The family grows....

2006-05-25T22:51:00.000-07:00

This more recent photo of Clan Odgers includes Sonja's husband David, and Bryce's partner Deirdre

Clan Odgers

2006-01-11T20:20:00.000-08:00

My great-grandfather, William, arrived in Melbourne in 1861 from Cornwall intent on continuing the Cornish tradition of hard rock mining in the rich copper fields of South Australia. As a young man of 24 he would have heard stories of the fabulous fortunes being made in the New South Wales and Victorian goldfields and may have been tempted to join the gold scramble but, as a young Methodist lad from rural Cornwall, no doubt armed with a letter of introduction to a Captain of one of the giant copper mines of South Australia, William sought direct passage from Melbourne to Adelaide and a new life.William was a twelfth generation Odgers, descendant from the eponymous ancestor of the Odgers family: Oger Thoma, who waded ashore at Mullion, Cornwall, most probably from Brittany, shortly before 1520. Oger Thoma was part of a wave of migrants, or refugees, seeking a new home away from the political instability of Brittany and the violence associated with the purges of the Hugonoughts. The surname derives from early French Ogier or Oggiere, meaning "wealth spear" suggesting that Oger Thoma had a warrior background in Brittany, earning at least part of his income through military service. Oger is a Cornish phonetic translation of Ogier, further altered by the celtic phrasing to Odger. Odger(s) means simply son of Odger.In 1600 the family was farming in Crowan, but by 1625 had settled in the area of Stithians, where the direct male descendants continued up until the time of William's departure. Prior to the mining boom, the Odgers surname was numerically amongst the top ten families. The population of Stithians peaked at about 2,500 in 1841, but after the dramatic decline in the fortunes of copper mining in the mid-1800s, the population halved, only returning recently to those earlier figures. Today only 2 persons with the surname remain, apparently both non-drinkers.
Clan Odgers, 2003
My details:
Name:
Kim OdgersBatemans BayAustralia
Email:
kimodgers@austarnet.com.au

Odgers Family History

The family grows....

Clan Odgers