TRACING a family history is no easy task - especially if you’re trying to do so from the opposite side of the world.

But that is not putting off one family that now lives in Australia.

Sisters Jeanette and Judi are on the hunt for clues about their - until recently - completely unknown Stonehouse roots.

They want to unearth the lives led by their parents Don and Jean Lowry and their grandparents Jack and Fanny Elmer - both couples lived in Stonehouse.

Well, Don and Jean did for a time, but when Judi was seven and a half they packed their bags and headed Down Under, and the sisters have no idea what made them do it.

“To hop on a boat to Australia - it just makes you want to ask: why?” Judi ,who still lives there, said to me over the phone

“As far we were concerned, family was just us five girls and mum and dad.

“We never had big family gatherings and were told we had no relatives in England other than Nana - growing up we were completely in the dark about who else might be out there.”

But, with the death of their parents, they soon stumbled upon a wealth of photographic family history.

Jean was born in Stonehouse, while Don, originally from Birmingham, ended up there when his adopted parents moved.

Aside from figuring out who they might be related to, the big mystery the sisters are unravelling is the house they grew up in.

Built by the family in the 1920s, today any indication of the house is gone.

In its place is a housing estate which is called, as fate would have it, Little Australia.

And, if that was not spooky enough, one of the bridesmaids in their parents’ wedding photos actually ended up living on the estate.

The house was quite the sight, given that it was made in large part from timber.

The sisters think its design was the work of their mother’s father, Jack, who bought the plot of land after a stint in Canada.

Jeanette and Judi want anyone with information on the house to come forward - whether it is from those who helped build it or those who just passed it by through the years.

As to why they have been in the dark for so long, the sisters blame the inability or unwillingness of previous generations to talk about certain things - and they lament that trait.

Judi points to Don’s time in the British Navy during the Second World War as another example of equal mystery to the sisters.

“We’ve got hecks more information than we started off with - the problem is that you’re never told anything until it’s too late.”

Did any of this jog your memory? Do you remember a timber house in Stonehouse? If you have information on Don, Jean and the Elmers, email harding.jeanette.z@edumail.vic.gov.au