As a four year old, Amelia accompanied her father and stepmother (Elizabeth Blackman) on board the Active to the Bay of Islands in New Zealand where her father was appointed by the Church Missionary Society as assistant to the schoolmaster, Thomas Kendall. Her half-brothers James and John were born during the family's two and a half year sojourn at the mission before returning to Sydney a month or so before Amelia's seventh birthday. No doubt she had a number of vivid memories of this pioneering period of her life that she was able to recall during her later years.
The next few years were a financial struggle for the family. In October 1821 Amelia's half-sister Henrietta was born. A few months later her father sold his farm at Richmond for the good price of £200.
After a further two years her step-mother left the family home and commenced a relationship with John Roberts that lasted for the rest of her life and produced five children. At the 1828 census both James and John resided with William Carlisle but Amelia and Henrietta did not. It appears, therefore, that Elizabeth took both her daughter Henrietta and her step-daughter Amelia with her when she joined John Roberts.
On 28 September 1835, at the age of 22, Amelia was married at St John's Church Parramatta to George Waples, a Private in the 4th Regiment. The marriage celebrant was her father's old nemesis, Samuel Marsden.
Amelia and George had ten sons and four daughters, including:
Mary Ann (1836 - )
James (1840 - )
John (1842 - )
Emma (1846 - )
Elizabeth (1848 - )
Richard (1853 - )
Susannah (4 May 1855 - )
Joseph (1858 -)
David (1861 - )
She died, aged 66, at Mount Kembla on 2 June 1876 of "paralysis" and is buried at St Luke's Church of England Dapto.