Dear Evon,

I found your entry in Ancestry.com this morning.

We are related. John Hough, son of Patrick and Margaret Meara came to Australia as a convict. He worked at Raymond Terrace and later married the boss’s daughter, Catherine Newton. He became a sizeable landowner at Viney Creek about 40km north of Newcastle and a large part of his land fronted the western shore of Port Stephens.

His son John m Bridget Curry. This John was killed when thrown from his horse in 1881. His wife subsequently remarried a man named Callaghan and moved to Stockton, the suburb on the northern side of the Hunter River at Newcastle.

Michael Hough, the son of the above two, was my grandfather. He died 30/6/1919 from the influenza pandemic which came back to Australia with the returning troops from World War 1. He left my grandmother with six children of whom the second last, Lillian, was my mother. She died in February 2002 aged 87.

Could I ask if you can take the family line back beyond Patrick and Margaret? Such are the research facilities available here in the past few years that I have not been able to go back beyond them. Within the next couple of years I hope to travel to Ireland to visit the place of my origins and when I do so I will make contact.

Every best wish,

Brian Roach.