#52Ancestors - Week 5 - Branching Out

As my family tree has slowly expanded and branched out over the years, I have had to make decisions about how far I let those branches go and how much time and energy I devote to the increasingly remote outer branches.  Should I focus solely on my direct ancestors?  To I also research all their siblings?  Do I research their siblings' children, their grandchildren, and so on?  How far do I want my tree's branches to spread, and what is manageable for me?

There is really no hard answer to these questions.  For my own research, I have concentrated on my direct ancestors and their siblings - my aunts and uncles, great aunts and great uncles, and so on.  Rarely have I bothered branching out further to investigate cousins twice or more removed.  When I tried, I found my tree spread its branches too widely and become unweildy to record, and I would find myself spending hours going down the rabbit hole of researching a second cousin twice removed.

For the same reasons I rarely branch out to research the families of those who marry into my family - the parents and siblings and wider family of those who married a great-great aunt for example.  I generally prefer to keep my branches trimmed and spend my valuable research time on the more direct lines, especially when those branches are spindly and difficult to extend.

Ultimately it is up to each family history researcher to decide just how far they want their tree to branch out, and then to keep the tree trimmed accordingly.  Happy researching to you all.

Really Useful Podcasts - Episode 5

The Family History Federation has now launched Episode 5 of its new series of Really Useful Podcasts.

 
This new episode focuses on One-Place Studies.  The website describes it : 

"Joe is joined by Janet Few, historian, President of the Family History Federation, former chair of the Society for One-Place Studies and author on the subject, Pam Smith, former professional genealogist and passionate local historian who is co-founder of the local history data management app Name & Place and Elizabeth Walne, professional genealogist, writer, tutor, speaker and One-Place researcher.

One-Place Studies are rich local and community histories that involve similar skills and sources as family history. We discuss how to go about choosing and carrying out your own study and the pleasures and pitfalls of doing so."

A One-Place Study is not something I have considered starting yet, but it is always useful to know how to go about it, and I certainly need to investigate if there is already a One-Place Study being conducted in any of the areas I an researching.

#52Ancestors - Week 4 - Curious

Week 4 of #52Ancestors, and the topic is 'Curious'.  This is another topic quite open to interpretation - a curious fact, a curious disappearance, a curious family mystery, a curious record.  The list is quite wide.

As family historians, we are all curious about our ancestors.  It is this curiosity that drives us in our research and motivates us to try to break down those frustrating brick walls we all encounter from time to time.

As a child I first became curious about my family history from hearing my parents' stories about their young lives.  With an age gap of 16 years between them, my parents were very much from different generations - my father, born 1926 was a child of the depression and my mother, born 1942 was a child of World War 2.  Both had many amusing and sometimes stark stories to tell about their early lives, how they met and married, and life on the outback sheep station I could barely remember.

Both my parents were always open to questions about their families, although often the answer was 'I don't know'.  My father in particular knew very little about his family history - when questioned when I was in my teens and getting more interested in formally recording and researching, my father could not even tell me what his mother's maiden name was.  It never came up.

While the other members of my immediate family were never interested in research, they were always curious enough to be interested in any unusual facts or new stories I unearthed.  This helped keep up my own enthusiasm through my late teens and twenties, when my research was fairly spasmodic and certainly not up to the genealogical standards of today.  Today, I am not only curious to learn more about my ancestors, but also always curious about new research methodology and new records becoming available. 

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.  

Articles and stories in the February issue of Family Tree include:

• Remotely delivered archive services - survey results revealed
  
  
• Fascinating Family History Stories of 2021
  
  
• National Trust begins research project with Time Team in the hope of shedding new light on Sutton Hoo
  
  
• Registration now open for RootsTech 2022
  
  
• Explore New Year’s Honours 2021 at The Gazette
  
  
• 1921 CENSUS: FACT-FILE
  
  
• DNA Bootcamp Next Steps Master your DNA and get monthly genealogy advice!
  
  
• WRITING THE STORIES OF our ancestors

 

#52Ancestors - Week 3 - Favourite Photo

The topic for Week 3 of #52Ancestors is 'Favourite Photo'.  I have a number of copies of old family photos that I have acquired over the years, copied from originals owned by generous relatives and shared around.  I would have to say that my favourite, however, is the wedding photo of my great grandparents James Nicholas Clark and Pricilla Veronia Mulholland.

James and Pricilla married 3 August 1898, almost a year after his divorce from his first wife Eliza (nee Hawley).  James and Eliza had married in 1886 and had two children together - Ruby born 1886 and Clarence born 1888.  

The marriage was clearly an unhappy one, and in 1891 Eliza had abandoned James and their two young children.  In the divorce proceedings it had been claimed that Eliza had been a habitual drunkard and had been living with two men after she abandoned her marriage, although the judge saw no direct evidence of adultery and granted the divorce on the grounds of desertion only.

The divorce was reported in the local newspapers at the time, usualy amongst general reports of local court procedings, including the article shown here from the 'Caulfield and Elsternwick Leader'.  Waiting a suitable interval after his divorce, James then remarried.  He and second wife Pricilla are pictured above.

This second marriage was much more successful, with James and Pricilla having twelve children together before James died in 1924, age 69.  Pricilla herself would later remarry, although she had no more children.  Pricilla died in 1976, only a few months short of her 100th birthday.

#52Ancestors - Week 2 - Favourite Find

The topic for Week 2 of 52 Ancestors is 'Favourite Find', and how do I choose just one?  My first response is 'The one I made most recently!'  The latest bright shiny fact or detail or record that I have located to add to my family history.  Then I make a newer find, and quickly my focus shifts to finding all I can about this new event or detail, fleshing out the story behind it and digging deeper if I can.

I suppose my overall favourite finds would have to be those which came as a surprise, things I discovered when looking for something else or an event that turned out to have a much bigger story behind it.

One such would be the desperate story of my great grandmother Eliza Pummeroy (nee 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 to support herself and her four young children.  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.

I learned all this from reports in the newspapers about her desperate plea to the courts.  And what had I been looking for when I found these articles?  I was looking for a death notice for my great grandfather.  The articles I found came as a total surprise - all I knew before then was that my great-grandfather had died suddenly when Grandad was just a baby and that grandad had spent time in an orphanage until his mother remarried and was able to reclaim him.  That was all my mother knew - my grandfather had died several years before I was born and my grandmother knew little more.

#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.