Springvale” is one of those places I call “HOME”. It’s not where is I live now, but it is where I grew up. It’s a place on a dirt road, a little out of the tiny town of Gumeracha in the Adelaide Hills and is surrounded by rolling green hills (though they’re very brown in summer), and has cows as neighbours. Trust me it’s very picturesque, and the surrounding hills, creeks and hay sheds were my playground.

Here’s a question for you: when you have a house name, are you naming the house or the land? In my case I think it is the land, as there were two houses on the land called Springvale, but for this post I’m just writing about the lower house.

Once upon a time (isn’t that how you’re meant to start stories?) … I was out shopping with my grandma Evelyn Hannaford (nee Randell) at the local supermarket. Now there wasn’t anything particularly unusual about that, as it wasn’t uncommon event. But this particular day, has stuck in my mind … and all because of five words that were mentioned.

We shopped at Lobethal which is a small country town in Adelaide Hills, where you ALWAYS bump into others you know. And as expected that happened on this occasion. Now I don’t remember the lady who we met, but it was someone that grandma knew, but hadn’t seen for a while. And I was introduced to her, to which she said “She looks just like you”.

I know it sounds incredibly cliche to say that “you can find genealogy evidence in the most unlikely places”, and more to the point when you’re not even looking for it, but it can (and has) just happened to me.

Mr Lonetester and I were invited out to a friend’s birthday party recently which was held at the Tea Tree Gully Golf Club. And although I am a genealogy tragic, I must say that genealogy wasn’t exactly on my mind while I was there (except for the twice I was asked about how to search for people’s lost relatives, once they found out I work in the genealogy biz). Anyway aside from that, I was there enjoying the nibbles and chatter etc. of the party.

Let me re-introduce you to George Phillips. I say re-introduce as I did blog about him and his family last year for one of my Alphabet posts. Anyway George is my great great great grandpa, and in this time I want to concentrate on George Phillips, the businessman.

Born in Cornwall in 1845, in 1865 George together with his wife, new baby boy George jnr, and his wife’s parents set sail for Adelaide, South Australia to start a new life.