KELLS Family

This simple tree is intended to make it easier to navigate between the biographies of the family members who have a connection to Tomerong. Therefore, not all extended family members are included and neither have all biographies been written. The tree may be expanded when biographies are added. Some links to biographies include the spouses bio as well. Red text indicates the biography has not been written. For more comprehensive genealogical information refer to the Wikitree link at the bottom of most biographies.

Robert Kells was born in 1831 and married Ellen Barton in 1858. Originally a farmer of the rich flats of the Shoalhaven River, Robert had endured the floods of the 1860s, after which it was said that some of the family furniture was found at Comerong Island. When the floods of 1870 wiped the family out again, they decided to move to Tomerong. He had conditionally purchased 120 acres (Portion 103), south west of the village, off Samuel Bettens about 1863 and a further 36 acres (Portion 156), adjoining his property, in 1870. Unfortunately Robert's time at Tomerong was very short. In 1872 he was transported to the Albert Memorial Hospital at Wollongong by steamer where he died a week later from an acute case of dropsy. The family continued on at the farm after Robert's death, the eldest son Robert William combining timber work and farming and eventually increasing the family's property to 280 acres. Robert married Ann Bryce in 1885. Sadly, both Ann and their baby died in childbirth in the following year. Robert remarried in 1889, the first wedding to be held in the re-built Tomerong Church Hall. Robert died in 1923, aged 64, and Emma died in 1947. Part of the old Princes Highway that was isolated by the bypass was renamed Kells Road.