his register traces the ancestors, relatives and descendants of Harry Humfrey Rumble and his wife Kate Rosaline Knight. Both were born in England in 1866 and married at the age of twenty-one. Following a serious quarrel with their families they migrated to Australia. In 1892 they landed in Sydney with their two sons, Horace and Eric. Five years later, with three more children - Maude, Leslie and Humfrey - they settled in Western Australia where they remained for the rest of their lives, adding two more daughters to their family, Phyllis and Dorothy.

arry's grandfather, Thomas Rumble, a surveyor-engineer, was born about 1799 and married twice. His second marriage was in 1828 to Frances Mary de Brotherton. Their fourth child, Henry Euean, was born in 1836 when Thomas was Surveyor of Works for the Great Marlowe New Church. Henry Euean, Harry's father, was the first child to be baptised in this church. Like his father, Henry Euean became an architect. He married Grace Humfrey and spent much of his life in Eastbourne.

hile we cannot trace the Rumble line back beyond Thomas, family folklore maintains that his wife Frances de Brotherton was a descendant of Thomas de Brotherton, born to King Edward I and Eleanor of France in the year 1300. For some years Thomas de Brotherton lived in Framlingham castle during a colourful period of English history. Grace Humfrey's ancestry, although not as illustrious as that of Frances Mary, can be traced back in unbroken line to Thomas Humfrey born in 1616, a member of the landed gentry, and Lord of the Manor.

ate Knight was the daughter of Anthony Knight and Letitia Hochee. Her grandfather, Valentine Knight, was a clockmaker in London and made a fortune by inventing specially turned clock dials. "Knight's Dials" were much sought after by Americans. Valentine became the founding president of the British Horological Society and died in 1867, a wealthy man. His son, Anthony, became a solicitor, was wealthy, and travelled abroad. Kate was born in New Zealand.

etitia was the daughter of Ho Chee, who was born in 1789 in Canton, China of Chinese parents. Both Ho Chee and his father, Ho Foo, a mandarin, worked in trade connected with the British East India Company. Through this, Ho Chee came to England where John Elphinstone, the son of a director of the company, became his benefactor, leaving him several estates. Ho Chee, or John Hochee as he became known, married a young English girl and applied for citizenship in 1839. Letitia was their sixth child.

his family register is written in the form of a "Who's Who", with separate cross-referenced entries for each person. In it you will find what we know about members of the Rumble, Humfrey, Knight and Hochee families. Harry Humfrey Rumble was the fifth of eleven children. There is an entry in the register for each of these children and for their descendants, where known. Kate Knight was the third of six children. They and most of their descendants are included in the register. Kate's brother Henry married three times, the third marriage being at age seventy-five. This third wife presented him with three more sons. Kate's nephew Ronald flew his own plane. Three months after marriage his plane crashed in the Sahara desert and his young bride, searching for his body, died of exposure in the desert. The register includes the newspaper articles of 1935 that recounted this.

uch of the register is devoted to the lives of Harry and Kate Rumble, their children and descendants. When this volume was published in 1994, they had seven children, seventeen grandchildren, sixty-nine great-grandchildren, ninety-five second-great grandchildren and two third-great-grandchildren. Harry worked for the Public Works Department of the Western Australia Government as a civil engineer. From 1915 to 1922 he was resident engineer at the small seaport town of Bunbury, but spent much of his life in Perth. Our knowledge of the family has been enhanced by the many volumes of Kate's diary covering the period from 1911 to 1932, the year in which she died.

orace, the eldest boy, served in the first world war, had a hand blown off, was captured and became dangerously ill in a German Prisoner of War camp. He survived and lived to see his one-hundredth birthday. Another son, Leslie, became a famous Catholic priest, while the second boy, Eric, established Rumbles Limited, a pharmaceutical company. The two youngest girls married sailors who had served in one of the last of the old three-masted, square-rigged sailing ships. All their stories are recounted in the register.

uch of the research on the descendants of Harry and Kate was undertaken with the cooperation of their grandchildren. Each willingly told their own life-story and that of their parents. Wherever possible entries have been written to recall the ordinary events of life: daily life on a farm; the trauma of contracting tuberculous during the second world war and its treatment; the problems of young married people trying to find scarce accommodation after the second world war; living an alternative lifestyle.

t has been difficult to know what detail to include. Apart from basic source material, a dominant guide has been: What would descendants like to know about their family in the past? As one great-granddaughter of Harry Rumble said: The answer depends on the stage in life that I am at, and what concerns me now in my life. I would like to know what were the similar concerns of my ancestors. We can never be certain what will be of interest to those that come after us. However, most of us would like to know something of the life and thought of those who came before us, no matter how little this might be.