The Smeals bring a Scottish heritage of the Sutton family. As farm workers and householders they came to Australia as bounty immigrants in 1844 to settle on the estate of the famous Henry Osborne at Marshall Mount near Dapto in NSW.  Strange that the Suttons should return to that area to live in the 1970s.

Family legend draws a line from Rob Roy McGregor to the Weirs and Smeals of Scotland.  We have yet to prove the lineage - but the pride in a Scots heritage is strong.

The passenger manifest of the barque "Fairlie", arriving at Port Jackson, New South Wales in September 1848, lists George Stubbs as a whitesmith and rough carpenter. His wife and daughters are listed as house servants and needlewomen. 

The birthplace of the three youngest children, Elisabeth,George and Henry, is given as Calais, France. As their dates of birth span the years 1840 to 1847 and their port of embarkation is also Calais, the family had evidently been in France for at least 7 years.  Why was this English family living in France? Why were there other English families also embarking in Calais? Why would an English ship pick up passengers in France?