I am glad my message was correctly posted, and it is good to make contact. I only came across this site yesterday by accident, and it was both exciting and frustrating to see all the queries and responses knowing that I knew many of the answers.
Yes, my grandfather was Henry Bawden, the son of John Hugh Bawden and Jane Ann Bennicke Penhall. There was at least one other son who died as an infant, but my grandfather was the only one to survive. He was only three when his mother died and was brought up by his Bawden grandparents. As your correspondents discovered, John Bawden remarried and had a number of children, including Cornelius (Neil) who died in the first war. My grandfather moved to Victoria for work in the 1890's and married there, so nearly all his descendants live in Victoria. To a very large extent, the Bawden name from his line seems to have died out; similarly, I am not sure how many Penhalls from this line also still carry the name.
I have the impression that Grandpa might have lost contact with the Penhall family, and I assume that the Penhalls initiated the re-interment of poor Jane Ann (known as Annie) at West Terrace. I knew very little about this family when I started and I still have no personal contact with any descendants, and it has only been in recent years that I tracked down the Penhall graves at West Terrace and also discovered Agatha Church's connection.
I have been communicating with a researcher in the UK and have discovered something of the Penhall-Church-Bennicke connection, but it is early days yet. I wondered if other members of the Church family had come to Australia, other than Agatha.
I would be delighted to share my findings with you and vice versa. How do we do this? Where to from here?
Sue: I am still very uncertain about how Rootschat works. I assume that one can contribute to any discussion, and also add messages after the initial conversation is finished? I am sure these are dumb questions, but is there a listing of "old" discussions on this site, and will new contributions get to the person who initiated them? How does one initiate a new discussion?
