#52Ancestors - Week 21 - Yearbook

This week's prompt 'Yearbook' had me fossicking through storage in my garage to try to locate my old High School yearbooks - where had I stored them??  After a short search I located them in a box, safely stored away.

When had I last glanced at them?  I don't remember.  I probably had a quick look as I packed them in their box over 5 years ago as I prepared to move to my current home.  Prior to that, I probably haven't even thought about them in years.  Having found them now, I settled down to relive my High School days, laugh at some of the hairstyles and fashions, recall great teachers and some not so great, and reflect on how few of my High School yearmates still live locally.

Those old yearbooks - from the 1980's - certainly brought back memories.  Participating in school plays, playing flute in the school band, reading long forgotten short stories and poems I had written, seeing how many classmates I could name from school photos - the yearbooks were quite a blast from my past and I am so glad I have kept them.

The next job on my list - to scan my personal contributions to the yearbooks into my family history archives, along with any casual photos in which I appeared.  I have already scanned all my class and individual photos, and once I have digitised the relevant parts of the yearbooks I will find them a better storage place to keep them preserved for the future.

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 

• British Service Records on the move
• History for Ukraine
• Middlesex MIs
• Queen Elizabeth timeline
• Jubilee events at the UK National Archives
• 1950 US Census free on Ancestr y & FamilySearch
• Nominate your favourite archive, record keeping service or recordkeeper for an ARA Excellence Award
• 50 million newspaper pages now digitised at The British Newspaper Archive
• New DNA innovation: Sideview, from Ancestry
• Mother Nature’s impact on family migration & relocation
• Genealogy Gadgets & Apps for all occasions 
• How to find out more about your Hairdresser ancestors
• And more.

Riding the Waves of History Conference

"Riding the Waves of History" is the 37th Annual Conference of the NSW & ACT Association of Family History Societies, and will be held online 16-18 September 2022.  The conference is hosted by the Newcastle Family History Society Inc. with Maitland & Beyond Family History Inc.

Conference speakers have been announced and are : Julie Keating, Peter Mayberry, Diane Blishen, Jeffrey Madsen, Lilian Magill, Pat Healion, Gay Hendriksen, Joy & Allan Murrin, Kerry Farmer, Samantha Ashby, Dr Janis Wilton, Carol Baxter, John Graham, Cathie Sherwood, Jill Ball, Christine Woodlands, Jason Reeve and Louise Gale.

 

Keep an eye on the conference website or subscribe to their newsletter to keep up with conference news, pricing, speakers topics, virtual exhibitors and more.

#52Ancestors - Week 20 - Textile

The prompt for Week 20 of #52 Ancestors is Textile, and it brings to mind my mother sewing clothes for the family when I was a child.  

Mum did a lot of sewing, with most of our clothes when I was a child being home made.  She had an old Singer treadle sewing machine that she used for all her sewing, which stood proudly in a corner of the main bedroom.  It only did straight stitches so buttonholes were sewn by hand, and took a fair degree of coordination to operate the foot treadle as she sewed.

As a small child I remember being fascinated by this machine, and would sit and watch as my mother sewed shirts, jackets, trousers and more.  Even many of our school uniforms were made by mum, and costumes for school plays and special events were a favorite.

As I grew older my mother gave me sewing lessons on the machine, but I never really got the hang of it and preferred to help lay out material, pin and cut using her assortment of paper patterns.  A regular treat would be to accompany mum to visit fabric shops and choose the material for my own clothes, and many an evening was spent hand stitching button holes and buttons to complete the garments she had made.

As mum grew older the treadle sewing machine was used less and less, and it has now been several years since it was last used, but I still have the machine at home, its cast iron frame a familiar memory.

Family History Down Under

 
The next Family History Down Under conference will be held 8-11 November 2022 at the Castle Hill RSL Club, Castle Hill, NSW.  This 4 day Family History conference will include over 70 presentations and workshops from 30+ speakers from Australia, New Zealand and around the world.  Presentations are divided into 4 tracks, each running across multiple days, comprising :

• DNA: Genetic Genealogy
• Researching Abroad
• Australia & New Zealand
• Methodology & General

All presentations (excluding workshops) will be available as a megabundle (all 4 tracks). These will include a number of bonus recordings. For those unable to attend the conference in person, the recordings only will also be available as lower cost, no frills packages the be watched at your leisure at home.  The recordings will be available until 28 February 2023.

While the full program is still under development, many of the speakers have already been announced, including James Beidler (German genealogy), Angie Bush (DNA expert), Daniel Horowitz (Genealogy expert at My Heritage), Chris Paton (Scottish & Irish expert), Judy Russell (Methodology expert), Shauna Hicks (Archivist, speaker & author), Eric Kopittke (German research expert), Helen Smith (Professional Genealogist) and more.

So keep an eye on the Family History Down Under website for more information about this fantastic conference, and consider signing up for their newsletter to keep up with the latest FHDA news.

Look History in the Eye Episode 6

The new podcast series Look History in the Eye, produced by the Public Record Office of Victoria, continues this week with Episode 6 - Pioneer Girls and Flappers.

Pioneer girls and flappers explores Footscray’s munitions factory and the women who worked there during World War One, and earlier.  It’s the story of poorly-paid, dangerous work, but also of the Knights of Labor and Adela Pankhurst, cricket and woollen dresses, parades and funerals. This talk by Historian Katie Wood originally aired live on International Women’s Day in March 2022.  

Katie's talk begins with the sound of a cartridge exploding and the roof of the hut known as number 1 filling room being lifted high into the air by a tremendous explosion. The circumstances leading to the tragic deaths of the three young women working in the hut can be read about in the original inquest file, which is part of Public Record Office Victoria's online collection.

You can listen to the podcast Pioneer girls and flappers as part of Look history in the eye on Spotify, Google Play and Apple Podcasts.

#52Ancestors - Week 19 - Food & Drink

Thinking about food and drink brings me to the family recipe book, primarily created by my sister.  One of the more fun jobs while we were cleaning out the family home was emptying out Mum's recipe drawer.  While the drawer contained a few proper cooking books, and some complete magazines, it was primarily a combination of loose snippets torn or photocopied from old magazines and books, and hand-written recipes from who-knows-where.  Many had notes written on them - things like substitutions of ingredients and notes on who particularly liked the dish.  There were also a number of recipes written out by others and given to Mum - by several different friends and relatives, judging by the assorted handwriting.  She even had a little A5 folder with hand-written favourites stored inside.

Included in that recipe drawer were the details of so many dishes we remembered from our childhoods - some with fondness and some with a shudder!  My sister and I spent an entire afternoon sorting through these scraps of paper, reading them out to each other and sharing our memories.  Do you remember Mum's spaghetti and mince casserole?  And yes, there really WAS a recipe for Dixon Street Chicken! Dixon Street Chicken was a favourite of Mum's and was never the same twice.  My sister and I called it Chicken a la cupboard as it was often produced late in the week to use up leftovers.  We also covered a few memorable kitchen disasters, like the time I set fire to the kitchen cooking toast - the pop-up toaster didn't pop and I had stuck my nose in a book, and didn't notice the flames climbing up the kitchen wall.  I have since been forbidden to touch printed material while cooking.  Then there was the time Dad put some eggs on to boil and got distracted by an unfinished project in the garden.  By the time he came inside the pot had long boiled dry and almost burned through the bottom - who knew exploding eggs could travel so far?

Food, cooking and mealtimes are such an important part of our families, and so often discounted.  What was your favourite home-cooked meal as a child?  Do you have the recipe, and do you ever cook it for yourself as an adult??  Do you remember any cooking disasters - either your own or that of another family member?  Having them written down with all our memories and stories attached to each recipe is something I treasure, and can be such a simple thing to create.  If you a looking for a Family History project, maybe a family recipe book is something to consider.

Mother's Day

Today is Mother's Day, a day when we celebrate and thank our mothers for all they do for us.  For many mothers this special day has its own special traditions, from breakfast in bed to flowers to visits or phone calls from adult children.  Every family has its own way to celebrate the day.

Celebrations of mothers and motherhood can be traced back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, who held festivals in honor of the mother goddesses Rhea and Cybele, but the clearest modern precedent for Mother's Day is the early Christian festival known as “Mothering Sunday".  The modern Mother's Day began in the United States, at the initiative of Anna Jarvis in the early 20th century.

For me this Mother's Day this year falls on the 7th anniversary of my mother's death, and she has been much in my thoughts in the lead up to today.

My mother, Joy Patricia Green (nee Pummeroy) was born 24 January 1942 in East Brighton, Victoria and died 8 May 2015 in Echuca, Victoria. 

Joy Pummeroy, age 11

A city girl, my mother 'went bush' in her twenties, taking up posts as a governess at outback properties in southern New South Wales, near the town of Wentworth.  This was where she met my father, Peter Green and where my sister and I were born.

My mother's mother, Gladys Daisy Pummeroy (nee Clark) is the only grandparent I can remember, and was another major influence on my life.  She was born 30 June 1906 in Brighton, Victoria where she lived her entire life and died 5 August 1995.

Gladys and Joy Pummeroy, January 1967

While I will not have the opportunity to celebrate Mother's Day with these two wonderful women, I will certainly take some time to reflect upon their lives and the stories they have given me, safely recorded in my family history.

#52Ancestors - Week 18 - Social

Finding out about the social lives of our ancestors can be immensely challenging.  While work and home often generated official records, leisure activities and social gatherings were less likely to be recorded in official documents.

While our ancestors' social lives are a challenge to uncover, there are resources available that can help you in your research.  Memberships of sporting teams, clubs and associations, church groups, societies and boards can provide valuable information.  For the wealthier class, social events were often reported in local newspapers, as were sporting results.  Newspapers can also provide context on the social activities available to our ancestors, even is they are not named in reports.

The following newspaper article reports on an amateur concert held in the town of West Bergholt, where some of my ancestors lived.  Chair J. T. Argent (John Thompson Argent) is one of my direct ancestors, and the pianiste of the evening, Miss Ada E, Argent was one of his daughters.

Another insight into the social lives of my forebears was in an article from the Essex Standard from Saturday 21 June 1884, reporting on a pigeon shooting match in which my Great Great Grandfather Walter Green took part.

So check out what is available to flesh out the lives of those we are researching.  The details of social lives provide so much more insight than simply dates and places - they bring our ancestors to life in so many ways.