#52Ancestors - Week 1 - Foundations

It is time for me to get going on my #52Ancestors effort, as already the topic for Week 3 is out and I am still finishing my response to the Week 1 topic - Foundations.

Foundations as a topic can be interpreted in many ways.  The foundations of my family, the foundations of me, the foundations upon which my family history is built.  I think for me the foundation of my family, and the foundation of my interest in family history, would have to be my parents.

My father, Peter Jeffrey Green, was born 2 January 1926 in Red Cliffs, Victoria.  He was the ninth in a sequence of 10 children born to Frank Walter Noble Green and Rosa May (nee Pike).  Frank and Rosa were both born and married in England, emigrating to Australia shortly after their marriage.

My mother, Joy Patricia Pummeroy, was born 24 January 1942 in East Brighton, Victoria.  The fourth of five children, large gaps between the third and fourth, and then fourth and fifth children would see my mother's younger brother become an uncle at only a few months of age.

My parents both firmly believed in the value of learning, teaching my sister and I that any topic we were interested in, we should go out and learn about it.  Little wonder I became a librarian, as the public library was a huge part of my childhood.  Every week we would visit, each borrowing an armload of books - fiction books to read for pleasure and non-fiction books on any subject that had caught our interest.  From Outer Space to Ancient History, we read our way through it, discussed it around our kitchen table of an evening, and went back for more.

We all read aloud to each other, my parents encouraging us kids from a young age take turns reading aloud to the family - especially on a Sunday morning.  Stories were also common, our parents telling about their early lives, growing up - my father a country boy and child of the Depression and my mother, 16 years his junior, a city girl and child of World War 2.  This is where my interest in Family History built its foundations, and grew into the obsession of my adult life.