The Tree of Me

Currently I am reading a book called The Connected Educator - Learning and Leading in a Digital Age by Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Lani Ritter Hall. One comment early in the book has struck a chord with me. I am unable to learn from you if you are not sharing online. I will never be able to find you and leverage what you know. p. 11 So this is a big thank you to all genealogy bloggers out there. I have learnt much from many of you. I have laughed at many posts. I have felt heartache with others. Reading the blogs of others has allowed me to interact with many people I don't know. It allows me to reflect on ideas and prompt me into action. Perhaps when I get my blogging act back together again, others may be able to learn from me!

This is my first Trove Tuesday post. I have been so busy at work that my genealogical pursuits are being pushed further and further behind. As you can imagine this is something that I am not happy about. However, as I am on holidays for two weeks I hope to have a few posts ready to post during the coming weeks. I have discovered many great finds from Trove but today I decided I needed to find something new. One of my families lived at 21 Cambridge street, Rozelle and/or its semi-detached neighbour for over 100 years. In fact they rented from the same family for all that time. I must remember to blog about this story. I decided to see if Cambridge Street, Rozelle ever featured in one of the Sydney papers. So today here is my first find. Sydney Morning Herald, 22 January, 1904, p. 3 My great, great grandfather John Charles Ryan lived at 21 Cambridge Street. Depending on the street numbering it is quite possible that Walter Jones would have lived in the next semi-detached hous...

Today I have spent some time on the website Everafter . The following is taken from their website. A graveyard is one of the most accessible sources for studying a community’s history. Each one is unique and has its own collection of headstones, many of which will, unfortunately, deteriorate through neglect, weather or vandalism; some eventually becoming completely illegible.  everafter  has modernised the way the deaths of our loved ones are recorded.  We provide Parishes and Councils with a complete set of up-to-date graveyard records and an online Graveyard Management System to record future burials.    The  everafter  team recognise the importance of preserving the information held by graveyards and we are committed to delivering a unique, high quality service which will guarantee that an accurate record of the deceased exists  everafter . Many of the cemeteries that have been recorded are from the Magherafelt area of County Derry...

A few weeks I posted this photograph asking if anyone had could guess what it is. Well now I've got the answer for you. This photograph was taken at my father's work. I imagine it was taken in about the 1950s as I have many photographs taken at this time. My father worked at Anderson's Meat Packing Company at Wallangarra on the Queensland-NSW border. The image shows pumped up intestines which were then placed in drying rooms. After drying the ends were cut off and packed flat in cartons. And of course you can guess what they would have been used for - sausage casings. Here is a link to the wikipedia article about sausages .

During a recent tidy up of my filing cabinets I discovered 2 school books that had been placed in there for safe keeping many years ago. The first book was My Busy Book from 1965 when I was in Kindergarten at Jennings Public School. Perhaps some of you may remember the salmon coloured books from the 1960s. Fortunately it was a small school. The teacher traced many shapes each afternoon for us to fill in with various patterns the next day. She also wrote dotted words for us to trace the next day. It seems that jelly pads had yet to reach Jennings. Unfortunately the salmon colour didn't scan. The second of these exercise books belonged to my grandfather's brother, Matthew John Moore who attended Jennings Public School. I haven't always been in possession of this book. I attended the Jenning's centenary celebrations in 1990 and was excited to see that this book was part of the display. I asked the organisers who had donated the book for the display but was infor...

For at least 20 years I have always know that my great great grandmother, Sarah Jane Merchant nee Hooton was buried in an unmarked grave in the Church of England section of Tenterfield cemetery. I had never bothered to look for her specific resting place. Two weeks ago, I went to Tenterfield for a few days and decided to take some photos for Billion Graves. Instead of looking for family headstones in a methodical way I wandered around to the headstones I knew well. I took lots of photos and was content. Later I thought I should really check out other more distant family members in the cemetery. I searched my Reunion database for those who had died in Tenterfield. I already had the burial places noted so copied them down and went back for a more ordered search. Included on my list was Sarah Jane. Imagine my surprise when I compared her location to other family members. There she was, between her two eldest children, James Joseph Merchant and Harriet Baker. Joe Merchant died i...

Recently I have been scanning some photographs that my father had in his possession. Although I know what the following one is, I was wondering if any of my readers would like to take a guess. I'll post the answer in a couple of weeks.