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
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
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.
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.
Rokewood, Victoria, Australia
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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.
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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
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
