Preface
Parts 2 and 6
The decision to compile a biographical record of Walter Adams, Mary Shannon and their descendants was prompted by my becoming, by attrition, the custodian of the family’s early photograph albums.
Having time on my hands, through the actions of a beneficent, new government, I came to wonder – who were these people looking back at me from the photographs in albums of the past? For most, I had no clue. Curiosity became compulsion – I am assured not unknown in these circumstances – and reference to the family records that still survive, published records and many trips to the Queensland and Australian archives followed.
Residential information has been derived from Postal Directories and/or electoral rolls available on public access at the State and National Archives. Annotations on electoral rolls also provided additional information on marriages, deaths, etc. the dates given are the day of individual registration or, particularly for early and recent records, the date of compilation of the electoral roll. Unless otherwise stated, all locations are in Queensland. For most individuals the records do not extend past February 2000. Individual entries are not given for descendants of less than eligible electoral enrolment age. Military service data were accessed from the War Memorial Nominal Roll databases and hard copy service records held by the National Archives.
The process, inevitably, opens some closets which contain dismissed or forgotten skeletons. Given the turbulence inherent in the development of a pioneering society, these skeletons are surprisingly few and relatively minor in nature. However, in the small communities of well over a century ago, and in attempts to achieve Victorian, middle class respectability, they may have loomed much larger at the time. The content has been compiled as a record as honest as I am able with my best efforts to avoid bias.
In my comments introducing each branch of the family, I have confined the scope generally to the children of Walter and Mary and to their children. It is for others to comment on the ‘present’ generations.
Given the sources of the text, there are inevitable errors and omissions. My hope is that this record will form a base for others to correct and expand so that an adequate record can be left, for those to follow, of the heritage of, “a thoroughly representative man.”
John Kingsley Connor 2004
*NOTE: Other than in the actual text, records do not extend beyond the earlier generations in this publication. R. L. C.