Knight Family History 3

 

Welcome.

 

This version of Knight Family History has been edited to hopefully remove private details of living people. It has been modified as well to be better viewed on mobile and tablet devices. Thanks to K,MK for the wizardry! August 2024.

 

Don Knight began research into the Knight branch of the family tree some months before his death in 1995. Since then it has taken shape slowly, at times frenetically, but inevitably building to an anti-climax of “I think we’re nearly there, thank God.” Will we ever know all about the characters’ lives? Would we want to know everything or just what is important to each of us? Should it be history or just facts? Can it ever be finished? These questions are practical, philosophical, confounding - and unanswered.

 

 

Thanks go to all the Sydneysiders who contributed in so many ways to the information gathered for this family history– showing their own family trees, being interviewed, holding focussed family gatherings, writing reminiscences, and generally showing interest in developing a Knight family tree. The monumental work of Joyce Gardner , Virginia Stokes and Shirley Rolph have been really valuable with the Hall side of the family, and special thanks to cousin Grant Franklyn-Smith for his exceptional research which I have shamelessly adopted. With his approval of course.

 

 

Although the branch on this website is mainly focused on Don Knight, the diagram of the descendants of the Lemmons do encompass all their descendants, including the Knights. Some noteworthy ancestors are also featured separately in the Contents, from the Hall side of the family as well.

 

 

Beginning this research 25 years ago meant that the technology used to record and document information changed over time. Four different programs which have increasingly got too difficult for my ageing brain have been used. Source material has been accumulated in a concrete form (books, paper documents, etc.) as well as digital. Methods of recording sources have also increased in complexity, meaning that the end result is a bit of a hodgepodge. Sorry.

 

 

Bits of the writing are kind of boring, some just basic facts and there are mistakes of one kind or another, but there you have it - it's finished.

 

 

For now at least. December 2021. Rhett Knight. Actually updated in November 2023. Somewhat.

 

 

The family tree diagrams are probably best to look at first for orientation followed by the descendant/ancestor files. The index of all people in the tree will lead to basic family details without any personal notes.

 

If you click on the small pictures they will popup. Amazing!

 

Update March 2025

Through modern DNA matching it has come to light that William Knight (b. 1827) had a marriage, children, was engaged in criminal activity and was jailed before migrating, marrying an Irish orphan and continuing the Knight line in Australia. Consequently there exist half-cousins in the UK ,New Zealand and Australia who only now have knowledge of each other.

This information draws attention to some of the speculation below about William's early life in Sydney, between being discharged from prison in Portsmouth, England in April 1855 and his marriage in Sydney in December 1857.

We will leave it to the interested reader to research the union of William Knight and Sarah Valleley (b 1826), their criminal activities and the progress of their offspring by whatever means they like, e.g .Ancestry, My Heritage, Wikitree, Familysearch, etc. As a foretaste we have included on the home page an article about their involvement in house robberies in 1850.