Look History in the Eye Podcasts

The new podcast series Look history in the eye is  produced by the Public Record Office of Victoria on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, and on the PROV website. The first two episodes now available provide insight into the Pentridge panopticon and the 1970s Melbourne Landmark competition featuring interviews with archaeologists Adam Ford and Geoff Hewitt, and architectural historians Derham Groves and Seamus O’Hanlon.   

In the series the PROV interviews the people who delve into public archives and uncover interesting truths about Melbourne and Victoria's past. Discover the back story to some iconic Melbourne and Victorian people and places through the series.

PROV has more episodes to come every Wednesday including…

• Deadtown to musictown featuring food writer Michael Harden, restaurateur Tiberio Donnini and economist John Nieuwenhuysen
• They called her Madame B with historian Barbara Minchinton
• Prison escapes featuring crime writer Susanna Lobez 
• And more episodes are on the way…

Each episode spotlights records from the PROV collection. You can view the records featured, view transcripts and learn more about the stories told via the episode pages of the website. 

#52Ancestors - Week 12 - Joined Together

This week's theme of "Joined Together' can be interpreted in so many ways.  As family we are joined together by blood, by marriage, by love, by many ties and shared interests and shared memories.  People are joined together by work, hobbies, sport, region, country, language - the list goes on.

Every family has different activities and interests that bring them together.  During my childhood my family joined together most evenings for a meal and relaxation time afterwards.  Although I didn't quite understand it at the time, we came together in a way few families did any more - in a time when most spent the evening at home gathered around the television, we frequently left the TV off and gathered for the evening to talk, do craft and read aloud to one another.

While neither of my parents had the opportunity to continue their education as they wished, both valued learning highly and were determined their children would have opportunities they did not.  Both loved reading and passed that love on to my sister and I.  Reading aloud to one another was simply something we did - reading in bed on lazy Sunday mornings, and reading around the kitchen table after dinner in the evening.  We all did handcrafts - so while we knitted, sewed, carved and crafted, we each took turns reading aloud.  The books we children read became progressively more complex as we grew up and developed our reading skills, but even from an early age we read, or made up a story from the pictures in our picture books.

My sister and I both started primary school already confidently reading chapter books.  What our teachers made of us I don't quite know, but I do remember my Grade 1 teacher sending me to the school library to pick out some more challenging books after it became obvious our classroom readers were too basic and I was bored with them.

A shared love of reading continued throughout our lives and joined us together - recommending authors and titles to one another, discussing what we read, and sharing time together reading quietly.  While we all have different tastes and favorite books and authors, we overlap in many areas and our love of reading joins us together.

History for Ukraine

'History for Ukraine' is a 24-hour speakathon from 12pm UTC Saturday 26 March until 12pm UTC Sunday 27 March where historical knowledge will be shared for free while listeners are invited to donate what they can to the DEC Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal.

Over 40 speakers from all backgrounds and all over the world have volunteered their time and expertise to make History for Ukraine a reality. Headline speakers include Charles Spencer, Philippa Gregory, Janina Ramirez, Saul David, Nick Barratt, Suzannah Lipscomb, Kate Williams, Kate Lister, Deborah Sugg Ryan, Nathen Amin, Tracy Borman, Miranda Kaufmann and Fern Riddell.

Throughout the event there are also several talks touching upon Ukrainian history. Cat Jarman on Ukraine’s history in the Viking era, Elaine Chalus on ‘Ukraine and Canada’, and Michelle Chubenko on ‘Digital Genealogy in Ukraine’. Interspersed between all the talks will be short videos about Ukraine, its history, and people made by individuals currently living in and fighting for their homeland.

For those who may not be able to watch all the talks they want live, the website states that for a short while, replays will be available. 

For all information on how to watch and donate please go to the website: History For Ukraine

Who Do You Think You Are Magazine

The latest issue of Who Do You Think You Are magazine is now available free online for Campaspe Library members via our subscription to Libby eMagazines. 

Inside this month’s issue

• 18th century family history
  Else Churchill reveals how to take your family tree back to the 1700s
• House history in the 1921 census
  TV’s Deborah Sugg Ryan explains what the 1921 census can reveal about your home
• MyHeritage DNA
  Debbie Kennett on how to make the most of this major DNA company
• Posted in the past
  Caroline Roope on the history of postcards
• Eureka moment
  How Will Mundy discovered he’s related to Shakespeare
• Plus…
  The best websites for school records, how to use Family Historian 7, our guide to Irish Catholic church records and more

An Exciting Find

It is always so exciting to receive a previously unseen document or photograph from a distant relative, and this week I been lucky enough to discover such a gift.  

Charles Cock was the husband of my great grandaunt Sarah Green.  He was born in Totham, Essex about 1812 and died in West Mersea, Essex 14 August 1896.  He and Sarah married in Sarah's home village Fordham, Essex 21 November 1843.

Early photographs of our ancestors are so often rare and precious, and I am extremely happy to have the above photo of Charles.  I don't know exactly when it was taken, although I presume later in his life, and it is possibly cropped from a larger image.

If anyone out there knows more about this photo, I would be delighted to hear from you and am always happy to share information.

#52Ancestors - Week 11 - Flowers

Flowers will always remind me of my father, who was an avid gardener.  There were almost always some kind of flowers blooming in our garden - azaleas, gardenias, chrysanthemums, petunias, and always roses.  Both my parents loved roses, and throughout my childhood there were always some kind of roses planted in our yard.

Roses along the driveway of the family home, c1973

For their 30th wedding anniversary my sister and I gave our parents five standard roses, which my father planted in our back yard.  Through several years of drought and strict watering restrictions, when our lawns died and so many other plants were lost, we carried buckets of water from our bathroom to those roses, keeping them alive.

One of our standard roses thriving in its new yard

After my parents passed away, as I was clearing out the house before it was sold, kind friends helped me dig up those 5 standard roses.  After almost 20 years in the one position in our yard, the roses were transferred into old drums and moved away.  As I settled into my new house, they spent over a year in those drums.  Two of them died shortly after being dug up, a third died later but I managed to get a cutting from it to survive.  The other two have thrived, and now have pride of place in my own yard, where they will hopefully bloom for years to come.

#52Ancestors - Week 10 - Worship

Week 10 of #52Ancestors focuses on Worship.  Religion has played a major role in the lives of our ancestors, and how they chose to worship had the potential to impact their lives in many different ways.  The church, faith and religion were central to the lives of so many, and had the potential to impact where people lived, how they earned a living, who they married, even whether they could own land of work in certain professions.

My 3xGreat grandparents Friedrich (Frederick) Carl and Susetta Beseler made the momentous decision to leave their homeland and emigrate to Australia.  The Beseler family arrived in Adelaide on 1 April 1848 on the ship Pauline, having departed their homeland from the port of Bremen, Germany.  Passengers listed were Frederick Beseler, Shoemaker, Mrs Beseler and 5 children.  The family lived in South Australia for several years before travelling overland to Victoria, settling in the area of Learmonth.

The Beseler Family at Ivy Rock Station

 
Large numbers of Germans emigrated to Australia and the United States, mainly for economic and religious reasons. Many emigrants were of the Lutheran faith.

The Lutheran Church in Australia had begun in 1838 with the arrival of about 500 migrants from Prussia, led by their Pastor, August Kavel. They were sponsored personally by George Fife Angas of the South Australian Company, who had taken pity on their religious plight and the persecution they were facing in Prussia.

The Beseler family working on their farm

The Beselers flourished in Australia.  Frederick Beseler was naturalised as an Australian citizen in 1848, and his son Edward followed in 1963.  They purchased land, married and raised families and integrated into the Australian community.  Seeking freedom to worship and the opportunities to own land offered in Australia paid off for the family, as it did for so many others.

Naturalisation Certificate of Frederick Beseler, 1848