"Come and talk to me, 
come and tell me your story."
~ Goff Letts, Editor, The Donald Times

"You own everything that has ever happened to you.
Tell your stories.  If people wanted you to write warmly
about them, they should have behaved better". - Anne Lamott


A 'picnic by the river' in 1927, when Dorrie Pope [nee Fletcher (1896-1969) discussed with Jake 
Fletcher (1892-1970) at their only meeting, the research she had been conducting into the Fletcher 
history. It is likely this was a Boxing Day picnic, which was a tradition in them days, amongst 
Wimmera people.  Jake's mother, Bess Fletcher (nee Buchanan) had died earlier in 1927, a 
pioneer of Mt Jeffcott.

It was not until the mid 1960s that Dorrie's efforts and the information she had gathered, became 
popular as she began to write the history of the Fletchers. Jake who had retired in 1957 from a 
globe-trotting career, was put into harness as Dorrie's workhorse and writer of letters to 
extended family for assistance with names, dates and places.  My mother, Edelene Marjorie Glenn 
(nee Hook) provided screeds of information in April 1968 that helped jog memories and wake 
sleeping dogs.

The primary tree (in scroll form) that focused on a heavily edited patrilineal Fletcher line was 
circulated about 1990-1992 by G.K. Hook (1924-2002) of Canberra, ACT. This provided basic direct 
line connections and details to the fifth generation (Baby Boomers) of the Australian descendants 
of brothers William, John & Japhet Fletcher, and forms the core of the digital record that appears 
here, as at February 2019.

Enthusiastic family historian in New Zealand, the late Les Pearce, on the Blackmore side, in 
tandem with a letter written 1975 by Mavis Hook-Tootell to Edelene, along with 
contributions from distant Hook cousins ~ in particular G.V. Clough of the Goulburn Valley in 
Victoria ~ has enabled the story of Albert George Hook and his antecedents to emerge from the
shadows of the aggrieved status of G.K. Hook. 

Near on twelve years of intensive grass-roots research and cobbling together of three decades of 
conversations, personal letters and remembrances, by the data manager of this website, has 
expanded to embrace other families that intersect with the key lines of Blackmore-Buchanan-
Fletcher-Hook-Hudson-Nicholson.  The Donald-Wimmera Basset family is included as a nod to Marjorie 
Rye (nee Basset) whose memoirs provided much flavour as to the Donald community.  Also some Morgan 
and Meyer identities and there is a special nod to Mr R.H. Keegan, former selector of Block 14, 
Parish of Jeffcott, whose decision to "throw in the towel", really lies at the root of the  
Fletcher-Buchanan stories.

Personal letters between Annie Louisa Hook and her son, Louis, written in 1952, provided more 
names of neighbours and friends in Donald: who have also been included, where traceable, to weave 
together a glimpse into the halycon days of post-WWII reconstruction and social networks: the 
twaddle and gossip!

Additionally, cobbers from WWI and WWII who served with key Fletcher-Hook identities also appear as
a complement to the wider 1914-1918 AIF project and the Search for Bobby which occupied Annie 
Louisa, Edelene and Louis Hook, casting a deep shadow over their lives, as the Fall of Singapore 
had been for the entire nation.

The intention is to provide for present day querents a coherent database of information 
and a springboard from which future generations can start their search and, hopefully, build on 
what was an inspired passion for Dorothy Fletcher in 1927, whose efforts as a female relative, in 
service of all the former and future generations is lovingly remembered and honoured.  

Please take time to check out the Stories section where I have stolen from the best to flesh out 
the zeitgeist of our generations.


The Family Genealogy


Compendium of dullness, in your pages
   Name crowds on name; the humble and the great
Each in few lines receives his equal wages,
   And headstrong passions crumble to a date.
Here are the founders of a mighty nation;
   Here are the pioneers who won the soil,
As generation followed generation,
   With axe and plough and with back-breaking toil.
Here are the women of a hardy people,
   Weakness and doubt yielding to faith held fast;
The pulled-up stakes; eyes lifted to the steeple;
   Farewells to home; the new homes gained at last.
Here are the hints of buried old romances;
   The broken families, and the too young dead;
The autumn frolics and the village dances;
   Roll of recruiting drums, the soldier's tread.
And here are darker things, now long forgotten;
   The unwed mothers; the deserted wives;
Misdeeds of rogues far better unbegotten;
   Heartbreak and self-destruction; ruined lives.
All this and far, far more is in these pages
   If we might clothe with flesh the lifeless names,
Parade the knaves, the saints, the fools, the sages,
   And resurrect their obloquies and fames.
Their names, their dates, are entered in a column,
   The unjust here embalmed beside the just;
And in the pages of this dusty volume
   A second time they moulder into dust.


Donald Lines Jacobus


Disclaimer: The enclosed chronologies were developed for personal use and are unedited and 
unchecked by professional genealogists/historians who charge upwards of $15 per hour. Some dates 
are from multiple sources and are believed to be reliable (where indicated).  Others have been 
obtained from family folk-lore and stories and remain uncorroborated. There may also be errors 
committed by the developer of this resource. Credit given to other sources is included where 
possible: honour amongst thieves and all that. However, if you really weally weally don't want 
your stuff plagiarized and reproduced on generic ancestry sites, then don't stick it on the 
Internet, nuff said!  And get over yourself!

Some entries will be meaningless to most readers and relate to private histories, while other 
entries are just there for Fun, Because, Why Not?, Bugger All on Telly and I Don't Have 
Netflix.....