Richards 13 th child born 1906 -1956 Snake Gully, Victoria, Australia

    Sarah Elizabeth Richards 14th child born 1909 -1999 Waihi, New Zealand

    It was Ivy as the eldest child at 14yrs who helped her father in raising her siblings after her

    mother Susan Everitt Richards died. They lived on the corner of Galbraith Street, Waihi.

    Dr Douglas Cameron of the Waihi Hospital a good friend of Fredericks offered one of his

    housekeepers Lavinia Evans born 1881 (Newcastle on Tyne England) to assist with his

    children. Frederick Samuel Coleman Richards married Lavinia Evans July 28th 1911.

    This was his 3rd marriage and they had 4 children.

    Viola Muriel Richards b 1912 - 2004

    Phyllis Elizabeth Richards b 1915 -1916 died at 6 months old (pneumonia)

    John F. Richards b 1918 -1973

    George H. Richards b 1919 -1995

 

 

Richards

Waihi, New Zealand

North Island, New Zealand. Waihi “The Place of Raising Water”

Before the 1850’s the only inhabitants of the Waihi district were a few Maori people who

lived on the banks of the Ohinemuri River near the township of Waihi. It was the lure of

gold that brought the white man to Waihi, many of them fossickers from Te Aroha and

Thames.

Gold was first discovered on Pukewa (Martha Hill, Waihi) in 1878 by prospectors John

McCombie and Robert Lee. The samples taken from this mine were not considered

worthwhile, so they left the area. Their claim was taken over by William Nicholl in 1879.

The Railway reached Paeroa 1893 but faced with the rocky obstacle of the gorge bluffs

the decision to extend the line to Waihi was deferred for many years. It was pressure from

the Waihi mining companies that forced the Government to drive a tunnel through the

hills and complete the 21km track from Paeroa to Waihi. Tunnelling started in 1900 and a

combined road and rail bridge was erected at the Karangahake entrance. The tunnel was

through by 1905 and the line officially opened 9th November 1905.

It was 1918 at Hamilton NZ that the Richards settled and made their home for the next 8 years.

Rhedey

Queen Elizabeth's Transylvanian great-great grandmother

In the heart of Transylvania, in a predominantly ethnic Hungarian population small town, there is an astonishing relationship to the British Royal Family.

Erdőszentgyörgy (Romanian: Sângeorgiu de Pădure) is a small town in Maros/Mureș County with some 5.000 inhabitants. Its tourist information office is a very fine building, hosting a school until 2009.

The Rhédey Castle, in point of fact is more palace than castle. The construction dates originally from the 17th century. The present Neo-baroque building is an early 19th-century remodeling.

Rhedey Castle

Rhédey Castle

 

This was the childhood home of Claudine, known in Romanian as Claudia, Rhédey, born here in 1812. The castle remained the Rhédey family’s home until 1885.

In 1830 Claudine met Duke Alexander of Württemberg, nephew of King Frederick I of Württemberg. At time – it has been known to happen to others as well – the duke could not speak Hungarian. For that reason, Alexander learnt the Hungarian language and five years later he could marry Claudine.

Due to the German laws relating to the line of succession, she was viewed as being of non-Royal rank and the marriage was declared morganatic. She was denied the title of Duchess. However, she was later created Countess von Hohenstein and her entire family were granted German titles and styled as Dukes and Princesses of Teck.

Claudine Countess Rhédey

Countess Claudine Rhédey, 1831 – by Johann Ender

Claudine and Alexander had three children: two daughters, Claudine Henrietta and Amelie, and one son, Francis.

Francis married Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, a granddaughter of King George III. Their eldest daughter, Mary of Teck, was to marry the future King George V.

Regretfully, Claudine Rhédey was to know none of this. Not much is known about Claudine’s later life except that she died in 1841 in either a horse or a carriage accident, while visiting her husband at a military training camp in Austria, at the young age of 29.

Francis became a member of the British Royal Family. He only had one daughter, Mary of Teck who married Prince George, Duke of York in July 1893. When George was crowned as George V in 1910, she became Queen of the United Kingdom. This makes it abundantly clear now that Elisabeth II who was the granddaughter of George V is 6.3 percent Hungarian, since she is the great-great-granddaughter of Claudine Rhédey.

Opposite to the castle there is a Reformed Church. It was first mentioned in 1333 as a Roman Catholic church, but since 1640, probably due to the historical Transylvanian religious tolerance, it served as a Reformed Church.

In 1904, the granddaughter of Claudine Countess Rhédey, Victoria Mary Princess of Wales and placed a memorial plaque in the church.

In Memory of Claudine Countess Rhédey

In Memory of Claudine Countess Rhédey

 

In 1935, Her Majesty Queen Mary bestowed it a sum through which “the church in which some of her ancestors lie buried (be) improved and restored”.

Transylvanians in Erdőszentgyörgy and elsewehere still remember fondly their young lady, Claudine Countess Rhédey.

Rhedey

Origins

The Rhédey family has been known from the 13th century. It is one of the Hungarian noble families descending from the house of Aba. The most notable ancestor of the Aba noble house was Samuel Aba, the third king of Hungary between 1041 and 1044, married to a sister of St. Stephen I, the first Roman Catholic  king of Hungary.

The Hungarians, or Magyars, come originally from Asia, though
precisely where has never been established. They appeared in the area north of the
Black Sea around the 8th/9th century at which time they were nomadic tribal horsemen.
At the request of the Byzantine emperor, they entered Europe in 896 under the united
leadership of Árpád.
They settled in the Carpathian Basin along the Danube, where the nation of Hungary
continues to this day. For the next 100 years, they terrorized the kingdoms of Europe
on horseback, sometimes making two raids in the same year. Their raids extended from
Greece and Poland to as far west as Naples, Rome, Germany, France, and Flanders. A
decisive defeat at the hands of the Germans restricted their further activities.

In the year 997, King Stephen was crowned. Under his leadership, Hungary became a
feudal kingdom modelled on the nations of western and central Europe. Stephen forcibly
converted his family and the tribal leaders to Christianity, and the religion soon
spread throughout the populace. For this, Stephen was recognized as king by the
Byzantine crown and by the Pope. Stephen took advantage of this sudden interest in his
affairs by playing the two religious leaders against each other to gain concessions for
his kingdom. Stephen was later canonized, and his name has been popular in Hungary ever
since. Stephen is also important for introducing literacy and record-keeping to
Hungary. Many Latin documents survive from his time, and by 1055 we find records in
Hungarian.

In 1241, Hungary was overrun by the Mongolian Tartars. Though they did not advance
further west, their presence in Hungary set back development for the next 100 years,
and left an important cultural impression. Some of them stayed and intermarried with
the Magyars.

With the end of the 13th century, so came the end of the House of Árpád, which had
ruled Hungary for more than 400 years. The Hungarian crown passed by marriage to the
Neapolitan branch of the House of Anjou, which strengthened relations between Hungary
and its Italian neighbors. Additional marriages tied the royal line to the Bohemians,
Poles, and Habsburgs, resulting in a messy series of successions in the mid-15th century.

In 1458, King Matthias Hunyadi, called Corvinus, brought Hungary into a Golden Age.
Culture and living standards reached levels comparable to those in western Europe, even
if only for a few decades. It was about this time that increasing contact with western
Europe made an impression on the Hungarian nobility. After the fashion of European
nobles, they took on inherited surnames and heraldry, though heraldic design was far
different from the rest of Europe.

Shortly before Matthias became king, in the year 1453, one of the most important events
in the history of eastern Europe occurred. That year, Constantinople fell to the Turks,
an event that ended the era of Byzantium and heralded the coming of Islam. For the next
100 years, the Hungarians, Austrians, and Italians fought to keep the Turks from
advancing further north until, in 1526, the Turks defeated the Hungarian armies at
Mohacs, bringing 150 years of Turkish rule. The northernmost and westernmost remnants
of the nation became united with Habsburg Austria under Ferdinand to form a new nation
that would shape the course of European history over the next 400 years.

 

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