My ancestor Agustin Alderete came from Chile to Australia in 1840, to work for the Australian Agricultural Company in the Peel Valley NSW. He was a 'huaso', a master horseman and muleteer. For over 100 years, we knew nothing about him, even his real name, it being recorded by his sons as Houston/Hosken/Austin Alterator. Between my 2nd cousin Phil Alterator and myself, we slowly unravelled his history. We have even been in touch with distant relatives in Chile, from whom we found that he was almost certainly the illegitimate son/grandson of a landowner outside of Quillota, Ambrosio de Alderete Morales and a local woman, who had two other children to Ambrosio. Ambrosio's lineage was pure Spanish. His ancestors were conquistadors and his relatives included governors of Chile. THe mother? DNA for a number of us descendants shows Native American blood, so she was either full-blood or mixed Spanish/Native Chilean. Agustin, being illegitimate, inherited nothing and had little future in CHile, so he and two/three others accepted the job in NSW. There, Agustin married a convict, Mary Connor and had two sons, Thomas and James (my ancestor). Agustin was almost certainly the huaso killed by bushrangers on the back road to Nowendoc in 1853, as he disappears from history around then, and his widow marries one of the other muleteers (for whom she had left him anyway). THe family was known, thereafter, as Alterator. We have a proud page on Facebook, and can link our families easily back to Augustin, most of us through James.
