Stephen Sheaffe’s ‘The Andersons of Lake View’ is packed full of information on pioneer Shoalhaven/South Coast families and is a wonderfully researched book.

The book with hundreds of coloured photographs contains a biography of the immigrants, their children, grand and great-grandchildren plus a family tree of almost every descendant.

Prominent Shoalhaven/South Coast families like the Andersons, Bishops, Duncans, Crawfords Sturgis’s, Gandertons and Coultharts all appear in the book.

The book was launched by family member, Her Honour Estelle Hawdon, a learned magistrate from Sydney, at a reunion of the Anderson family at the Pyree Hall recently.

The Anderson family traditionally have a reunion each year.

Mr Sheaffe and wife Glenda, the book’s editor, attended the reunion last year and they wanted to tell people about the book and get their assistance

“It’s a book about my female line – really,” he said

The Andersons arrived in Australia in 1862 from County Ulster in Ireland. They became a prominent family in the Moruya area.

Jane Anderson married James Duncan and after she died he moved up to Numbaa with his second wife in 1909.

Mr Sheaffe said they became a pioneer family and the book had a 100-page section on the Duncan family.

“They (the various families) have certainly spread but a lot of them still live locally, especially the Anderson family,” Mr  Sheaffe said.

“The ghosts from the past would approve of this book. I think they would be delighted to think this has been recorded.

“It really is an intertwined family.”

The book was launched at the Pyree Hall – a familiar place for many of these local families.

“No doubt many of these people would have known of the Pyree Hall and met their partners there at dances,” Mr Sheaffe said.

The role on honour boards in the Pyree Hall features many of the people who are also mentioned in Mr Sheaffe’s book.

Mr Sheaffe said in the Milton Ulladulla, Nowra and Kiama areas there would be many people of all ages with a connection to his book.

He had 150 of the books printed in the first run. The author said it was important to remember the past.

“We want to know our past because we won’t know our future unless we know our past. We want to know where we came from – where our roots were and we want to know our connection to our neighbour down the street,” he said. 

He says he is virtually a professional researcher and he knows how to do this type of work accurately.

“I don’t use Google. I go to the original source all the time,” he said.

Mr Sheaffe said it he was like a detective, getting information and solving mysteries.

He is happy to touch on controversial subjects.

“Every family has a skeleton or two and a bit of gossip is in every family,” he said

His book features a section of how class structure meant marriage proposals being refused and couples then eloping.

This is his eighth book and he hopes to donate a copy of "The Andersons of Lake View" to the Nowra Library and Nowra Historical Society.