The "discovery" of the Australian and American Delaforce families was fortuitous. A Delaforce cousin visiting Australia looked in a telephone directory and discovered a Keith Delaforce. They met and became friends. Keith was recently retired and besides growing Chrysanthemums almost professionally, is also a very keen genealogist. He had already researched the family history in Australia, had produced an excellent tree, had copies of William and Frances Janes marriage certificate and had secured photographs of the first two generations in Australia. At a Delaforce family reunion in November 1979 held at Caboolture, north of Brisbane, Queensland about 130 Delaforces attended. Another reunion was planned for 1984.

One of Keith's relations had been visited in Australia by Warren Delaforce from USA. Warren and his cousin Dorothy were also keen genealogists and had prepared the American family tree descending from James Moses.

Keith has now produced a family tree for the Delforce family in Australia. From a London library collection of Australian telephone directories a letter was sent to ten different Delforces in Australia. Three answered with helpful details and so their family tree is shown in the appendix. They descended from George Delforce who was born in England between 1830-1840 emigrated about 1860 and from his two sons George and John are descended the current family living around Brisbane, Newcastle and Sydney.

At the end of this chapter are some of the main sources of genealogy for Australia, although, as it happened, Keith had little need to consult them since he had followed instinctively the basic rules. Visit all known relatives and ask them for every possible detail of their parents and grandparents, backed up by photographs and certificates.

The first convicts were transported to Australia - to Sydney Cove near Botany Bay - in 1788. Captain Cook's first voyage to the East Coast of Australia was in 1770. The English expedition led by Captain Cook landed at Botany Bay (several hundred miles north of Van Diemens Land) in that year. It was recommended as 'suitable for the establishment of a Colony of convicted felons.' The arrivals of the First Fleet and their uniformed overseers were the founders of the Colony of New South Wales, as an English territory under the rule of King George III.

Every possible detail of the First Fleet, composed by Bryan Thomas, in Sydney 1976, is available from Midlands Ancestor, the excellent quarterly magazine published by the Birmingham & Midland Society for Genealogy and Heraldry. The names are shown of the ships, officers, crew, their wives, and of course, the convicts. All the details of the cargoes (110 firkins of butter, 1 piano, 1 printing press, and hundreds of other items) are recorded faithfully in the two page spread. All historians interested in Australia should obtain a copy.

In 1818 Governor Macquarie sent out an expedition under John Oxley, surveyor-general, which included twelve convicts. After finding and naming the Hastings river, they found a suitable well-watered site and named it Port Macquarie (200 miles North of Botany Bay and Sydney) "The port abounds with fish, the sharks were larger and more numerous. The first hills and rising grounds were covered with large kangaroos and the marshes afford shelter and support to innumerable wild fowl." The more important reasons for the new settlement were the isolation of the convicts, the cultivation of 'new' plants, shrubs and tropical fruits and the opening up of the road to New England from the Coast.

To this Paradise came - on 19th April 1821 - three ships from Sydney with the pioneer party of 60 selected convicts, 41 soldiers, 12 specialists and 50 strong healthy labourers under Captain Francis AlIman of the 48th Regiment.

Thanks to the "History of Port Macquarie" published by the Hastings District Historical Society, a wealth of detail is available about this settlement.

Many experiments were made with vegetable and fruit crops. Sugar cane was successfully grown, and rum appeared shortly afterwards! Pineapples, cotton, coffee, pigs, cows, poultry - all were encouraged, although coffee was not successful.

The first white settlers met with a hostile reception from the aborigines and several settlers and convicts were killed in a massacre in 1843.

She came from Cork in Ireland. His name was shown on the register as Deleforce. The marriage was performed by William McKee, Minister of the Presbyterian church of St. Andrews, in Port Macquarie.

William became a dairy farmer at Rawdon Island near Port Macquarie. Six children were born and survived to rear families. William died of cirrhosis of kidney, or dropsy on 7th June 1900, at Fembank Creek, aged 83 and was buried at Port Macquarie Church of England Cemetery. The family tree of his antecedents below was supplied by Laraine (Delaforce) Goodworth, who also made contact through Keith Delaforce.