On November 28th, 1997 Keith (keith.oyston@aspect.com.au) sent me this message:

Great to hear that somebody has set an Oyston web page!

I'm the Keith Oyston that is on your email list. I am 49 and live in Canberra within the Australian Capital Territory, Australia. I am married to Helen and have a 21 year old son Daniel studying management at Canberra University, and an 18 year old son Sean who just two days ago graduated from Year 12 at Marist College, Pearce, ACT. Both are very keen Touch Football players and represent their state at National Championships.

I work for the largest Australian owned IT company in Australia - ASPECT Computing - with a permanent staff of 900 spread across four states. I am a principal consultant in Applications Software Development and head up the Applications Business Practice for my branch of the company. Previous to my joining ASPECT, I spent 22 years in the Royal Australian Air Force, firstly as a ground radio technician and then finished my career as a Squadron Leader Electronics Engineer.

My parents were Thomas and Violet Elma who have both passed on. I have five brothers (no sisters) with me as the youngest. My father came from the south coast of NSW Australia from a little place called Dapto, just south of Wollongong. He started life as a coal miner as did all the males in his family, and went on to become a carpenter. He finished his working life with the Sydney Water Board. During his time with them he was chief inspector of drilling and grouting for the construction of the Warragamba Dam - one of Australia's biggest projects that started after the second world war.

I am also interested in the origin of our family name. My mother's sister visited England in the late 1950's and spent a bit of money researching my mother's maiden name - Percival - and our name. She told us that English names finishing with 'ton' were generally used by people as far back as the 11th century if they had roles/jobs associated with the perimeter of the village or city, eg. gatekeeper, guard, maintainer, etc. She also said that one of my ancestors had left England with his family and settled in Austria (I think) for a couple of generations. One or more of his descendants moved back to England and another descendant later migrated to Australia about mid to late 1800's with his wife and two sons. Just a few days out of Sydney, his wife died and was buried at sea. A woman with two young daughters had the same experience with her husband at about the same time. Four days after arriving in Sydney they were married and moved to the South Coast. Probably not very suspicious in those days but it really does raise some questions!

There is one other Oyston family in Canberra. Christopher Oyston is a Lieutenant Commander Engineer in the Royal Australian Navy and has been compiling a family tree for many years. I'll try and get an email contact for him and pass it onto you.

Bye for now. I would be very pleased to assist in any research you intend to undertake or give you any assistance I can in keeping the clan together.

Later he wrote: