The Tree of Me

Yesterday I was in my local bookshop and I saw the book, Lady Catherine and the Real Downton Abbey written by Fiona Carnarvon, the Countess of Carnarvon. Highclere Castle - 2005 I had to buy the book, not just because of my love of the series, but simply because one of my family may be mentioned in the book. Sure enough, the index indicated a hit. Page 82 has a mention of Dick Dawson. So even though the reference to Dick was one sentence in the book it had to become part of my personal collection. One of Porchey's first decisions was to build up his brood mares and then send his youngsters to be trained by Dick Dawson at Whatcombe, who trained the Aga Khan's horses....... The horseracing, breeding and training world is full of dreamers and eccentrics, driven men (it is usually men, and certainly was in Porchey's day) whose existence has been overtaken by the hope that one day, one of their horses may win a Grand National, or an Epsom Derby, and become a househ...

William Vesey Dawson (390)  1892 - 1974 This is the third post in  a series of posts over the next few years to remember all the men in my extended family who enlisted in World War 1. Originally I had identified 26 soldiers who enlisted between 20 August 1914 and 2 November 1918.  However, further checking has now revealed a total of thirty five enlistment.  Of the thirty five, five were killed overseas or died here in Australia. William Vesey Dawson was the fifth child of William Henry Dawson and his wife Bridget Mylan.  Twenty two year old Bill enlisted in Casino, NSW on 25th October 1914,  just a month after his older brother Ernest.  Bill worked as a saddler and a general farm labourer. Like many young men from the north coast of NSW Bill (No 390) became a member of the 5th Light Horse. William Vesey Dawson No 390 (Dawson family collection.) Brothers, William Vesey Dawson and Ernest Lee Dawson. Photo taken at Alexa...

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 ...

Ernest Lee Dawson (500) (1885 - 1968) This is the second post in  a series of posts over the next few years to remember all the men in my extended family who enlisted in World War 1. So far I have identified 26 soldiers who enlisted between 20 August 1914 and 2 November 1918 and I feel sure I have missed some. Of the twenty six, five were killed overseas or died here in Australia. My aim is to publish these posts on the 100th anniversary of their enlistment. Ernest Lee Dawson (my great uncle) was the eldest child of William Henry Dawson and his wife Bridget Mylan. He was born in the Cooma district of NSW in 1885. On 25th August 1914, less than three weeks after the outbreak of the First World War Ernie, a farmer who lived at Old Bonalbo  enlisted in the 2nd Light Horse Regiment in Lismore. Ernie had previous military experience. In 1906, he answered an advertisement to join the Shanghai Municipal Council Police Force, as a recruit. He ...

Walter Waldo Seabrook (1894 - 1971) This is my first post in  a series of posts over the next few years to remember all the men in my extended family who enlisted in World War 1. So far I have identified 26 soldiers who enlisted between 20 August 1914 and 2 November 1918 and I feel sure I have missed some. Of the twenty six, five were killed overseas or died here in Australia. Walter Waldo Seabrook (1894 - 1971) My first post is for Walter Waldo Seabrook (107) who joined the 3rd Field Company Engineers  on 20th August 1914, less than three weeks after Australia joined the war. Walter,19 years old was the third child of Alfred and Emma Seabrook and was born at Augustus Terrace on 23rd September 1894. He had been named after his uncle Walter Waldo Kennedy who had died, aged 13 while boarding at The Friends' School in Hobart. Walter's attestation papers state that he had spent 1 year in the Junior Cadets and 2 years in the Mililtia and he worked as a clerk. H...

I have decided to write a series of posts over the next couple of years to highlight all the men in my extended family who enlisted in World War 1. So far I have identified 26 soldiers who enlisted between 20 August 1914 and 2 November 1918 and I feel sure I have missed some. Of the twenty six, five were killed overseas or died here in Australia. At this stage, I don't have information about them at my fingertips. I don't know if they were all single or if some were married with children. I have photos for some of them, but not all. They enlisted in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania. My aim is to post on the 100th anniversary of their enlistment. My first post will be on 20th August 2014 and the final one in the series on 2 November 1918. 30 August Tonight I have found another soldier. So my tally now is 27 soldiers of whom 6 were killed.

This is week 17 of   Shauna Hicks  challenge for 2014.  Shauna said that t his blog challenge is to stimulate my own genealogy blogging efforts in 2014 by focusing on a different kind of genealogical record each week. I wanted a challenge that reflected my own archival background as well as my own genealogy interests and there are probably lots of other records that I could have included. The challenge has an Australian focus but most of these records will be found just about anywhere in the genealogy world. This week's topic is Court Records. In my research my main contact with court records that I have is via a secondary source -  what is reported in local newspapers. Since the advent of Trove this has become a relatively easy task.  The Maitland Mercury & Hunter River General Advertiser, Saturday 18th April 1874, p. 4 Ludwig Glock found himself the victim of a robbery. George Parker was convicted of stealing £2, two boxes of matches, a ...