Finding Chen Quin Jack

What did Chen Quin Jack look like?

This has been the main question the descendants of Chen Quin Jack have all be wanting to know, without a known photo this was an impossible task.

Who was Chen Quin Jack?

Chen Quin Jack was born in 1837, perhaps in Macao or nearby mainland China. He arrived in Australia in the early 1850s at the age of 16, attracted to the gold rush at Ballarat. After a few years on the goldfields of Victoria, Quin Jack traveled north through NSW, probably trying his luck at various goldfields along the way.

Quin would have been an experienced miner when he set up his tin-mining operation in Tingha, northern NSW in the early 1870s.

In the 1880s Quin Jack married Mary Ann Fuller.

By chance, my mother decided to tidy up my Grandmothers flat and made this wonderful discovery of and bundle of photographs in an album, amongst the collection was two photos that immediately spiked her attention, the first a portrait of a single Chinese male and the second a family group including the same Chinese man holding a swaddled baby and a woman that we could immediately identify as Mary Ann Fuller.

This is a portrait of my Great Great Grandfather – Chen Quin Jack (Chan Gwin-Tsack / 陳 觀 植).

This is a family portrait of Chen Quin Jack, with his wife Mary Ann Fuller and possibly their first born child – William Henry ‘Billo’ born 1887, this could date the photo too late 1880 to mid-1890s

Let me know if you have something to share or add!