The Tree of Me

Amongst the treasures at my nanna's house is a renewal of a Dray Proprietor's License dated 28th January 1892 belonging to my great, great grandfather John Ryan who lived at 23 Cambridge Street in Balmain. A simple google search for "dray proprietor's license" Sydney came up with the 1854 Act for the Licensing and Regulation of Carters plying for hire with in the City of Sydney. It is a 9 page document which sets out the terms and conditions that were expected to be met by license holders. Section 4 stated that the license would only be granted if the proprietor or driver was of good name fame and character. The vehicle could not be unsafe or in bad repair or unfit for the conveyance of goods or merchandise. The vehicle also had to have its number painted on a plate or plates and affixed to wherever the Commissioners saw fit. I assume 184 must have been John Ryan's number. Unless the charges had been increased he would have paid £2 annually for his licens...

Today is the first anniversary of my genealogy blog although I have to admit this wasn't my first genealogy blog. I had started one a couple of years previously but it only lasted a short time. I wasn't happy with what I had done, nor its name so I deleted it. Why did I take so long to start again? The answer was to be found by reading Amy Coffin's The Big Genealogy Blog Book two weeks ago.  "The hardest part of starting a blog is coming up with a name. Once you've made that decision, the rest is easy."  I agonised for over a year about what to call my blog. However, I was spurred into action by the Australia Day Challenge by Shelley from Twigs of Yore . I knew what I was going to write in this challenge so I had to come up with a name for my blog quick smart. It was unintentional, but I think now that I subconsciously borrowed the name from an article,  The Tree of Me  published in The New Yorker on 26 March 2001. I was initially drawn to the article a...

Last year Shelly from Twigs of Yore challenged geneabloggers to blog about the oldest documentation we had about an Australian ancestor. This challenge actually prompted me to begin my blogging journey. My initial Australia Day challenge was about Dr William Lee Dawson . This year's challenge is described below. Australia Day 2012: Wealth for Toil To participate, choose someone who lived in Australia (preferably one of your ancestors) and tell us how they toiled. Your post should include: What was their occupation?  What information do you have about the individual’s work, or about the occupation in general? The story of the person, focussing on their occupation; or The story of the occupation, using the person as an example.  Dr William Lee Dawson I am again going to use my great great grandfather, Dr William Lee Dawson (1819-1871) as my chosen ancestor. William Lee Dawson began his medical studies on 1st November 1845 at the Apothecaries' Hall and St Vincent's...

Week 4 – Free  Offline  Genealogy Tools : For which free offline genealogy tool are you most grateful? How did you find this tool and how has it benefitted your genealogy? Describe to others how to access this tool and spread the genealogy love. My favourite free offline genealogy tool is Dixson Library at the University of New England in Armidale, NSW, Australia. I have been using this library since 1978 when I began university. If you have ancestors who lived in the New England area, the New England Room may be just the thing for you. The New England Collection exists to ensure the preservation of works related to the New England region...It covers a collecting area from the Queensland border in the north to the Gloucester Shire in the south and from the coast to the Bourke Shire in the west. Check out what is in this collection via the online catalogue . I have been able to access many books and ephemera about the towns where my ancestors lived and worked.  Dixson...

Week 3 – Free Online Genealogy Tools : Free online genealogy tools are like gifts from above. Which one are you most thankful for? How has it helped your family history experience? Where does one start? There are so many fantastic free online sites so I don't think I'll be able to stop at one. I love The Ryerson Index  which is an index to death notices in current Australian newspapers. It is a fantastic resource and thanks must go to those who freely give their time to work on this project. I'm only sorry that the newspaper from where I grew up is not one of those indexed. I'd index it if I had regular access to the paper. Unfortunately, I read the paper fourth hand in bulk about three times a year and I can't guarantee that issues aren't missing. Recently I've been spending a lot of time on the Public Record Office of Victoria  website, particularly looking at their Wills, Probate and Administration Records 1841-1925 . I have been able to ac...

As a genealogist it is important to place your family in a location and a time period. Families, place and time are crucial to make your family history live. Through research I have discovered that in the past members of our family were in significant places at significant times or were part of significant events. Without research, I would not have known the following: Gustav Baumgarten (gg uncle) is mentioned in Ned Kelly's J erilderie Letter . William Lee Dawson (gg grandfather) was a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons in London. Willi Scheef (very distant relative) was killed on the Hindenberg. Family just out of Dublin could hear the gun shots during the 1916 Easter Rising but didn't know what was happening. The list goes on. But what about the families that didn't seem to leave any information other than what can be gleaned from births, deaths and marriages? What was happening in the town or area in the time period they lived there? Check for images on Pic...

Which paid genealogy tool do you appreciate the most? What special features put it at the top of the list? How can it help others with their genealogy research? As I still work full time in a busy job I don't feel that I have the time to effectively utilise more than one paid site, although I would like to. I joined Ancestry several years ago with the offer of a free two weeks or one month and then forgot to take out my credit card details - a great marketing ploy! However, I have not been disappointed at all in that time. The great advantage of course in having your own subscription is that you can use it whenever you like. Last night my aunt rang me up about something, so I used Ancestry to check what she was asking me and together we discussed the results. I consistently (or perhaps persistently) use the Australian electoral rolls. The recent introduction of the 1980 rolls has allowed us to make contact with distant family members and this has proved to be exciting. R...

Last night I was fortunate to come across a blog Carol's Headstone Photographs . Carol has taken photographs of many Victorian cemeteries and several from New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania. Simply browse her site, hosted by RootsWeb , send her an email requesting specific photos and Carol will email them to you. I browsed the list and saw Barnawatha. My mother's great aunt had lived at Barnawatha and sure enough there were several Baumgartens buried there. The branch of the family that I am interested in had left Barnawatha and moved to Moolan Downs in western Queensland in 1908. However, one of their children had died at Barnawatha. Lindsay Gustav Dawson Baumgarten, the fourth son of Gustav and Catherine Baumgarten died on 12th August 1885, aged 11 weeks. Thank you Carol for your fantastic service to the genealogy community.

One of the goals I have set myself this year is to take part in Amy Coffin's 52 weeks of Abundant Genealogy . I'm not sure how I'll go, but if I don't make a start I certainly won't finish! Week 1 - Blogs: Blogging is a great way for genealogists to share information with family members, potential cousins and each other. For which blog are you most thankful? Is it one of the earliest blogs you read, or a current one? What is special about the blog and why should others read it? I have my genealogy blogs in three sections on Feedly - Aus-Genie, British genealogy and Genealogy. When I check Aus-Genie I am always excited to see a post from Geniaus . I first met Geniaus at least 10-12 years ago when she came to Coffs Harbour and presented to a group of Teacher Librarians. I can still remember her talk was presented with a webpage to accompany it. She was enthusiastic and that enthusiasm rubbed off. I didn't know then that we shared another passion, that of g...

After reading several posts from others who have evaluated their year and set goals for 2012 I though that perhaps I should do the same. I tend to be someone who flits from one thing to another, (In fact I am in the middle of something now and have dropped it to write this post.) so a few goals won't go astray. After much thought I know I need to make organising what I already have a priority over discovering more wonderful information. So with this in mind here are my goals for 2012: Link my currently scanned and filed information to the appropriate individual or family in Reunion. Tidy up all my sources in Reunion. (After combining my family’s 3 files into 1, I still have many multiple sources.)  Complete scanning all my paper files. (in 2011 I worked on my filing system and am happy with that, but I still have the contents of at least a dozen large folders to scan. Take part in Amy Coffin's 52 weeks of Abundant Genealogy . In addition to the blogging challenge above I w...

Today, 3rd January, 2012 marks the 98th anniversary of the death of William Thomas Seabrook, the 6th child of William John Seabrook, wine merchant and his wife Maria Sophia Mason of Melbourne. William is buried in the Brighton Cemetery, Melbourne and if you are interested in reading his tragic story it is published on the unofficial history of  Brighton Cemetery  website. William Thomas Seabrook, 1881-1914

The three photographs below are of a house in Franklin , Tasmania that my great great grandfather, Dr William Lee Dawson had built in 1861. Home of Dr William Lee Dawson, Franklin, Tasmania Side view of the home According to his diary, William Lee Dawson, his wife Emma (Seabrook) and their two eldest children Catherine Ellen and William Henry moved into the house on Wednesday 20th March, 1861. Two further children, Lousia and Robert were born while the Dawsons lived here. They continued to live in this house until William's death in 1871. Shortly after his death, Emma rented the property to a Robert Walker and moved to Hobart Town and later to Melbourne. The house cost a total of £236 3s 6d to build. From the ledger in William Lee Dawson's diary we can ascertain that the house had a green baize door. The baize would have been attached to the door that separated the servant living quarters from that of the family. Baize had the effect of quietening the noise. ( Wikipe...

I have set myself a genealogy challenge for this Australia's  National Year of Reading . As I am a teacher librarian I also need to read to keep up with the students at my school. It looks like it will be a busy year. Each of the books listed below come from my bookshelf. I have selected 12 - an equivalent of one per month. Most of them have a special significance. Some will be more challenging than others and a couple of them I'll be able to read in an hour. I'll review each of them here. What books are you going to read this year? Image Title/Author When completed The Arsenic Century James C Whorton 7th January 2012 Pure Cork Michael Lenihan 27 February 2012 London: The Biography Peter Ackroyd Free Passage: The Reunion of Irish Convicts and their Families in Australia 1788-1852 Perry McIntyre Our Daily Bread German Village Life, 1500-1850 Teva J Scheer The Great Irish Potato Famine James S. Donnelly, Jr A ...

As I'm on holidays I have taken out a week's subscription to the Sydney Morning Herald Archives.  These archives cover from 1st January 1955 until 2nd February 1995. I have been using them to look up death  and funeral notices to add names to more recent branches of my families. I use the Ryerson Index and electoral rolls on Ancestry  in conjunction with the SMH Archives. The archives are relatively easy to search. When you hover over a page, a section turns yellow and that section is enlarged when you click on it. You can print or save the page as a pdf if you wish or add it to My Collection on the website. Each time I find a death on the Ryerson Index I add it to a spreadsheet with the details from the index and the main family name it pertains to. I have a separate page for each newspaper. After I find the information from the newspaper I delete the line from the spreadsheet. Usually I conduct this research at Dixson Library at the University of New England in Arm...

As 2011 is the National Year of Reading here in Australia I decided that I'd needed to start today. Each time I go to Sydney I treat myself a book from Kinokuniya . I love to browse their history section and always have to contain myself to select only one from several that look interesting. On my last visit I purchased The Arsenic Century - How Victorian Britain was Poisoned at Home, Work and Play by James C. Whorton. You can read a review here .  Already I am enthralled. Apparently there was a network of women in Essex who "placed poison and knowledge of its (arsenic) use in women's hands so they could do away with any bothersome person." Members of the community knew what was happening but did not often report their knowledge. Many women murdered their husbands and several children. These women probably don't have any living descendants today as I think they got rid of them all! Poorer members of the community could pay Friendly Society memberships (life ...