About

About the website host

Jim Fleming has been researching and writing family history for over forty years. He likes to collaborate with fellow-researchers with the aim of furthering mutual understanding of our forebears. To that end, this website is a key tool in making his research outcomes available to other researchers, thus facilitating contact and sharing.

Through this website he has published many family biographies, short stories and detailed research reports. As a researcher, he has successfully overcome several difficult genealogical roadblocks (Baker, Poulton, Fleming, Lahy, Ballantyne, Waples, Tobin) and has debunked a few furphies (Murphy, Carlisle, Kessey). In 2019 he received a Highly Commended award in the Society of Australian Genealogists’ Croker Prize biographical essay competition for A Noble Harvest, about his GG-grandmother Elizabeth Taylor. The Society also published two of his articles in its journal Descent; the Bathurst Family History Group published one in its journal Carillon Chimes; and the Fleming Clan Society published five in its journal The Deed and several more on its website, www.clanflemingintl.org.

Jim's book All Our Tracks and Ways (about the Reed family of Bourke) was published in November 2024 and he has also published catalogues of Fleming and Kessey family photographs and a facsimile copy of the 1883 emigration diary of his GG grandfather, Charles Fleming. His next book, The Fleming clan of Scotland (due for release in late 2025) tells the story of an aristocratic family at the centre of Scottish history for 400 years. He also has well advanced plans for A family of convicts, about the Entwistle family of Lancashire from which fifteen individuals were sentenced to be transported to Australia as convicts.

Jim was born and raised in Bourke (NSW), as were his mother, grandmother and great-grandfather. The earlier generations of his family in Australia had coalesced around Bathurst, Mudgee and Coonamble after originating in England, Ireland and Scotland. He is also pleased to boast some Aboriginal ancestry through his 3G-grandfather William Kemp whose mother was "Mary" of the Mowgee clan of the Wiradjuri nation. He obtained a Bachelor of Economics degree from the University of Sydney before enjoying a 33-year career with the Australian Customs Service, culminating in several years as a Customs Director. In retirement he lives on Sydney’s lower north shore where (apart from genealogy) he enjoys travelling and sings baritone in two choirs. He is a member of the Society of Australian Genealogists, the Bathurst Family History Group, the Entwistle Family History Association and the Turton Local History Society.

To contact Jim

To contact Jim by email simply click this link.