A prominent stream of my ancestors is Scottish, particularly the Mackie family. Scottish people began emigrating as far back as the early 1600s. Many of them went to America, but in 1852 Alexander and Rachel Mackie emigrated to Melbourne, taking with them their five children. Alexander was a skilled tradesman, both a weaver and a stonemason, and Melbourne was about to stir as the hub of the Victorian colony’s gold rush.

It would have been a cheerful story of increasing prosperity that flowed down through the generations, except for the fact that Alexander’s son, Robert, was killed in a goldmine in Collingwood. How does that affect a family? Glenn charts the silent but powerful effect of this event on the family over generations.