The Tree of Me

Today I discovered that I can check out the registered deaths in Tasmania in the 1800s on the Family Search website. My great great grandfather Dr William Lee Dawson was the medical officer in Franklin from 1854 until his death in 1871. More that twenty years ago, I had perused these records to discover what were the causes of death in Franklin and what types of cases Dr Dawson may have come across. Now that I can access them from home I have decided to take a more indepth look. So far it’s not looking good for newborns and babies under the age of one. However this is not the purpose of this post.  On 16th October 1858, five people were accidentally killed by the felling of a tree. Those who lost their lives were settler Peter McEwen 45, farmer James Watson 19, Annie Montgomery 12, John McEwen 6 and labourer William Wellgrave 50.  Family Search - Franklin Deaths 1858 I always wondered what happened to them. After rediscovering them today I decided to go to Trove. This is t

It's been a while since I have written a blog post. Work has been hectic. However, I expect to be busy very soon checking out The Catholic Press on Trove. I have many alerts to newly digitised articles coming in the next month All of these are about some of my Catholic families in NSW. These families live in Armidale, Uralla, Cooma and Cootamundra. If you have CAtholic families why not take a look now.

I love it when Trove allows you to find events that would not be easily discovered without a random search. This post concerns my great grandfather, Philip Richard Merchant of Tenterfield. His story made both the Brisbane and Sydney papers. Sydney Morning Herald, 12 March 1931, p. 10 DRAGGED BY A HORSE TENTERFIELD, Wednesday Late yesterday afternoon Philip Merchant, a married man with 11 children, a resident  of the Tenterfield district, suffered severe in- juries when he was dragged several hundred yards by a horse. He was riding on a cart- load of wood, and, when he attempted to jump off, his foot became caught in the reins, tearing the winkers off the horse and causing it to bolt. Merchant was dashed against three telegraph poles. His condition is critical. Philip survived this accident. He died 20 years later in Tenterfield aged 68.

For this week's Trove Tuesday post I was lucky enough to find mention of a family member in The Australian Women's Weekly. The Australian Women's Weekly, 19 December 1956, p. 46 Royal Melbourne Championship Show 1956 McWilliam's Awarded T.C. Seabrook Trophy for  Most Successful Exhibitor In all still table wine classes Thomas Claudius Seabrook was a wine merchant and judge. You can read his biography in The Australian Dictionary of Biography here . An advertisement taken out by McWilliams in The Argus of 5th November 1956 states that this was the first year this award was presented.

My inspiration for today's post came from my Facebook feed via Gould Genealogy . This post alerted me to the UK National Archive Flickr launch of an Australian collection of images titled Australasia Through a Lens . My first thought was of course to wonder if there were any images I could assist to identify. This is not as silly as it seems as my great, great, great grandfather Henry William Seabrook and his sons were responsible for building many prominent buildings in Hobart. Sure enough in the Tasmanian folder I found a copy of a photo of the Royal Society's Museum on the corner of Argyle and Macquarie Streets, Hobart. Henry William Seabrook and his son, Henry William Jnr, built the Royal Society Museum on the corner of Argyle and Macquarie Streets, Hobart between 1861 and 1862 at a cost of £3772. A prominent architect of the time, Henry Hunter was responsible for the design of the building. The Royal Society's Museum, Hobart Our family is very fortun

Once again, Trove has provided me with useful family details and another search to clarify information found in these Death and In Memoriam notices. The Argus, Monday 5th February, 1894, p. 1 SEABROOK - On the 3rd inst., at Tough-street, Hawthorn,  Charles Stephen, second son of W.J. Seabrook, aged 19 years. The following year two In Memoriam notices were published. The Argus, Monday 4th February, 1895, p. 1 IN MEMORIAM SEABROOK - In loving remembrance of Charles Stephen, second eldest son of William John and Mary Seabrook, who died at Ravenswood, Tough- street, Hawthorn, on 3rd February, 1894 SEABROOK - In loving memory of my dearly-beloved brother, Charles Stephen Seabrook, who died on February 3rd, 1894. Charlie's gone from his home below' sad it was to hear the blow; But now he's in the realms above, Trusting in our Savour's love. (Harry Seabrook) My first thought was to look up where Tough Street was in H

It's back to work for me tomorrow after the summer break but hopefully I will still be able to allocate time to my passion. I will just have to be more disciplined. Over the last few days I've been reading Will Richardson's Why School? How Education must change when Learning and Information are Everywhere. In it he shared several unlearning/relearning ideas for educators. As I read them I could see the point he was making not only for educators but for the genealogy world as well. Share everything (or at least something)  To those who share best genealogical practices and thinking. Thank you. You are sharing some of your knowledge with those who are seeking it. Often I have found tips quite useful and file that new knowledge away for a time when it is needed. Other times I can relate to the post. Sometimes I just love to read the stories you have written. I hope I too have shared information that has been of use to others. There are so many ways we can share ou

Today is my second blogiversary. Two weeks ago, on one of the hottest days this summer, I asked my husband to look in our storage space between the ceiling and the roof in our garage to look for something that I hoped might be up there. He obliged before it got too hot and found the box. Fortunately it contained what I was looking for - my old birthday cards. Rummaging through them, I found the card that my grandparents sent me for my second birthday in 1962 and thought this would be the image for my blogiversary. 2 years old already? Well that's exciting news! It's plain no other 2-year-old Could ever fill your shoes - Hope your birthday is a lot of fun With frosted cake and candy Games to play and things to do -  Mmm! Aren't birthdays dandy! Yes it is exciting that my blog is two years old. I'm looking forward to the year and will try to post regularly. I wonder if anyone has made me a frosted cake and candy?

Helen Smith at Helen V Smith's Keyboard has set this year's Australia Day Challenge. Australia Day, 26th January is a day we celebrate what makes us Australian. Regardless of whether your ancestor came 40 000 years ago or yesterday and regardless of where they were from, together their descendants are Australian. Your challenge (should you choose to accept it) is to tell the story of your first Australian ancestor. To make it fair to both the male and female sides of your heritage why not make it two stories. One each on the earliest ancestor on each side? Patrick Flynn (1791-1862) Patrick Flynn was my first ancestor to arrive in Australia. He was born c1791 in County Limerick, Ireland. In 1811 he married Hanora Connor and they had three children Ann, Mary and Thomas. Patrick was convicted in County Wexford, Ireland for being a whiteboy in March 1821 and was transported to Australia for life.  He sailed from Ireland on 18th November 1821 aboard the s

The Gorilla Hunters R.M. Ballantyne Recently I've been tidying up around the house attemping to put into action the Fly Lady's tidying philosophy. Three piles - one to put away, one to give away and one to throw out. On our TV stand there was a copy of a book belonging to my husband's grandfather Patrick Brennan. Naturally this went in the put away safely pile. To celebrate Empire Day on May 24th 1912, 13 year old Patrick Brennan, son of William Brennan and Annie Ryan of Enmore, near Armidale was given a copy of the book The Gorilla Hunters (A Tale of the Wilds of Africa) by R.M. Ballantyne. Inscription to Patrick Brennan 1912 Inside is the following inscription. Empire Day May 24th 1912 Presented to Patrick Brennan Groses Creek Provisional School Harry H Wharton Teacher Flower pressed in the book Like a lot of my posts I want to see what other evidence this item can lead to. What further questions can I investigate?

My great great grandmother Jane McColm had only lived in Australia for 9 years before she died a few weeks after the birth of her seventh child Ethel. Her husband Malcolm McColm placed this notice in The Warwick Argus. The Warwick Argus, 28th January 1888, p. 2 Here is a link to a previous post about Jane McColm .

I like to play with statistics. In a previous post Individual Arrivals in Australia I blogged about which previous generation arrived in Australia. This time I decided to look at States of arrival, the arrival numbers in each branch of our families and then whether the arrivals were single, couples or family group arrivals. The results are interesting. There is no real surprise here. My husband's families for generations come from an area about 1.5 hours from north to south mid way between Sydney and Brisbane. Most of them had land and were well settled. However, my families have tended to move around quite a lot and their State of Arrival patterns are more widespread.  The graph below show the number of individual arrivals in both my husbands and my families. This prompted me to look further at the type of arrivals. Did they arrive as single individuals, couples or as family groups? My father's branch is the only branch of our families that arrive

As I have written a book about my Seabrook ancestors, Crossing the seas to build a future , I have to admit to not continuing my research with the family. However, since I'm on holidays I have time to spend on Trove and have decided to see what other things I can discover about the Seabrooks and Whites in Tasmania. Previous research involved manual searching of newspapers. Henry William Seabrook and his brother-in-law Thomas White were at one stage in a building partnership in Hobart. These posts that I discovered relate to Mark Smith, an assigned servant or prisoner on loan. Hobart Town Police Report, Colonial Times 9 June 1840, p. 7 Mark Smith, a prisoner on loan, to Messrs.  Seabrook and White, was charged by Mr. White with felony, in having on Saturday night last, picked up a £5 note, his property, which he had lost, and appropriated the same to his own use. He was remanded. The man acknowledged to Mr. White, in the presence of witnesses, that he had

During 2012 I visited three churches of significance to the family of Thomas and Betsy Dawson who emigrated to Australia from Renhold, Bedfordshire in 1848 aboard the Equestrian.  All Saints Church, Renhold, Bedfordshire, England St Leonard's Church, Old Warden, Bedfordshire, England All Saints, Ravensden, Bedfordshire, England

Address Mary Brennan Senr Knockmajor Coolcullen Co Kilkenny Ireland 15 4 29 My Dear Cousin I am delighted to know that I have a cousin and namesake in Australia and I am twenty-eight years of age. Though I often heard Father talking about Uncle William and wondering whey he would never write to him, yet he never knew he was married. I am sure you feel lonely for them both as I would, think above any other member of the family wouldn't be missed half as much. May They Rest In Peace Well cousin there are five of us in family one boy and four girls, the eldest girl is away. Mother is laid up in bed for the past four years with Rheumatic pains & I have to remain with her. It is terrible to say there can't be any remedy we have tried several prescriptions but they all failed. We are after having a great spell of fine weather here. It has been the finest spring that has come for years. This Country is very dull it is hard to find suitable positions for gir

This morning I had the pleasure of corresponding with one of my husband's third cousins from Ireland. This has spurred me into spending the afternoon scanning. I'm set up on the dining room table sitting in front of the air conditioner on a very hot day here in Coffs Harbour. I have two letters  to share with E. so thought I'd put them online as there may be others who may find these letters useful. Who knows there may be other relatives we haven't made contact with. The first letter was written in 1929 from Martin Brennan in Knockmajor to his niece Mary Ann Brennan in Armidale. Mary Ann's father William had died in December 1928 and she had obviously written to Ireland to inform his family. Letter from Martin Brennan in Ireland to his niece Mary Ann Brennan in Australia - 1929 Knockmajor 8th April 1929 Dear Niece I was surprised when I got a letter from you as I never knew he was married once he went over he never wrote to me. I got him prayed f

Why do towns and cities change the names of streets? This is causing me some confusion at the moment. It's the second time this has happened to me and both instances have been in Melbourne. Nineteen year old Charles Stephen Seabrook died at Ravenswood, Tough Street, Hawthorn on 3rd February 1894. A quick search on google maps reveals no such street. So obviously its name has been changed. Now what! A google search reveals a soldier with a Tough Street address enlisting in March 1915. So either the name was still in existence in 1915 or locals still used the old name. I have now emailed the Hawthorn Historical Society in the hope that they can assist. Or can anyone else make a suggestion of where to from here?

Yesterday I started thinking about all my data and how it is backed up. I use a Time Machine from Apple which automatically backs up every hour or so. It's great to go back to recover an old file. In fact two weeks ago I accidentally deleted a page on my Newspaper lookup spreadsheet.  (This is the speadsheet I create with publication dates of death and funeral announcements taken from the Ryerson Index . i.e. those that are not on Trove or the Sydney Morning Herald Archives site. When I am in Armidale I go to the University and look up these dates in the microfilmed newspapers.) Fortunately I was able to go back into the Time Machine and recover an earlier version of the document. Lucky this happened two weeks ago as last week my Time Machine died. I am now paranoid that my laptop will die before I get a replacement. However, I have been backing up my genealogy files each night. I also have some information backed up on Dropbox and still more in iCloud so hopefully I have ev

Thanks to Jill Ball at Geniaus for nominating me for this award for commenting regularly on her blog. I have to admit not replying as regularly to blog posts as I should. I know we are all excited when someone does reply to a blog post. This has spurred me into hopefully being more diligent in my responses to other blog posts. Usually I go through some of my feeds on Feeddler on my iPad before I get out of bed. This doesn't allow me time to respond. Perhaps I need to alter my blog reading time to after tea! Now for my nominations to those who comment often on my posts or in the case of one nomination alert me to what I have to admit was sloppy research. 1. Fi from Dance Skeletons  whose last comment was one I wholeheartedly agree with.    I'm starting to believe the first result of good research is...more questions! I hope you can find some answers but I think there's always something else out there. 2. Cass from Family History Across the Seas  whose comments

Thanks to Kylie at Kylie's Genes for a 2012Blog of the Year Award.  Kylie not only blogs but makes things to sell at the Adelaide markets. Sometimes I don't know how we all manage to blog in between all our other commitments. It is great to know that others read the blog posts that we write about our families. It has certainly been two exciting years since I began blogging. (Should have been longer - just took too long to make up a name!) After reading the extended post at TheThought Palette I realise that you can nominate a blogger who has already received an award. They simply exchange the image above for one with more stars. Perhaps someone will receive a second or even third star from me. Looks like I have a second star before I finish this blog. (I have to admit being a little slow to get this post started.) Thanks this time to Catherine Crout-Habel whose blog  Seeking Susan - Meeting Marie - Finding Family  is one I frequently read. Hopefully I'll

What started to be a simple search on Trove has ended with possibly more questions than answers. For many years I have known (or at least thought and was led to believe) that a member of our family, Samuel Mainwaring was aboard the Yongala when it sank of the Queensland coast during a cyclone in April 1911. Yongala There are many news stories detailing the disappearance of the Yongala and all on board. With the benefits of searching via Trove I decided to see what else I could find out about Samuel Mainwaring and his voyage on the Yongala . However, my research has left me a little confused. My first find was a mention in The Zeehan and Dundas Herald.  The Zeehan and Dundas Herald 1st April 1911 My second find was a story told by a Mr Owen Thomas who had boarded the Yongala with Mainwaring in Sydney but decided not to continue past Brisbane. Kalgoorlie Western Argus 4 April 1911 He stated that the run from Sydney to Brisbane was one of the most enjoyabl

This is my second post in my new series - From my Bookshelf I frequently trawl Abebooks for local history books, particularly for those places where ancestors lived. I have been rewarded with several interesting finds. Whenever I am in a town in Australia where family members have lived I see if there are any books written about the area. I usually find something interesting. Today I decided I needed to update my books on Library Thing . There were quite a few new purchases which hadn't been added. Hopefully, I now have most of my genealogy related books on Library Thing. As I pulled books from my shelves to catalogue I decided that there were many that I need to read more thoroughly. One of those is Close to the edge  - stories of the New England Gorges  written by Dave Vidler. This book is a collection of interviews from 14 people who live in the New England gorge country or as my husband's family called it the falls-country near Armidale, New South Wales. Looking at