I have always had a keen interest in my family history as I was always fascinated with my 2nd-great grandfather's journal which he first published in 1857. Nathaniel Pidgeon along with 15 other members of the family migrated from County Wexford Ireland to Sydney, New South Wales, Australia in 1841. Nathaniel's father Richard died during the voyage and was buried at sea off the Bay of Biscay in the Atlantic Ocean. Nathaniel was Sydney's first City Missionary. I became more serious with tracking my family history when I first connected to the Internet back in 1997 and promptly set up a website focussing on family history.

I then became the manager of the Rootsweb PIDGEON mail list (still am but it is pretty much defunct now since Ancestry took it over) and started tracking the many different Pidgeon family lines to Australia. I then joined forces so to speak with Ian Pidgeon in England who runs the Pidgeon One Name study and became the defacto Aussie representative. Since then I have had my DNA tested by Familytree DNA and Ancestry.com and am part of the PIDGEON DNA Project run by Ian Pidgeon.

Initially I was a bit of a name collector like many others but it soon became too difficult to work out how I was connected to various people (by marriage) so in more recent years have concentrated on my direct lines only and establishing direct source references to prove family connections. Unfortunately too many tend to grab information from the likes of Ancestry family trees without doing their fundamental quality checks so I pay very little attention to those trees other than looking for clues and source evidence.

I became a member of Find a Grave in 2019 and recently became more involved with a desire to manage the memorials of my direct line ancestors (grandparents, great grandparents, etc) as this may also prove a good segway into meeting other serious family researchers.

I have also been actively involved with the Eltham District Historical Society for the past ten years where I have have championed digitising the collection and am the Senior Vice President and manager for digital collections, website and social media.

My father was William Edwin Pidgeon (Wep) a well known artist, cartoonist and illustrator of the 20th century and three times Archibald Prize winner. My website is connected to two other sites I run focussed on my father www.wepidgeon.com and www.wepidgeon.com/pidgeonpost/

It is ironic that there is no memorial for my father. He and his first wife and my half brother all had their ashes buriued at the family home in Northwood, Sydney, N.S.W. and since the home was sold in 2006 it was bulldozed and a McMansion built on the property. They are all now in some land fill site or buried even more deeply under the new swimming pool. As Ned Kelly said just before he dropped, "Such is life."

Happy to share stories if you wish to contact me via my email.

Cheers,

Peter P

I have always had a keen interest in my family history as I was always fascinated with my 2nd-great grandfather's journal which he first published in 1857. Nathaniel Pidgeon along with 15 other members of the family migrated from County Wexford Ireland to Sydney, New South Wales, Australia in 1841. Nathaniel's father Richard died during the voyage and was buried at sea off the Bay of Biscay in the Atlantic Ocean. Nathaniel was Sydney's first City Missionary. I became more serious with tracking my family history when I first connected to the Internet back in 1997 and promptly set up a website focussing on family history.

I then became the manager of the Rootsweb PIDGEON mail list (still am but it is pretty much defunct now since Ancestry took it over) and started tracking the many different Pidgeon family lines to Australia. I then joined forces so to speak with Ian Pidgeon in England who runs the Pidgeon One Name study and became the defacto Aussie representative. Since then I have had my DNA tested by Familytree DNA and Ancestry.com and am part of the PIDGEON DNA Project run by Ian Pidgeon.

Initially I was a bit of a name collector like many others but it soon became too difficult to work out how I was connected to various people (by marriage) so in more recent years have concentrated on my direct lines only and establishing direct source references to prove family connections. Unfortunately too many tend to grab information from the likes of Ancestry family trees without doing their fundamental quality checks so I pay very little attention to those trees other than looking for clues and source evidence.

I became a member of Find a Grave in 2019 and recently became more involved with a desire to manage the memorials of my direct line ancestors (grandparents, great grandparents, etc) as this may also prove a good segway into meeting other serious family researchers.

I have also been actively involved with the Eltham District Historical Society for the past ten years where I have have championed digitising the collection and am the Senior Vice President and manager for digital collections, website and social media.

My father was William Edwin Pidgeon (Wep) a well known artist, cartoonist and illustrator of the 20th century and three times Archibald Prize winner. My website is connected to two other sites I run focussed on my father www.wepidgeon.com and www.wepidgeon.com/pidgeonpost/

It is ironic that there is no memorial for my father. He and his first wife and my half brother all had their ashes buriued at the family home in Northwood, Sydney, N.S.W. and since the home was sold in 2006 it was bulldozed and a McMansion built on the property. They are all now in some land fill site or buried even more deeply under the new swimming pool. As Ned Kelly said just before he dropped, "Such is life."

Happy to share stories if you wish to contact me via my email.

Cheers,

Peter P