Ballarat 1998

The year 1998 is remembered for the Ballarat council sponsored "Back to Ballarat" celebrations. As Simon Gribble descendants we were fortunate to have as resident of the historic gold town Janice Haynes - a descendant of Simon and Sophia's son William. Janice organised and registered with the council a Gribble event "The Gribble Family Gathering" - a family reunion for all of the descendants of Simon Gribble 1833-1914, and his siblings John Gribble 1835-1899, Stephen Uren Gribble 1840-1875, and Joseph Gribble 1838-1878 all of whom spent various lengths of time in Ballarat from the time of their arrival on the goldfields in the 1850s.

This day was a watershed event in my pursuit of our Gribble family genealogy. Largely because the information presented and kindly shared stimulated new lines of enquiry to complement and enrich that rather narrow line of enquiry I was following at the time. Attendees were most fortunate to have present as guests and speakers the authors of The Gribble OneName Website - Michael and Jules Gribble. Without doubt a highlight of the reunion was the presentation of their recently published paper "Gribble - A Good Devon Name". Given our Cornish antecedents and oral history suggesting a continental origin you can appreciate the vigorous discussion this paper stimulated.

After lunch a tour was undertaken of historic Gribble locations sprinkled throughout the city. It is of interest to note that there is still a very strong Gribble family presence in this city through the descendants of Simon's sibling John Gribble. Photograph 14 shows a group of Charles Gribble descendants enjoying a night out at one of Ballarat's many eateries prior to the reunion the next day.

The Nedlands reunion of 1992.
The Northcote reunion of 2004.