Grahame Robert Thom was born in Sydney to Robert
Alexander Thom and Lillian Merle Lane. He went to school
at Mosman and North Sydney. His dad was a tram
conductor on the North Shore trams and mum worked in
lots of situations. His sister Carole lives in Brisbane with her
family.
Grahame decided he would like to be a land surveyor and
worked as an “apprentice” with a surveying firm in Sydney.
He studied surveying for over two years, but found that he
could not pass one of the subjects as he has no depth of
vision. Grahame then joined the Commonwealth Public
Service, first working as a clerk with the Department of Civil
Aviation in Sydney. He came to realise that to obtain
promotion it was best to work in Canberra.
The first position Grahame applied for and obtained was as
a Cost Clerk at the Government Printing Office in Canberra.
He worked in several agencies in Canberra until 1991 when
he was appointed as Deputy Commissioner of the
Tasmanian Branch of the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. In
1995 Grahame was transferred to DVA Melbourne and
retired there in 2001.
While in Canberra Grahame studied first at the Canberra
Technical College obtaining accounting and cost
accounting certificates, and then successfully undertook
part time study at the Australian National University
obtaining an Economics degree. He is a Fellow of CPA
Australia.
Grahame married in Sydney in 1964 and has three children,
Kathy, Michael and Louise. After separating in 1990
Grahame married Rosslyn Marie McKean in Canberra in
1992, gaining another daughter Melissa. All up there
are eleven grandchildren and four great grandchildren.
In recent years Grahame has been a member and Treasurer
of the Kilmore Hospital Board and the Mitchell Community
Health Service.
Grahame’s interest in genealogy started in 1968 when he
read an article in an issue of the Reader’s Digest Magazine
about researching your family history. Grahame realised
that he knew nothing about his ancestors other than his
parents and grandparents.
Grahame joined the Heraldry and Genealogy Society of
Canberra in 1972, then the Society of Australian
Genealogists in 1974. He saw an item in a Sydney
newspaper about the Clan MacThomas and joined the Clan
Society in 1975. Jack Thoms was the Australian Branch
Secretary at that time. In 1983 Grahame attended the Clan
Gathering in Centennial Park, Sydney, held in the presence
of our Chief.
As a result of tracing back all his ancestors in Australia
Grahame now knows that he is 39% English, 28.1%
Scottish, 31.3% Irish and 1.6% Welsh. One of his
achievements is knowing the names of all the ships on
which 25 ancestors came to Australia during the period
1790 to 1883. Grahame has had many successes and still
has some brick walls he would like to solve. His favourite
ancestor is probably Obadiah Ikin, a NSW Corps sergeant
who arrived in Sydney with his family on the ship Surprize in
1790. He has managed to get one line back to the 10th
century in England, the Ashbys of Leicestershire, though
without sufficient proof.
In more recent times the internet has created a lot more
opportunities to discover new information. As he strongly
believes in taking every opportunity to publicise your
research interests, he has his own family tree web site.
The other joy is being able to visit the sites of importance in
the life of your ancestors. He has travelled to the UK four
times to visit the towns of his ancestors and to undertake
research.
Grahame feels that serious researchers should support their
interest by being volunteers. He has presented papers at
the three yearly Australasian Conferences, and held various
positions such as President of the Heraldry and Genealogy
Society of Canberra, Secretary and Treasurer of the
Australasian Federation of Family History Associations,
State Treasurer of the Tasmanian Family History Society
and lately President of the Kilmore Historical Society. He
also has teached family history with the local U3A group.
Grahame has attended four Clan gatherings in Glenshee
and Pitlochry. Following raising the issue of what was the
condition of past records of the Clan MacThomas Society
at the 2004 AGM, he was appointed as chair of the
Society’s Archives Committee.
Since 2011, Grahame has been involved with the
administration of the Australian Branch of the Clan
MacThomas Society, holding positions as acting Branch
Convenor, Branch Treasurer and Branch Editor.
In May 2010 Grahame was appointed to the role of Clan
Sennachie by the 19th Chief of Clan MacThomas, Andrew
MacThomas of Finegand. At the AGM in August 2014 he
was elected as a member of the Clan Society Council. He
retired from the Council in 2022 having served two full four
year terms.
In 2016, the Clan MacThomas Society Council approved a
proposal by Grahame that in order to assist members he
establish the Clan MacThomas DNA Group hosted by
familytreeDNA website.
Grahame is a Fellow of the Heraldry and Genealogy Society
of Canberra and has compiled five cemetery transcription
volumes published by the Society. He has also published
four small books about his Ikin ancestors and held an Ikin
family gathering in Sydney in 1990. In 2023 he published a
book of poems by his grandfather Alfred Oram Lane.Some of Grahame’s
research can be seen on his web site at http://grthom.info/.
Grahame has also made
substantial contributions to the original Clan Society
website.
