When I began to research the GRANT branch of my father’s family I began with my “knowns.” These were all associated with my grandmother Bernadine Frazer nee Grant. I knew that she had lived in Cunnamulla, Wyandra, Barcaldine and Brisbane. The family story was that she had “some relatives up around Ipswich”. 

Bernadine’s birth record showed that her mother was born Margaret Jane Doyle, and Margaret Jane’s birth record revealed that she was born in Queensland on 10 Oct 1868 to Patrick Doyle and Maria Hand. I found that the Doyle family had lived in the Ipswich area. Within my collection I had some beautiful old photos that were embossed with the name of the Whitehead Studios of Ipswich. The photos had clearly been treasured by Bernadine. I decided to begin with some ‘knowns’ and research my grandmother’s maternal line, the Doyles, before trying to trace the ancestors of her father, Thomas Henry Grant.

As things turned out this was a very good decision, it gave me a ‘gentle’ introduction to researching the Grant branch. The story of the Doyle family was among my ‘known unknowns’ and it was a joy to discover something of the Ipswich chapter. 

Grandma Bernadine’s paternal line, that of Thomas Henry Grant proved to be a very different research task. The challenges posed when I encountered an ‘unknown unknown’ in the form of a name change were not only methodological. I found it very difficult to ‘own’ the fact that the ‘Grant’ chapter of Bernadine’s paternal line had only begun in June 1861, when my great-great grandfather assumed that surname at the time of his marriage.

This website project is primarily for my family, and I surmise that I may not be the only one to find the use of another unknown surname a little disconcerting, so I have decided to present this ‘Grant’ section a little differently than that of the ‘Frazer’ section. Instead of starting with the narratives of all those ancestors who were the first to come to Australia, I will not introduce those more distant ancestors from the Grant paternal line, (Peters, Hews and Holt), until a later part of this section. This means that the structure of this section will not be strictly chronological, although there are chronological ‘chapters’. 

The structure follows a ‘mud-map’ of my own journey, not just in research, but in emotionally connecting with ancestors who were not linked to me by the use of the surname Grant. Mud maps share the benefit of local knowledge and experience that can be hard to capture on a general reference map. I hope that this approach enables you to come to feel a connection to ancestors who were ‘unknown unknowns’ for both of us!