Note: this website is constantly being added to so check back from time to time. A further note: if any family member would be interested in helping to build this website please get in touch. See the name of someone you know about? – get in touch so we can add to their story.

We are a group of people, all descended on the matrilineal side from Jane Louisa McLaren Lejeune (center above and below), who are interested in genealogy and tracing the history of our family.. 

Time deposits successive layers of memory, generation by generation; the lower levels, their occupants and events, become buried, deeper and deeper, eventually disappearing into the overburden of the past, lost to all but the most diligent miner. Partly, this is a consequence of the difficulty in finding relevant materials.

We have built this website to record and share information about our ancestors and ourselves. By creating these pages and populating them with stories, photographs, lists of memorabilia, and other related materials which have come to us, we hope to leave a record so that current and future family members who are curious have a starting point as they seek to find their place in the family’s history.

And why the name Marion Project? Because the name Marion appears in many generations of the family: Marion Ann McLaren (1830 – 1884) in Scotland and Manchester, Marion Alice McLaren (1860 – 1878), Marion Lejeune Enke (1879 – 1961) in England, Belgium and British Columbia, and Marion Lejeune (1958 – ) in South Australia.

Major Participants (As Of January 2021)

Francesca Lejeune

My grandfather, Edward Russell Lejeune, migrated to Australia at the age of nineteen in the early 1900’s. Like many descendants of migrants, when I was growing up, I wanted to know where my people came from and who they were. I was born in Western Australia and have a deep love and connection with that country but another part of my identity is elsewhere. The stories of people and places told to me by my Father and Aunts inspired me to learn more about our forbears and the times in which they lived. In Australia, our First Nations people often refer to “Honourable Ancestors”. The more exploration I do the more I discover the connection between the generations and the values that have been handed down by our ancestors. I think these values give us hope and insight into how to live.

Gordon Lejeune

Lea Chambers-Volpe

Learning about the history of my family has been a passion of mine since I was a young girl. I was so fortunate that my paternal grandmother, Ruth (Enke) Chambers, was so interested in our family’s history and so well connected with so many family members. She inspired me to learn about our family’s past and utilize my love of writing and language to create meaningful connections with the past and our current and future generations.

Derek Chambers

I am growing older, happily retired, happily married, with lots of children, stepchildren, grandchildren and even some great-grandchildren, not to mention siblings, nieces and nephews, and their off-spring.  And I am just the physical manifestation of a unique combination of genes drawn from many ancestors, some of whom I knew, but about most of whom I know either very little or nothing at all.  I occupy a single node in an ever expanding sprawling genealogical network, a family tree.  My ego might shout that the tree begins with me – that the world did not exist before I arrived in it.  But I know otherwise and have the ancestors to prove it.

Angie Chambers (2024)

My interest in our family’s history began in 2024 when my father, Derek, shared stories about my great-great-grandmother, her life in late-1800s Manchester, England, and her connection to the Withington Girls School. What began as a simple conversation quickly grew into a fascination with the people whose lives and choices helped shape the family we know today.

I enjoy discovering the stories behind the names on a family tree. Learning how our ancestors lived, worked, and persevered offers a unique window into the past and highlights both the changes and the continuities across generations.

I am especially fascinated by the personality traits, interests, values, and beliefs that seem to reappear throughout our family history, connecting our past to our present.