Week 8 (Feb. 19-25) A Big Decision - #52Ancestors

"A Big Decision" made by several of my ancestors was to emigrate to Australia.  What was that journey like for them?  What prompted these families, mostly with young children in tow, to pack up and move halfway around the world?  Two of my immigrant families would settle in one state of Australia, then pack up and move again several years later.  What prompted them to take that leap of faith and travel so far from their homelands, families and friends?  It would have been a huge decision to make.

My immigrant ancestors came from England, Ireland and Germany.  Land in their homelands would have been difficult and costly to acquire, so the prospect of cheap land for farming may have been a big motivator for them.  Many Germans also emigrated for freedom from religious persecution.  Then there are my Irish ancestors, who left Ireland a few years before the potato famine.  Again, I suspect Australia represented the chance for a better life, a chance to own land and improve the family's living conditions.

My great grandfather, James Nicholas Clark, was born in Bristol, England or possibly Launceston, Tasmania around 1856, just as the family emigrated to Australia.  James’s younger sister Annie Amelia Clark was born 31 March 1857 in Port Sorrell, Tasmania, where the family lived for at least 12 years before they traveled across Bass Strait and settled in Victoria.

Carl Friedrich Beseler, known in Australia as Frederick, was born around 1810 in Hanover, Germany.  He was a shoemaker in Germany and a farmer in Australia, arriving in Adelaide on 1 April 1848 on the ship Pauline from Bremen, Germany.  Passengers listed were Frederick Beseler, Shoemaker, Mrs Beseler and 5 children.  The family lived in South Australia for 7 years before travelling overland to Victoria, where they settled near Ercildown.  Several members of the family are buried in Learmonth Cemetery. 

Travel by ship in the mid 1800s from Europe to Australia would have been a long and arduous journey for these families.  Their determination to forge new lives prompted them to travel such distances.  A big decision indeed.

Family Tree UK Magazine

The latest issue of Family Tree UK magazine is now available free online for Campaspe Library members via our subscription to Libby eMagazines.

Inside this month's issue : 

• Suffragette’s chief nurse long-lost medal on display
• New fees introduced at The National Archives, Kew 
• DNA Club news 
• Bona Vacantia reinstated 
• View the RootsTech 2026 class preview
• Back to basics : making the most of the record sets
• Confirmation bias in theory
• Case to prove : George Grindle 
• Faithfully restored : The Dudden Hill School War Memorial project 
• How to trace a Regiment
• The life of Bryan : a Family Perspective 
• Your views on DNA testing
• Which branch of the Houstouns went to Ulster?
• And more... 

 

Relatives at RootsTech

RootsTech 2026 by FamilySearch has opened Relatives at RootsTech, its popular annual online family discovery activity. Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to participate globally, with the aim of making new cousin connections. Available through the end of March 2026, anyone can join the experience for free at FamilySearch.org/Connect.

The interactive discovery feature is offered annually as part of the RootsTech conference and enables participants to find and connect with living relatives. Millions have participated since the activity’s inception and have enjoyed how it can strengthen family connections and lead to new discoveries. In 2025, participants discovered nearly 5 million ancestral relationships. 

To join Relatives at RootsTech 2026 online:

• Go to FamilySearch.org/Connect. 
• If you don't have a free FamilySearch account, create one when prompted. 
• Add what you know to the FamilySearch Family Tree. The more relatives you have in your family tree, the greater the probability that cousin connections will be made. 

The feature’s discovery technology will immediately begin using FamilySearch Family Tree information to search for and match any common ancestors with related participants worldwide and show how you are related. If desired, newly connected relatives can message each other through the website. Participants can also see how many relatives have joined the experience and filter them based on location, common ancestor, or family line.

The interactive experience will be available through 31 March 2026. 

Week 7 (Feb. 12-18) What the Census Suggests

How accurate are the census records? I'm sure this question has arisen for every genealogist at some point in their research.  We quickly learn that census records cannot be considered the absolute and final authority.  What the census suggests may not be accurate.

Why does someone's age change every census by less (or more!) than the 10 years between censuses? Why is a surname being spelled differently on three different censuses? Why does an ancestor have a different first name in the 1861 census (is it even the right person)?  And why does the census give a different place of birth for great grandma each time?

Consider first what question was actually asked by the census taker. For example with ages - did he ask about how old the person was, or how old they were on their last birthday or.....?  Were the ages of all the adults in an area rounded up (or down) to the closest multiple of five (yes, it happened)?  People may have lied about their ages, or sometimes simply got it wrong. My grandmother always insisted she was born on 30 June 1906.  According to her birth registration, however, she was born on 30 June 1905.

Remember spelling was not exact back in the 1800s and earlier. A census taker wrote what he heard, and whether or not he was a good speller or was familiar with the surname dictated what we see recorded on the census page. You get what I will grumpily refer to as 'some semi-literate clerk's best guess".  Keep in mind that it was not necessarily your ancestor who filled in the census themselves.

Different first names? Children were usually given at least two names at birth and an individual might choose to be known by their middle name, or perhaps a nickname. My ancestor Elizabeth Green (nee May) was always known as Betsy - and that is the name recorded in several censuses.

The next question we need to ask ourselves is - who provided the answers on that census? Was it a parent? Mothers may have had a better idea of their children's birth years and ages than the father. Was it an older child (perhaps the parents were not home), a grandparent or some other person giving the information? Tracing a family through several censuses may have seen a different respondent each time.  All these factors will affect the quality of the census information.

As with many other genealogical records, the census records can contain inaccurate information, mistakes and even outright lies.  What the census suggests is not always the truth.

Week 6 (Feb. 5-11) Favorite Photo

The prompt for Week 6 is 'Favorite Photo', a prompt I have answered in previous years,and as always it is hard to choose just one photo from my collection.

Over the years I have been quite fortunate in accumulating old family photographs from a variety of sources.  Many are copies of photos held by family members, while others have come from libraries and archives, local history societies, distant relatives and heritage projects.  While the bulk of my collection are good digital scans I also have a number of original photos that I have inherited.  All my originals have been scanned for future preservation and happily shared with fellow family members.  I have also detailed who, where and when in as much detail as I can for each one - my pet hate is the anonymous photo of nobody-knows-who included in an album of family members.

One of my favourite family photos is the one below of my father Peter with his siblings and their father, Frank Walter Green.  Dad was one of 10 children and to the best of my knowledge it is the only photo of all 10 siblings together, which makes the scanned image I have even more precious.  And yes, one of the brothers does have a beer bottle balanced on his head!  That would be Ernest, known to all as Squib, the second eldest of the Green siblings.  If there are any relatives out there who have another photo of all 10 siblings together, I would love to hear from you and am happy to share copies!

Another favorite is the wedding photo of my great great grandparents James Nicholas Clark and Pricilla Veronica Mulholland.  Dating back to 1898, it is one of the oldest photographs I have from my mother's side of the family, and I am lucky to hold the original of this photo too.

Finally, there is the tinted studio photograph of my mother as a child.  Aged 5 years old, this photograph was taken to be sent to my mothers older brother James, or Jimmy, in 1947.  Jimmy was in the Merchant Navy at the time, and this photo chased him around the world before being delivered to his ship only days after he was killed in an accident in Argentina while they were picking up a load of horses to be taken to Poland.  Jimmy is buried in Argentina, and the photo was returned to his mother in an unopened letter included in his effects, making the photo even more precious.

Website Wednesday - Holocaust Reunion Project

The mission of the Holocaust Reunion Project is to harness the power of commercial DNA testing, combined with expert genealogical research, both to reunite Holocaust survivors and their children with living relatives and to illuminate the family history that has been lost to genocide.

The Holocaust devastated the Jewish community in countless lamentable ways. But its deepest cut was the literal rending of families: the loss of millions of irreplaceable parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins. And while numerous agencies and organizations support survivors and honor the legacy of the Shoah in myriad ways, there is surprisingly very little focus or energy put towards restoring what was actually taken: family.

Genealogical research, and specifically commercial DNA testing, can do precisely this. DNA can unlock mysteries and make crucial connections, often linking survivors to living relatives they did not know they had. DNA matches can also open the door to help survivors reconstruct their shattered trees and reclaim their lost history, often reconnecting lines of communication severed by the Holocaust.

Initially piloted at the Center for Jewish History in November 2022 and launched as an independent non-profit in 2024, the program serves three primary functions:

• To distribute free DNA tests to the survivor community, as well as raise awareness of the potential of testing to reconnect separated family members. 
• To provide free expert genealogical research exclusively to Holocaust survivors and their families. Co-founders Jennifer Mendelsohn and Dr. Adina Newman specialize in solving complex cases, such as hidden children, unknown parentage, or cases where people are first learning of hidden Jewish history from DNA testing. 
• To educate and empower the survivor community – and the greater Jewish community–to investigate their own history by teaching them how to analyze their DNA results and locate pertinent records. Several myths circulate around both DNA testing and the availability of Holocaust records, which thwart would-be researchers from delving into their past, robbing them of the opportunity to reclaim their family history.

 

Week 5 (Jan. 29-Feb. 4) A Breakthrough Moment

A breakthrough moment in my research was the mystery of my great-aunt Alice May Pummeroy.  According to the Victorian Birth Index, Alice May Pummeroy was born in Carlton in 1897 to Alfred Henry Pummeroy and Eliza (Beseler).  Alice was only 3 years old when her father died of pneumonia, leaving his widow destitute with 4 young children -  Edith Margaret (who was deaf and mute) 4, Alice May 3, Alfred Edward 2 and William Henry 2 months.  Eliza took in washing to support her family, and the local ladies benevolent society gave her 3 shillings a week in assistance.  All the other siblings can be traced through electoral rolls and other records, but Alice disappears, and for several years I searched for her in vain.

Eventually perseverance paid off.  My breakthrough moment came when I found a record in New Zealand for a May Alice Pummeroy marrying David James Moorhead in 1918.  Looking in New Zealand for May Moorhead, I located several electoral roll listings before she disappeared again, reappearing in Victoria as May Alice Moorhead in electoral rolls from 1950 to 1980.  David James Moorhead is recorded as dying in Victoria in 1951, age 77.  His death certificate lists him as being born in Christchurch, New Zealand. 

There is no death notice for Alice May (or May Alice) Moorhead in the Ryerson Index or in the Victorian Death Index, nor was there a will with the PROV.  A fellow genealogist sent me another piece to the puzzle, with a death notice and cemetery record which shows May Alice Moorhead died 1st September 1989, age 92, in Salisbury North, South Australia.  She was cremated at Enfield Memorial Park, SA.  Her death certificate confirms she is my great aunt.

Why she chose to move from Melbourne, Victoria to South Australia I don't know - possibly she had children or friends who settled there and she moved to be closer to them.  All her siblings lived and died in Victoria - she was the one who travelled away.  This just goes to show that people can change their names, move to places you don't expect, and you just need to keep looking and broaden your search if you don't find them where you expect them.  Your breakthrough moment will come.