While not a formal record exactly, this colored print of my father was taken from a photograph from when he enlisted in the Air Force, during World War 2.
Inside this month's issue :
This year I have once again decided to participate in the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks blogging challenge run by Amy Johnson Crow. The challenge prompts often have me looking at my family history in new ways and exploring records I haven't revisited for a while.
Week 1 id "an ancestor I admire" and I have chosen my great grandmother Eliza Beseler.
Eliza was born in 1871 in Learmonth, Victoria to Edward Beseler and Emma (nee Flower). Eliza married Alfred Pummeroy in1895 in St Kilda, where Alfred worked as a plasterer. They had four children before Alfred suddenly became ill with pneumonia and died on 6 Feb 1901, leaving Eliza with 4 young children and in a desperate situation.
The family lived in rented housing and had little by way of savings. With four children to look after, the eldest 4 years old and deaf and mute, the youngest (my grandfather William) only 2 months old, Eliza was unable to do much by way of paid work. She took in washing to make a little money, and was given 3 shillings a week by the local Ladies Benevolent Society. It wasn't enough.
After struggling for a month after her husband's sudden death, Eliza took the step of applying to the local court for help, risking having her children removed from her custody and placed in an orphanage, something she was adamant she did not want. The judges hearing the case awarded her 10 shillings from the poor box and committed the children to the department, with the recommendation they be handed back to their mother.
This appeal was reported in several newspapers. Two reported the case with a fair amount of detail, including the fact that the children all appeared clean and well cared for, while a third much briefer article gave a somewhat different impression, especially with the heading 'Neglected Children'.
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| Prahran Telegraph, Sat 9 March 1901, p3. |
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| The Argus, Sat 9 March 1901, p15. |
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| The Herald, Fri 8 March 1901, p5. |
How much courage and desperation Eliza must have felt to take the step of appealing to the courts for aid. Standing before three magistrates to plead her case, knowing they had the power to take her children away, while still mourning the death of her husband. I admire her greatly.
"Memorable' is the final prompt for 2025, and it has me looking back over the year and my memories of 2025. What does this year leave with me? What memorable Family History finds did I make?
The discoveries I have made throughout the year include :
All these finds have been highlights of my years and feed my enthusiasm to continue my researching.
Who knows what memorable finds await in 2026.
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 :
The prompt for Week 24 was 'Artistic', and as to the best of my knowledge there have been no artists in my ancestry I chose to focus on music, which is the focus for Week 51. So as I have already blogged about my mother's musical talent, I searched my records for other musical talent amongst my ancestors.
Included in my newspaper records, I found several articles relating to musical events and concerts in which various ancestors performed, especially my Argent branch of my family tree.
These musical evenings were apparently a regular winter highlight, and reports of similar concerts appeared in several newspapers.
The National Archives of Australia (NAA) have added a number of Australian Air Force photographs to their online database.
Through the NAA's RecordSearch, Air Force Personnel Records can be searched by name or by service number.
Searching the database for my father, Peter Jeffrey Green, returns two results.
The first result is his digitised personnel file, some 43 pages in length. The second file is his enlistment photograph.
Family Heirlooms come in many forms - from the more traditional jewellery and china to more unusual items. A few years ago I posted about my experience of my sister and I cleaning out the family home after the deaths of our parents - our father in 2013 and mother in 2015 - and the importance of knowing the stories behind the many treasures tucked away in cupboards and drawers, or out in the shed.
Cleaning out the house, we came across
treasures in every corner. A hand tinted photo of my mother as a child,
a box of slides and negatives from early in our parents' marriage, a
small garnet brooch that belonged to my great grandmother, a bronze
alligator nutcracker made by my grandfather, and so much more.
Then there is my heirloom garden gnome. Most heirlooms are small, portable and easy to take with you when you move. Some, like my gnome, are not. He is about 50 cm tall, and my family purchased two of them for my father's 50th birthday, back in January 1976. When we sold the family home my sister and I decided we wanted to keep one gnome each. At the time we first brought them, there was a rash of gnome-napping happening where we lived, with gnomes disappearing from gardens, never to be seen again. So my father filled the concrete shells with more concrete, then installed them on concrete plinths about 30 cm in diameter and 10 cm thick, out in our front yard. They weigh a ton, and needless to say, they have never been successfully 'gnome-napped'.
Then, there is the heirloom hare's foot fern. The original hares-foot belonged to my grandmother. Before she passed away, my mother took a cutting from her plant, brought it home and potted it. It thrived in our greenhouse and by the time my parents passed away it had overgrown its pot and was firmly attached to the wooden shelf below. Clearly it was not moving with me to my new home. So much as my mother had done, I took a few cuttings, potted them and hoped for the best.
OK, it's soapbox time again!
I have blogged several times over the past few years about the importance of family historians recording their own significant events for inclusion in their family history, to be handed down to future generations.
In 2020 the world experienced a historic global pandemic, with many of us moving in and out of lockdowns and various restrictions on our daily lives as the world struggled to limit the spread and impact of Covid-19. Like many I was stood down from my job, saw businesses close and contacts restricted, and in the small community where I live, unforgettably saw armed police restricting travel across the state border. I spent my 50th birthday in lockdown, isolated at home.
While many of my memories of the pandemic restrictions, which flowed on into 2021, are stressful, there were also many positives. So many people came together to keep each other going. Online shopping boomed and the concept of 'click and collect' became (and remains) common. In the genealogical community meetings and conferences went online and access to many digitised records were relaxed to make research from home easier. The idea of working from home became much more common in many industries. During this time I did my best to record my experiences and feelings, both positive and negative.
Hard on the heels of 2 years of Covid lockdowns, 2022 saw my home area suffer the worst floods in living memory. While my home itself was not impacted, many friends saw their homes flood, roads and highways were cut, access to services cut, shops closed and like many I came under an evacuation order.
We watched the Murray River flood parkland, the water creeping closer and closer, flooding homes and breeching levies like the one behind the library where I work - see the photo below. As the water rose the community came together to frantically sandbag homes and businesses, another wonderful show of community spirit in the face of a crisis.
These are memories that need to be recorded as part of our family history. We have all lived through a global pandemic and lived through or witnessed a number of historic events in recent years. Recording our memories of such major events should be a part of our family history records, for the generations that come after us.
Then there are the smaller events of family significance. A birthday, anniversary, funeral, graduation, family reunion and so on. These need to be recorded and added to your family story.
So please, become your own storyteller and record your memories. Get it written.
Meyer's is arguably the most important of all German gazetteers. The goal of the Meyer’s compilers was to list every place name in the German Empire (1871-1918). It gives the location, i.e. the state and other jurisdictions, where the civil registry office was and parishes if that town had them. It also gives lots of other information about each place. The only drawback to Meyer’s is that if a town did not have a parish, it does not tell where the parish was, making reference to other works necessary.
Type the name of your place in the search box.
A list of places with that name will appear—all those places of the same name, but with other jurisdictions which will help you identify your town.
Choose the town for which you want more information. This takes you to the ‘Entry’ page.
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 :
Every family has their popular names - names that appear generation after generation regardless of fashion. There were also fads among names - copying that of the current Monarch and their family, for example, as well as using a traditional name common amongst ancestors.
Naming patterns were also frequent in many families, although they are by no means a reliable way of predicting the names of children. Traditionally, the first son would be named for the paternal grandfather, the second son for the maternal grandfather and the third son for the father. For females, the first daughter would be named for the maternal grandmother, the second daughter for the paternal grandmother and the third daughter for the mother. Providing, of course, these names were not the same.
In the 1700s the top five names for each gender were :
Boys - John, William, Thomas, Richard and James
Girls - Mary, Elizabeth, Ann, Sarah and Jane
In the 1800s the top five names for each gender were :
Boys - John, William, James, George and Charles
Girls - Mary, Anna, Emma, Elizabeth and Margaret
There was also the tendency, unusual as it may seem to us today, of reusing the name of a child who had died. In the 1700's and 1800's this occurs frequently in my family tree, with the name of a child who has died in infancy being reused for the next child of the same gender born to the family.
This can make research quite tricky, especially when a popular name has been used by several branches of a family. In my Irish Mulholland family, for example, four brothers all named their first son James, after their father. One child died at 2 days old and the name was reused 18 months later. This meant there were five children named James Mulholland, born within six years and a few miles of each other. Sorting out which records belong with which child is quite a challenge.
Then two of them married women named Mary.
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| Russell Nicholas Clark, WW2 |
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| Ernest Green, WW2 postcard from Egypt |
Remembrance Day, once known as Armistice Day, is one of our most important commemorative dates. On 11 November 1918, the guns on the Western Front fell silent, and the armistice with Germany to end the fighting on land, in the air and at sea was signed.
Each year on 11 November we pause as a nation at 11am for one minute of silence to honour all those who have suffered and lost their lives during wars, conflicts and peacekeeping operations.
A wonderful resource for hosts of a Remembrance Day service, or those commemorating at home, is available from the Department of Veterans Affairs. Through their ANZAC Portal, they have a free Remembrance Day Kitbag. It includes the order of service, music, making a speech, the Ode of Remembrance, a brief history, suggestions for a personal commemoration, guidelines to making a paper poppy, and more.
So wherever you are at 11am this 11th of November, take a minute to pause and remember those who have served to protect our freedoms.
Lest We Forget.For the prompt of 'Multiple' I have chosen Thomas May, my 3xGreat Grandfather, who married multiple times. Thomas had a total of 5 wives, outliving all of them.
Thomas May was born 20 September 1762
in West Mersea, Essex and was baptised 16 October 1762 at the church of
St Peter and St Paul. He died on 27 February 1843 in West Mersea and
was buried on 7 March 1843.
Wife 1 – Elizabeth Godwin
Born 1763 Thorrington,
Essex
Married 27 March
1787 Thorrington, Essex
Died 25 August
1790 West Mersea, Essex
Children – Thomas, Edward
Wife 2 – Sarah Sadler
Born 1775 West Mersea, Essex
Married 1792 West Mersea, Essex
Died 7 January 1799 West Mersea, Essex
Children – Elizabeth, Sarah, Hannah, John
Wife 3 – Henrietta Stevens
Born Unknown
Married 12 May 1801
St Mary, Lambeth, Surrey
Died 2 May 1812
West Mersea
Children – Henry, Mary
Wife 4 – Susannah Balls Green
Born 7 June 1770
West Bergholt, Essex
Married 10 November
1818 Fordham, Essex
Died 11 February
1828 West Mersea, Essex
Children - Nil
Wife 5 – Mary Ann Pullen
Born 13 October
1791 West Mersea, Essex
Married 9 August
1829 West Mersea, Essex
Died 1838 West
Mersea, Essex
Children – Edward, Sophia Mary Ann
It is his 4th wife, Susannah Green (nee Balls), where the relationships become truly convoluted. Susannah's son Isaac (from her first husband John Green) was married to Thomas's eldest daughter Elizabeth. So Thomas became not only father-in-law but also step-father to Isaac, and his new wife Susannah became mother-in-law and step-mother to Betsy.
Inside this month's issue :
