Famiy 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 :  

• Dear Paul - Paul Chiddicks looks at the intriguing anomalies we might come across when examining our ancestors’ marriage records…
• Transcription Corner - more frustrating and humorous howlers for you to both grimace and smile at.
• Ancient DNA for Genealogy
• Garages, Sheds and family treasures
• Read All About It! - the rich world of newspaper archives
• Sleuthing the Siblings - Gill Shaw digs into the details of the five adoptive cousins of her relation Catherine Mary
• Uncover the clues and pass the stories on…
• Clustering : The secret to unlocking our DNA matches
• Getting Started with family history
• The Plague Years
• Photo-dating study hints
• The Undesirables : the law that locked away a generatio
• Voices of our GENERATION • Diane Lindsay muses on the myriad meanings of ‘voice’
• And more...

Week 28 (July 7-14): Trains

The prompt for Week 28 is 'Trains', and it brings back an early memory of travelling with my grandmother on holidays as a child.

Back when I was in primary school, it was a common occurrence during school holidays for my parents to send my sister or I - usually at different times - down to Melbourne to stay with our maternal grandmother, a journey of some 200km.

While staying with our grandmother at her home in Brighton, we would often take a day or two of the visit to walk to the train station and travel to Frankston where my mother's older sister lived.  I don't recall ever staying with them as a separate holiday, it was always during my visit with my grandmother.

My clearest memory of the journey is the excitement of seeing the ocean from the train, kneeling on the seat to exclaim over quick glimpses and then the glorious surprise of rounding a bend to see the ocean stretched out beside the tracks, with no houses obscuring the view for a stretch of several hundred metres.

Living so far inland, I can still recall the excitement of my first clear view of the ocean from the train window, stretching away for miles to the distant horizon.  

It was not just seeing the ocean that I loved.  Many times during my holidays with my grandmother, we would purchase a train ticket and spend the whole day riding the trains around the city, getting off and on at random stops to explore different Melbourne suburbs. 

 Late in the day we would often ride the train all the way in to Flinders Street station in the city centre, the board a tram to take us home (the tram stop being much closer to my grandmother's house), buying fish and chips at a little store near her house to eat for a late supper.  

These holidays were a highlight of my year and I will always remember the excitement of riding the trains with my grandmother.

Traces Magazine

Edition 27 of Australian history and genealogy magazine Traces is now available free online for Campaspe Library members via our subscription to Libby eMagazines.

Inside this month's issue: 

• Heritage news
• The Bush Inn, New Norfolk, Tasmania
• Rescuing the past from the wreckage : the 50th anniversary of Cyclone Tracy
• How the car changed Australia
• Wakka Wakka resistance in the Burnett River Basin
• Newsreels : a record of daily life
• Do you have a story to share?
• The name behind the frame
• Murder or misadventure on the Moana?
• A long-lost relative found
• Speaking of Dulcie
• The wild ways of Adelaide Ironside
• The flapper
• A labour of love
• And more...
  

Week 27 (July 1-7): Planes

The #52Ancestors prompt of 'Planes' put me in mind of my uncle David Pummeroy, who served in World War 2 as a pilot.  While I had previously looked for his Air Force record on the Australian National Archives website, until recently they had not yet been digitised.  

To my joy, his record is now available.  It contains a total of 52 pages and I plan to examine it in more detail this weekend.

William David Russell Pummeroy was born in Brighton on 6 September 1925, the eldest son of Gladys Daisy (Clark) and William Henry Pummeroy.  He was always known as David, probably to distinguish himself from his father.  David enlisted in the RAAF on 8 October 1943 in Melbourne, just a month after his 18th birthday, having previously worked as an apprentice Gas Fitter.

David started his RAAF career as an Aircraftman Class 2 (Aircrew), rising to the rank of Sergeant (Airman Pilot) in 1944 and finally Flight Sergeant (Airman Pilot) in 1945.  He would be discharged from the RAAF on 28 March 1946.

As a civilian David would go on to work as a pilot for first TAA and then Qantas, flying planes all over the world, and eventually retiring as a Senior Flight Instructor.  

Interestingly, despite his long career as a civilian pilot, his parents were not great travellers.  His father William Henry Pummeroy never flew with his son, and his mother only flew with him once.  In the 1970s David's mother, my grandmother Gladys Daisy Pummeroy, flew from Melbourne to Townsville to visit her youngest son.  She was in her early 70s at the time, and it was the only time she ever boarded a plane.

Family Tree US Magazine

The latest issue of Family Tree US magazine is now available free online for Campaspe Library members via our subscription to Libby eMagazines. 

Inside this month's issue : 

• 5 questions with: Elizabeth Shown Mills - Citations Expert
• NARA Digitization Goal • Scanners & Affiliates to Add 500M Images
• FamilySearch Library to Retire Microfilm, CDs
• Listen Now : Podcasts on stories and DNA
• Road Map to Your Roots
• 101 Best Websites.
• Ancestry 101 • Get back to the basics of searching genealogy records at Ancestry.com.
• Find Your U.S. Ancestors
• On Exhibit • Your heirloom displays
• Come to your census : Pre-1850 US censuses
• School Records
• Preserving Cards and Board Games
• Tools for Organizing and Analyzing Research
• Y-DNA Tests
• Italian Genealogy

Week 26 (June 24-30): Family Gathering

The theme for Week 26 is 'Family Gathering', and these can be a wonderful source of information, family stories and photographs for the family historian.  For whatever the reason, birthdays, weddings, funerals or other special occasions, organising a family gathering can be a huge undertaking, especially when the family is large and widespread.

I have been fortunate to have attended a few family gatherings over the years.  Given my early interest in family history, I arrived armed with notebook and pen, ready to jot down any interesting stories or unknown facts that came to light during the event.

I also have a number of photographs in my collection from various family gatherings, some of which took place before I was born.  I have commented before that my father was one of 10 children, and that I have only one (somewhat blurry) photograph of all 10 siblings together.

The above photo was taken c1965 and show my father and his brothers and sisters gathered around their father.  And yes, second eldest Ernest (Squib) is standing with a beer bottle balanced on his head.

On my mother's side of the family, among my treasured photos are a pair dating from 1947.

Divided into the male and female sides, my mother is 5 years old and standing at the front of the group, with my grandmother Gladys on her right and grandmother Pricilla on her left.

The male group, again featuring matriarch Pricilla, has my grandfather William standing directly behind.  For many of my aunts and uncles, these are the only images I have of them, so they are precious to me indeed. 

A wonderful legacy of a family gathering.

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 : 

• Baptisms : 10 tips on tracing these crucial records
• Ruth Goodman : The historian and TV presenter on her new podcast
• Reader story : Was David Hough visited by his grandfather's ghost?
• Medieval ancestors : Take your family tree back hundreds of years
• Beach huts : The history of these seaside icons
• The Canadian prairies : Tracing ancestors who emigrated overseas
• And more...