While having a quite coffee at the National Library of Australia cafe I came across an article in their June 2016 magazine on the Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB). My blog on Parramatta Cemetery contained information on first fleeters buried there, some have headstones but most don’t so it was exciting to discover that the ADB is going to ‘trace the fates of all the people -convicts, crew, naval officers -who set off from England in the first three fleets to New South Wales in 1787-1901’. They also intend to include their children and grandchildren who were born or settled here, will map their movements and use Trove for information from Australian newspapers.

- Here are some links to ADB for St John’s list of 17 first fleeters with headstones. Let me know if you find that the others have been updated or have some information on them.
Augustus Theodore Alt (1731–1815)
Frances Hannah Clements (alias Dalton)
Henry Edward Dodd(?-1791)
Mary Kelly
Thomas Eccles
Edward Ellett
Thomas Freeman
Deborah Herbert
John Herbert
Hugh Hughes
David Killpack
Isaac Knight
John Martin
Jane McManus
Christopher Palmer
John Palmer (1760–1833) - and James Wright
In the meantime do a simple search of the ADB in case they have someone your interested in. In the advanced of faceted search you can search for people with by:
- birth town, birth state or birth country
- Death town, state or country
- ethnicity
- gender
- occupations
- religion
I simply searched for Bowning and found two entries. Check the links if you want more detail but here are the summaries .

March, Frederick Hamilton (Fred) (1891–1977)
Birth: 6 August 1891 Bowning, New South Wales, Australia
Death: 30 October 1977 Khartoum, Sudan
Occupation: adventurer (general), heroic civilian, road contractor, soldier
Oberg, David Olof August (1893–1975)
Birth: 24 September 1893 Coolamon, New South Wales,
Death:15 February 1975 Bowning, New South Wales, Australia
Cultural Heritage: Swedish
Occupation: company manager,employers’ organiser, government adviser, timber merchant