Week 17 (Apr. 22-28): War

Russell Nicholas Clark, WW2

The prompt for Week 17 is War, and as the world watches the devastation of war in Ukraine and in Israel ans Palestine, the tragic reality of war is right in front of our eyes.  Living in Australia, so relatively isolated and seeing so little major conflict strike our shores, it truly hits home how fortunate we have been.

 

My family was extremely lucky, in both world wars and other conflicts, to have most of those who served not only come home, but come home fairly unscathed.  One second cousin was killed in France in World War 1 ; one uncle died in the Merchant Navy in World War 2.  All the other relatives who served – my father, uncles and great-uncles and more recently several cousins - returned safely to their loved ones.  While they all had to live with the memories of the conflicts, they were mostly uninjured by their experiences and able to rebuild their civilian lives. 

Leonard Clark, WW2

 

So many others were not so fortunate.  Numerous Australian families endured the loss of loved ones on foreign soil, or the return of family members forever scarred by their service.  So many who returned faced a lifetime of ruined health or years of recovery and rehabilitation.  My family has been lucky indeed.

 

ANZAC has very much become a part of our national vocabulary.  Many of the people who lived though that campaign were ordinary volunteers, just as Australia’s current veterans were ordinary volunteers.  They put their daily lives on hold to serve and protect us all, most with very little clear idea of just what they were volunteering for.  Even as a young child I was taught the significance of ANZAC Day, attended services, and spent my pocket money on ANZAC Day badges, many of which I still have in a container at home, which I still add to annually.

Ernest Green, WW2 postcard from Egypt

Through the National Archives of Australia I have downloaded several family WW1 records and ordered those from WW2 -  the NAA has indexed and digitised Boer War and World War 1 dossiers, which you can search and view online for free. World War II dossiers have been indexed but will only be digitised if a family member has requested it.  Other websites include Discovering Anzacs Whichallows you to add your stories and images, and the Australian War Memorial, which has databases like the WW1 Embarkation Rolls and WW1 Red Cross files.  Researching  newspaper reports in Trove has also been a gold mine, with news of enlistments, farewells, news from the front, even a few letters home were published in local papers.

Week 16 (Apr. 15-21): Step

The prompt for Week 16 is Step, and it brings to mind the complexity of step families.

Family relationships are not always straightforward.  Especially in small communities, people could be connected in multiple ways, with several intermarriages within the local families.  In my own more recent  tree, I have an aunt and a great aunt who married brothers.  This made the two women not only aunt and niece, but also sisters-in-law.

While years ago divorce and subsequent remarriage was not as common as it is today, often the loss of a spouse resulted in the remarriage of the surviving partner, often for economic necessity.  A widowed woman, especially one with young children, needed the income of a husband as there were few opportunities for women to earn an independent living.  Similarly, a man whose wife has died, perhaps in childbirth, would often remarry quickly in order for his children to have a mother to care for them while he worked.  Given the higher mortality rates of women in childbirth, I have several men who married multiple times, having children with 2 or more different wives.  While this happened with women also, in my own tree at least it is not so common.

Probably the most complex Step relationship I have is that of Thomas May, my 3xGreat Grandfather.  Thomas married a total of 4 times, losing his first three wives in childbirth.  Each time, he remarried within a year of his spouse's death.  It is his 4th wife, Susannah Balls (nee Hart), where the relationships become truly convoluted.  Susannah's daughter (also Susannah) was married to Thomas's second son William.  So Thomas became not only father-in-law but also step-father to Susannah Jr, and his new wife Susannah became mother-in-law and step-mother to William.

Complex Step-families indeed!

Week 15 (Apr. 8-14): School Days

Education for their children was always a priority for my parents.  Neither of them were able to pursue their own educational opportunities, so both were determined their daughters would have the best education possible and establish good careers.

Reading to each other was always something we simply just did in our household.  Stories on a lazy Sunday morning, a book under our pillows at night to read quietly if we woke up early, regular visits to the local library, all were treasured parts of my childhood.

School was taken seriously and my parents regularly attended parent/teacher nights, attended school events and helped out where they could.  Time and space was devoted to homework and study.  The school community was a big part of our lives.

Both my parents left school for economic reasons.  My mother finished her education a few weeks short of her Year 9 Matriculation when her father’s health deteriorated and she had to find work to help keep the family afloat.  My father similarly had his school days cut short in order to start earning a living and help out the family.  Storied of their school days were few.

Cleaning out the family home after my parents passed away gave me new insights into their school days.  Tucked away on an old shoebox in the linen cupboard, I found a box of photos and papers which included all my mother’s school grade photos.  Dated 1935, I found an old school certificate of my father’s for coming second in a relay race.  A photo of my father and some of his siblings in the pony trap driving themselves to school was also in the box.  Precious memories of my parents’ distant school days.

#52Ancestors

Week 14 (Apr. 1-7): Favorite Recipe

I have commented before on 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.  Yes, there really WAS a recipe for Dixon Street Chicken!  Do you remember Mum's spaghetti and mince casserole?  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 such a simple thing to create.  If you a looking for a Family History project, maybe a family recipe book is something to consider.

 

#52Ancestors  

Week 13 (Mar. 25-31): 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 or work in certain professions.

My 3xGreat grandparents Carl Friedrich (Frederick) and Susetta Beseler made the momentous decision to leave their homeland and emigrate to Australia.  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 and other areas of the Germanic Federation.

In Essex, England, the Fordham All Saints church was originally built in approximately 1340 and restored in 1861.  In 1965 it was designated a Grade 1 listed building.  It was my father's family church for many generations and their home was only a short walk away.

As in many small villages, the Church was at the centre of village life.  Many of the records I have for my family centre around the church - baptisms, weddings, funerals, Sunday School, fundraising and poor relief - and several such events were not only to be found in the church records but also reported in local newspapers, such as the funeral above.

#52Ancestors 

Week 12 (Mar. 18-24): Technology

How wonderful is technology, and how fortunate are we to have so much knowledge and so many resources for family history at our fingertips?

As I am writing this post I am taking a break from watching presentations from the wonderful RootsTech conference.  While I was not able to attend in person, technology has made it possible for me to attend virtually, both on the days of the conference itself and then allowed me to continue to enjoy more sessions online in the days and weeks that followed.

Technology has also seen more and more data and records digitised and made available online, a boon to researchers worldwide.  While not everything is available this way, for people researching family from the other side of the world online records are a huge help in our research.

Covid-19 changed all our lives in so many ways.  Genealogically speaking, the biggest impact for me was the loss of face-to-face meetings.  I missed chatting face-to-face with Genea-mates and the networking and idea sharing that goes hand in hand with meetings and conferences.  Online meetings were just not the same.

Despite the down side of online meetings, however, the rise of virtual conferences has allowed me to attend inter-state and overseas meetings that I would never have been able to attend in reality.  The genealogical community has pulled together, made use of the internet like never before, and was huge part of providing so many of us isolated at home with interest, stimulation and contact.  Technology made it all possible.

#52Ancestors

Week 11 (Mar. 11-17): Achievement

The prompt ‘Achievement’ has started me thinking about all the various immigrant branches of my family have achieved in their new lives in Australia.

For whatever their reasons, my original Australian immigrant ancestors made a huge leap of faith to leave their homelands and travel to a distant country, most with little chance of returning if their new lives proved less than they hoped.

Some travelled singly, more in family groups, but for all it was a monumental decision.  In the colonial years of Australia, travel from Europe could take months, and for most visiting relatives ‘back home’ was out of the question.  They travelled in the knowledge they would likely never see those they left behind again. 

Communication was challenging as well.  My maternal ancestors all emigrated to Australia well before the telephone, so letters were the main form of communication, and it would take months for post to make its way across the globe.  Low literacy levels would also have complicated – or prevented – much communication.

My great grandfather, James Nicholas Clark, was born in 1856, just as the family emigrated to Australia.  The family first arrived in Port Sorrell, Tasmania, where the family lived for at least 12 years before they crossed Bass Strait and settled in Victoria.

I also have Irish ancestors who travelled singly to Australia in the 1840s, settling as farmers at Eurobin in northern Victoria.  They came out well before the potato famine to make new lives in the colony.

Then there is my German branch of the family tree.  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 with his wife and 5 children on the ship Pauline from Bremen, Germany.   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. 

How brave were these people to make the leap into the unknown to travel to the other side of the world in search of better lives?  Establishing themselves and their families in their new homeland and building successful lives was an achievement indeed.

#52Ancestors

Week 10 (Mar. 4-10): Language

Language is something which constantly evolves, with words over time taking on new meanings and new words constantly added to any vocabulary.  This is something we need to be aware of in our family history research - what a particular word meant 200, 100 or even 20 years ago may not be what it means today.  Similarly, what was acceptable language years ago may not be acceptable or commonplace today.

This change in language is particularly clear in newspapers - not merely the language itself but also what was acceptable in reporting and how events were reported.

My great uncle Norman Clark died at the age of 18 when he was taken by a shark off Middle Brighton Pier on Feb 15th 1930.  He was the first swimmer to be killed by a shark in the bay for over 50 years, and was killed in full view of hundreds of people as there was a boating regatta taking place at the time.  The incident was reported in numerous papers around Australia - not just the Melbourne Argus but papers like the Rockhampton News, Launceston Times, Adelaide Advertiser, Brisbane Courier and Western Australian Mail.  Below is one of the many (over 70!) newspaper reports which appeared in papers around Australia in the days after Norman's death.

 

 

 

Just looking at the language is fascinating - I doubt it would be allowed today to describe a young man's death in a shark attack as a "thrilling struggle".  This sub-heading does highlight how language much changes - not just the basic meaning of a word but also how it is used.  At the time of this headline 'thrilling'  more closely meant 'dramatic' rather than 'exciting', and certainly what was acceptable when reporting such a tragedy back in 1930 is not what our newspapers would publish today.

The description of the attack is graphic and would not be reported in such a way today - it simply would not be acceptable.  Even reporting the victim's full name prior to all family members being notified - I have a subsequent report from the Adelaide Advertiser in which his older sister is interviewed and reveals that she found out about her brother's death by reading about it in the newspaper while she and her husband were on holiday in Adelaide.

Week 9 (Feb. 26 - Mar. 3): Changing Names

Our ancestors changed their names for a variety of reasons.  By far the most common was a surname change for a woman upon her marriage, but there were many other reasons a person might change the name they were given at birth.  From using a preferred nickname, name contractions, altering names to fit a new home, or completely changing a name to escape the past - there were many reasons you might find an ancestor under a different name.  

We also need to remember that it was often a clerk, secretary, enumerator or other official who recorded names on official documents, and mistakes were often made and not corrected.  The name was recorded as the recorder heard it, and so spelling variations abound. They all can make tracing your ancestors that much more challenging.

There were the commonly used spelling variations, abbreviations and diminutives.  For example, if you don’t know that Polly was a diminutive of Mary or that Nellie was a diminutive of Ellen and Eleanor and Helen, you may struggle to find your ancestors’ entries.  Harry for Henry, Bill for William, Fred or Alf for Alfred, Dick for Richard, Charlie or Lottie for Charlotte, Maggie, Meg or Maisie for Margaret.  Elizabeth was another extremely common name with multiple diminutives - Eliza, Liz, Lizzie, Betty, Betsy, Beth, Bessie, Lisbeth, Liza - the list goes on.  

I have one female ancestor, baptised Elizabeth, who was known throughout her life as Betsy.  This was the name she used in census records, her marriage record, her children's birth/baptism records and on her death certificate and burial records.  The only time I can ever find her referred to as Elizabeth is at her own baptism. 

Naming patterns were common 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.  

For my German branch of my family tree, anglicization of names when they emigrated from Germany to Australia saw the entire family change their names.  Friedrich became Frederick, Suatus became Susetta and eventually Susan, Heinrich became Henry, Margaretha became Margaret, and so on.  It helped to family to fit in with their new homeland.

Week 8 (Feb. 19-25): Heirlooms

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.  

Before the family house was sold, I took the opportunity to take cuttings from several plants I could not take with me.  One of these was a hares-foot fern that lived in our old, falling down greenhouse.  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, attached itself to the wooden shelf the pot sat upon, and was firmly attached to the shelf.  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.

These two little cuttings have thrived.  They quickly outgrew the little pots I had started them in, and have since been transplanted to bigger pots.  They sit, one in my main bathroom and one in a stand in my dining room, and I think of my mother and grandmother whenever I see them.  I have recently taken a new cutting from one of these plants and potted it for a friend.  And so the heirloom hares-foot fern continues on, hopefully for many years to come.

Week 7 (Feb. 12-18): Immigration

As we research our family history, we all want to trace our ancestors movements, especially when they emigrated between countries.  As an Australian of British and European descent, tracing how and when my ancestors made the journey out to the colony is fascinating to me.  It can, however, be extremely challenging - it appears several of my ancestors might have swum out to Australia!

For a couple of my ancestors, making the assumption that they moved directly from A to B let me astray, in one case for several years.  The family of my great grandfather, James Nicholas Clark, came from Bristol in England.  They left England at about the time James was born and eventually settled in Melbourne, Australia.  It took me several years of fruitless searching for their immigration details before I widened my search to find the family first arrived in Launceston, Tasmania, which is where James was born shortly after they arrived.  The family spent at least 5 years in nearby Port Sorrell before travelling across Bass Strait to settle in Melbourne.

So why is it so difficult to find some of our ancestor's immigration records?

• Consider alternate spelling of their name.  The clerk who recorded their embarkation or arrival was unlikely to ask about spelling and just recorded the name as he heard it.
  
• If the person travelled in steerage/was an unassisted immigrant/was a crew member who jumped ship, the details recorded about them may be scant or non-existent.
• Females, children, servants and steerage passengers were frequently left off the passenger lists altogether.
• Did they migrate in stages?  Not everyone went straight from A to B – some visited other points along the way, sometimes taking years to arrive at their final destination.
• Prior to 1852, ship's masters were not required to record the names of unassisted passengers travelling from Britain to the Australian colonies.
• Port Phillip District of New South Wales was established on 10 April 1837.  Victoria was not proclaimed a separate colony until 1 July 1851.  Check NSW records if your ancestor arrived earlier.
• After 1923 records of people arriving by sea and air are held at the National Archives of Australia.
• Not all records have survived the passage of time and remained legible.

Week 6 (Feb. 5-11): Earning a Living

Back when I first began researching my family history, I was fortunate to be able to have several long chats with relatives about their lives.  Several chat were with my Great Uncle Russell Clark, and below is a transcription of a conversation we had about his early working life.

At the age of 14 I gained my “Merit Certificate” and that gave me the opportunity to take on a full time job. Frank Marriott, a vegetable grower in Centre Road, Bentleigh offered me one and so I went working in his garden. Fifty six hours per week, milk a cow night and morning before breakfast, mow a large lawn Saturday afternoon before being allowed to go home for the weekend. Ten shillings a week and my keep. I had a hut away from the main house and near the large shed where horses were kept and chaff etc. stored. I had a “crystal set” which was a wireless but in order to get any stations one had to have a long aerial suspended from something high. I was lucky because I ran a wire from the top of the double story feed shed down to my hut. With the crystal set right I could get both 3DB and 3LO. I was made!!!! I spent four years with Frank. I had my 18^th Birthday there and my Mother purchased a bicycle for me. I believe she paid five pounds for it. From then on I was able to ride home on occasions and later on again I rode to work every morning and I kept wonderfully fit. Hurlingham Park was next door to where we lived and I played football there for the Brighton Vale Football Club and actually captained the side for a season.

My brother Lennie (one year older) was apprenticed to a butcher. Meekhams was their name and they had a shop on the Nepean Road near Union Street from memory. As time went by I used to do some part time work for them. I would unfold “Heralds” and “Suns” (newspapers) place them flat in a pile then roll them up and tie a string around them. They were used in the shop to wrap the meat. I got threepence an hour for that, not much but enough to get me into a matinee at the Brighton Theatre on a Saturday afternoon.

However I eventually left that job at Marriott’s garden and started work at the “Metropolitan Gas Company” where I remained until the outbreak of the Second World War. I then rode my bike from Brighton to South Melbourne, riding along Nepean Highway to Elsternwick, down towards Elwood and across to St Kilda, along the beach to nigh on Port Melbourne where the Gasworks were located. Those days we worked on a Saturday morning so a long ride on the bike six days a week. I used to also get some overtime working some evenings and again on a Saturday afternoon to earn a little extra. At the age of 21 years I was earning the princely sum of four pounds six shillings and eight pence per week. To supplement this payment I had by then joined the Militia and when I was due for annual holidays (one week per year, later to become two weeks) I arranged for my holidays to coincide with an annual Military Camp at the Mobilization Stores at Seymour. This was also a paid job. So I would have my break from the Gas Company and spend that time “under canvass” doing a supplementary paid job. This was all to earn extra income.

Week 5 (Jan. 29-Feb. 4): Influencer

The prompt for Week 5 of #52Ancestors is 'Influencer', and it brings to me the influence of family.  I believe that the influence of family in how we each develop as individuals cannot be underestimated.  Spending the first few years of my life on an isolated sheep station with the only other child being my older sister has had a huge influence on my life, and increased the influence of my parents on me.

My parents always spoke to us in adult language - no baby talk for us - and took questions seriously.  If we asked, obviously we were interested and deserved a serious answer.  Having little opportunity for education themselves, my parents truly valued learning and as a child I can recall my parents slowly paying off a children's encyclopedia for us. 

Then we moved to the town of Moama, one of our first stops was the local library.  Both my parents loved to read and taught my sister and I to love books and reading from a very early age.  A Sunday morning tradition as young children was to spend time snuggled in our parents bed being read to before getting up for breakfast.  We always had books around, and we knew we had been truly naughty if our parents took away the book we kept beside our beds to read quietly if we woke up early. Throughout my childhood and into my teens in the evenings if there was nothing we specifically wanted to watch on TV we would sit together, each with puzzles or handcraft projects, taking turns to read aloud to each other.  I can recall being about 12 years old at a sleepover with friends when I first realised not all families read aloud to each other like this!

my sister and I both arrived at primary school already well able to read ourselves, and while our peers were learning their letters my sister and I were already independently reading for ourselves.  Fortunately our teachers were quite happy for us to visit the school library to borrow more advanced books rather than limiting us to the readers in our classrooms.  It is hardly surprising that this early influence resilted in my choosing to become a librarian as my career.

Week 4 (Jan. 22-28): Witness to History

Just as we research our ancestors, one day (hopefully) our descendants will research us.  What do we have to tell them?

Over the past few years we have all lived through historic times.  Have you recorded your feelings and impressions?

The Covid19 pandemic has been a major historical event.  For all of us who have lived through it, there will be memories of Covid, both positive and negative, that stand out.  There are new routines, changes in how we live, work, communicate, shop, relax, learn, and more.  We all have seen stark images of police blockading state borders, empty streets at midday in our cities, supermarkets during panic buying or opening with stripped shelves.  Then there are the more personal experiences - business closures and work stand downs, learning to work from home or change our daily routines.

There have also been the positive experiences.  Teddy bears and rainbows in windows, people standing at the end of their driveways on ANZAC Day, clap for carers, support we have received from friends colleagues and neighbors, the joy of getting out and about after lockdowns ease.  For many of us the simple pleasures in life have taken on new significance as we rediscover them after the trial of lockdowns.

Here are a few questions you might consider when recording your personal experiences of Covid-19.

• What are you most grateful for during this covid-19 crisis? 
• What are some of the images that will stay with you of the pandemic?
  
• What have you missed most during full or partial lock-down? 
  
• What changes have you seen in your life over the last few months? 
  
• Have you been participating in virtual gatherings with friends or family?
  
• Have you taken up new hobbies during the lockdowns? 
  
• Are you cooking or gardening more? 
  
• How have the closures affected your local community? 
  
• Have in-person meetings been replaced with virtual meetings via Zoom, Skype etc? 
  
• Do you enjoy the virtual meeting format? 
  
• Are you working from home instead of in your usual place of work?
  
• Have you had to cancel travel plans for pleasure or family? 
  
• Have you/others been wearing masks when out and about in your area?  
• Will you change your lifestyle after this experience? 

Locally, I have also experienced a historic flood that heavily impacted my local community.  Many homes in the district were flooded, businesses closed, people evacuated, roads cut.  The community pulled together magnificently to help each other sandbag and protect properties whenever they could.  The impact was still enormous, especially in the small community of Rochester which saw the majority of homes and businesses flooded.  15 months later a significant proportion of residents are still living in caravans and temporary accommodation as they struggle to complete repairs to their homes.  Again, the memories of this disaster need to be recorded. 

We have all been witness to history, and we should all be considering how we will record our memories and reactions to these events.

Week 3 (Jan. 15-21): Favorite Photo

The prompt for Week 3 is 'Favorite Photo', and it is hard to choose just one 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.

Week 2 (Jan. 8-14): Origins

The prompt for this week is 'Origins', which tends to make me think of the origins of my family in Australia, and why my ancestors made the momentous decision to leave their homelands and families and make the journey to Australia.

On my paternal side, our history in Australia is a short one.  My father's parents were born and married in England before deciding to try their luck in Australia, arriving here in the early 20th century.  They arrived as a newly married couple, with all ten of their children born in Australia.  In their early years the family moved several times around Victoria, with the children dispersing around the southern states as they established their own families.

On my mother's side our Australian origins go back further.

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 crossed Bass Strait and settled in Victoria.

Then there is my German branch of the family tree.  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. 

I would like to know what prompted these families, with young children in tow, to pack up and move halfway around the world, settle in one state of Australia, then pack up and move again several years later.  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 in both cases.  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.

For whatever their reasons, my original Australian immigrant ancestors made a huge leap of faith to leave their homelands and travel to a distant country, most with little chance of returning to their homeland if their new lives proved less than they hoped.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Blogging Challenge

This year I have once again decided to participate in the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks blogging challenge run by Amy Johnson Crow.  I have done this challenge a few times in the past, and although I an a few weeks late in starting I hope to catch up fairly quickly.

On to week one (January 1-7), the prompt for which if 'Family Lore'.

I have always enjoyed listening to the family stories told by my parents and other family members, and have several notebooks filled with a variety of stories, many told from the perspective of multiple family members.  

Once I started researching in earnest, I set about finding any records for many of the stories I had been told, and was able to prove - and disprove - some of them.  Others generated no official records and remain family lore.  The best were anecdotal, bringing to life details of my family's lives that without the stories I would know nothing about.

A favourite is my maternal grandmother's first visit to my parents after they married.  My mother was a city girl, born in the Melbourne suburb of Brighton.  Grandmother was born in Brighton, married there, lived her entire life there, and died there.  At the time of my mother's marriage, my grandmother had never been further north than the Melbourne City Baths.

In her early 20s my mother 'went bush', leaving Melbourne to take up a post as a governess on a remote sheep station near the rural town Mildura, over 500km north of Melbourne.  It is here that she met my father, and after their marriage moved to the sheep station 'Para' where my father worked.  Situated on the Darling River, Para was approximately an hour's drive north-east of Mildura, much of the drive on dirt roads.  For my grandmother, mum might as well have been living on another planet.

When my sister was born, Grandmother decided it was time to visit her daughter and new granddaughter, so she boarded a train and made the journey to Mildura, where my parents met her for the drive out to the station homestead.

I have heard the story of this journey from my father, mother and grandmother.  All agree on the shock my grandmother felt at the distance and isolation.  The open spaces daunted her and the concept of the nearest neighbor being almost 30 minutes away was utterly foreign.  'Are we there yet?' was frequently asked.  It was a complete culture shock.

Grandmother eventually reconciled herself to my mother's choice to live in country areas, and was much mollified when my parents moved to the town of Moama (at least we had proper neighbors and decent plumbing!), and was a regular visitor throughout my childhood.  The story of her first visit, however, remains a favourite part of our family lore.

#52Ancestors - Week 52 - Looking Ahead

This is the last week of the 2022 #52Ancestors challenge, and I am pleased that I have kept up with the weekly topics throughout the year.  It has been a great way of revisiting various areas of my research, looking at topics from a different angle and thinking about my research in new ways.

The final theme is looking ahead, and for me this involves making plans for the year ahead, deciding where I will focus my next research efforts, looking at upcoming meetings and conferences and talks and making plans for research trips and visits to archives.

As my local community slowly recovers from the catastrophic floods of 2022 and the cleanup continues, we are all looking ahead to 2023 and hoping for a little less drama - the last few years have been scarred by Covid, floods, fires and other catastrophes, and we are all hoping for a little peace!

Genealogically, I am looking ahead to attending more meetings and conferences, hopefully in person but online if necessary, and furthering my research.  I hope to catch up with geneamates I haven't seen in person for a while and share the frustrations and successes of the last few years.

A huge thank you to everyone who has participated in the #52Ancestors challenge in 2022, and I am looking forward to participating in a similar blogging challenge next year.