Rookwood Cemetery Discoveries

Allez, Allez Australie - as we chase those medals and what special medals they are. Designed by LVMH jeweller, Chaumet, each contains a small piece of the original iron from the Eiffel Tower in its centre with the colour of the medal radiating out from that point in a hexagonal style. Tres magnifique et elegant! We are at the halfway point of the Games and this week's blog, the second in French related ones, highlights another French man who made Australia his home. EDMOND MARIE MARIN DE LA MESLEE Edmond was briefly mentioned in the blog published on the 24th of June, but this piece will go into more detail and also highlight his wife and her ancestors. Edmond was born on the 8th of November 1853 to Colonel Edmond la Meslee and his wife Amelie in Nantes, a city on the Loire River in Upper Brittany, a region of Western France. Nantes is considered to be the birthplace of the Surrealist art movement and the third highest ranking city in France after Paris and Lyon. It is also the lar...

  Today's blog relates to a terrible murder at the hands of a person clearly, by the evidence presented, suffering temporary insanity. NAPOLEAN JEAN LISSON Napolean was born on 15th August 1867 in Paddington Sydney, eldest son of John Hector Lisson Gorrick and Jane Underwood. In 1874 the family then consisting of 3 children moved to Noumea where John assumed the identity of a Frenchman changing his surname slightly to Lison. When Jane died in 1874 and with proceeds from her father's estate, the family moved to Italy. John Hector died on 21st November 1886 in Rome aged 41.  Napolean Jean Lisson - NSW State Archives I cannot be certain when Napolean returned to Australia but at the age of 19 at the time of his father's death he was in Sydney. He became depressed after his father's death and it seems he attempted suicide but came to clarity and married Emma Marguerite Gorrick, his cousin, on 15th May 1889. Emma Lisson (nee Gorrick) - Ancestry.com from public domain mag...