The Tree of Me

A couple of days ago I came across the Letters of 1916 website. I was quite excited when I read about this project. The Letters of 1916 project is the first public humanities project in Ireland. Join the hundreds of people who are helping us create a crowd-sourced digital collection of letters written around the time of the Easter Rising (1 November 1915 – 31 October 1916) by contributing copies of letters to the database or transcribing previously uploaded letters. In my collection of letters written from Ireland by my Dawson family I have two letters that fit the timeframe. The first written in November 1915 from Eleanor Dawson to her niece Louisa Spinks who lived in Whittlesea north of Melbourne. The second, was written in June 1916 by Eleanor's daughter Maude to her cousin Louisa. Today I added the first of these letters to the website. My only disappointment so far is that I can't seem to be able to transcribe my own contribution. Hopefully it will be available for ...

I have written three previous posts about Samuel Cuming Dawson of Cloghran, Swords, Co Dublin, Ireland. The first discussed a letter he posted to Autralia in 1878 when he was a cadet aboard the Conway. The second  showed the honour board when he won the Queen's Medal. The third post discussed information from the Maritime Museum in Liverpool. Today I write what may be the final post for Samuel Dawson. Last year, I visited Swords and found Samuel's headstone at St Columba's Church of Ireland at Swords, Co Dublin. Unfortunately, I couldn't read the date of his death. Headstone of Samuel Cuming Dawson - St Columba's Swords. Today I have been using my NLA card and have been trawling the Irish Newspaper Archives with great success. (However, it's a shame the site is so slow to move to the next result page.) A search for Dawson and Cloghran has come up with 598 results and one of the first ones was an obituary for Mr Sam C Dawson. Of course, his ob...

Amanuensis Monday  was started by John Newmark in his blog  Translyvanian Dutch  and encourages family historians to transcribe family letters, journals, audiotapes and other historical artifacts. An amanuensis is a person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another. Each Monday I hope to transcribe one of the many letters or diary entries in my possession.  Today's letter was written by Samuel Dawson of Cloghran, Co Dublin, Ireland in 1878 to his aunt Emma Dawson in Melbourne, Australia. Emma's late husband, William was the brother of Samuel's father Richard.  Kilronan House Cloghran Co Dublin Ireland Friday 19th July 1878 Dear Aunt Having your last letter I determined to take advantage of the wish you expressed that some of us would write to you it is indeed with great pleasure I write this my first letter to you with the hope that I will either hear from or see you before this time twelvemonth. I am at pre...