I am part of the Emptage family through marriage rather than through birth. I was born in Holland and immigrated to Australia, along with my 2 sisters and parents (with Mum being 6 months pregnant with my brother) when I was just 3 years old. So I consider myself to be an Australian, rather than a Dutch, citizen. There were no family members here in Australia so I grew up only knowing my relatives through photographs.

In 1985 I met David Emptage on a blind date and we were married shortly after meeting, with this being a second marriage for both of us. We were together for 33 years and lived in 8 different houses in 2 different states, before David died in 2019. We shared interests in music, crossword puzzles and renovating houses. When we were busy painting rooms we would often put 5 cd’s on random selection on the stereo, while David painted the top bits of the wall (he was quite tall) while I painted the skirting boards and lower parts, me being shorter.

When David retired from work he discovered Ancestry and began researching the Emptage family history. He taught himself many new skills along the way, but what delighted him most was discovering previously unknown relatives with whom he developed wonderful relationships. Researching his family history gave him immense joy, as well as incredible frustration as well as great satisfaction.

During this time I was, and still am, working full time as a teacher in a primary school. There were times when I would help David with a particularly challenging story but my time was more involved in school. But, with the surname of Emptage, some children, particularly the five year olds, had trouble pronouncing my name. So to hear “Mrs. Empty, my computer won’t work” was not an uncommon occurrence and made me laugh.

David’s interest in family history sparked an interest in me to find out some of my own history. I have discovered a family tree for the van Riel/Spoor family and found many interesting connections and relatives.

I plan to cut back on my teaching time after 2020 and to become more involved with Team Emptage in the future. In the meantime I am working my way through the galleries on David’s Ancestry trees, uncovering the newspaper reports which he’d collected but not yet passed on to Susan for publication on the News Cutting section.

Interests: music, reading, walking with Tilly my black spoodle, going to concerts, computer games.

David’s Lineage

Henry Emptage 1763-1845 and Susannah Le Brush 1766-1826
Humphrey Emptage 1796-1845 and Isabel Brett c1795-1833
Alfred Burnet Emptage 1831-1875 and Ann Phoebe Hopkins 1833-1882
Henry Thomas Emptage 1858-1896 and Malbry Jane Wilson 1869-1952
Edward Lindsey Emptage 1892-1966 and Eileen Smith nee Morris 1910-1996
David Lindsey Emptage b 1944 and Johanna Van Riel b 1954