Week 43 (Oct. 21-27): Lost Contact

During my family history research I have often reflected on the enormous step taken by my ancestors when they migrated to Australia.  Various branches came from England, Ireland, Scotland and Germany, all seeking a new life and leaving behind family, friends and their old homes.

None of my migrating ancestors would ever see those they left behind again.

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.  Settling into a new country is not easy. Immigrants have to adapt to an unfamiliar environment and lifestyle, while maintaining aspects of their previous culture and way of life.

Even maintaining contact could be difficult, or close to impossible.  Not all my ancestors were literate.  How do you maintain contact with family on the other side of the world before telephones and international calls, when the only real way to communicate was by letter?  Not only could it take months for a letter to make its way across the seas, such letters also cost money to post.  Then there would be a wait, possibly for several more months, for a reply to arrive.

There was more difficulty to overcome if either party (or both) lacked reading and writing skills.  In the 1800s when most of my family lines arrived in Australia, literacy levels were low, especially among the poorer classes.  Not all my ancestors who emigrated could read and write, and frequently those left behind in the 'old country' lacked literacy skills themselves.  Perhaps they could have sought assistance in writing to loves ones and reading their replies, but this would have been another cost to pay.  Little wonder so many lost contact.

Trove Tuesday

One of the saddest stories I have found in my family history is that of 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.  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'.

Prahran Telegraph, Sat 9 March 1901, p3.

The Argus, Sat 9 March 1901, p15.

The Herald, Fri 8 March 1901, p5.

A great series of articles found on Trove. Having these to add to my records adds so much to my knowledge of my family history - without these reports I would never have know how much of a struggle my great grandmother Eliza faced after the death of her husband.

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 : 

• What were you doing 40 years ago? Was it family-history related?
• Celebrating 40 years of Family Tree
• Heredis 2025: new software out
• 93 million new Theories of Family Relativity from MyHeritage DNA
• A.I. grants for library, museum & archive innovation
• 23andMe board steps down en masse
• Artificial Intelligence and genealogy
• Finding your way around  Findmypast
• Free, frugal & fun : time- & money-saving tips, tools & tactics
• The life of a 19th Century soldier
• Digging deeper & decoding the National Register records
• Your DNA questions answered!
• Witch-hunts during the Little Ice Age
• Wartime trauma The life of George Smith, ARP warden...

Foundling Hospital Archive Free Online

The archives of London’s famous Foundling Hospital are now free to search online.

Almost 100,000 pages of records, containing details of over 20,000 children, have been made available.

The Hospital was founded in 1739 by sea captain Thomas Coram to provide a home for the capital’s many unwanted children, particularly children born to unmarried mothers.

At the time, the name ‘hospital’ meant any place that provided ‘hospitality’, or shelter. Rather than being a hospital in the modern sense, it was a children’s home, where children received care and education before leaving to enter into an apprenticeship at about the age of fourteen. The education was progressive by the standards of the day – both boys and girls were taught to read, girls were later taught to write.  The children were also taught music.

The digitised records fall into the following categories:

• Petitions from mothers and others: 115 volumes, 1762-1881
• Billet Books containing tokens: 203 volumes, 1741-1814
• Admission and baptism registers: 8 volumes, 1741-1885
• Apprenticeship registers: 4 volumes, 1751-1898
• Registers of country nurses and inspectors: 6 volumes, 1749-1812
• Branch Hospital registers: 5 volumes, 1757-1772
• Records claiming children: 21 volumes, 1758-1796
• Committee Minutes: 43 volumes, 1739-1895

 

Week 42 (Oct. 14-20): Full House

The prompt 'Full House' immediately makes me think of the many large families in my family tree, and how many people were often packed into small houses.  In past generations, large families were quite common, with not only numerous children but also extended family often sharing a home.  

While some of my ancestors were fortunate enough to have sizeable homes, those of poorer working class backgrounds often lived in smaller houses of only a few rooms, or even a single room for the whole family.  Children shared beds, and in poorer conditions the whole family would have slept huddled together.  Space was limited and conditions poor.

For my father, the second youngest of 10 children, all of whom survived to adulthood, it was a full house indeed.  Often the family lived in small farmhouses, with only a few rooms.  They moved several times during my father's childhood, but none of the homes the family occupied would be called spacious.

While the eldest children had generally left home by the time the youngest were born, it was still a full house indeed.

Trove Tuesday

Trove frequently adds new content to their website, and the newspapers below are being digitised and will soon appear online.  These titles have been funded for digitisation by various contributors, which are indicated at the end of each listing.

NSW

• Bega District News (1923-1954) [Bega Pioneers Museum]
• Berry Register (1894) [Shoalhaven Libraries]
• Border Morning Mail (1953) [Albury City Libraries]
• Braidwood and Araluen Express [National Library of Australia]
• Braidwood News and Gold Fields General Advertiser [National Library of Australia]
• Broughton Creek Mail (1880-1881, 1891-1893, 1899-1907) [Shoalhaven Libraries]
• Broughton Creek Register (1886-1890) [Shoalhaven Libraries]
• Kangaroo Valley Times (1898-1904) [Shoalhaven Libraries]
• Maitland Mercury (1940-1954)
• Moruya Examiner [National Library of Australia]
• The Pastoral Times and Deniliquin Telegraph (1895-1950) [Deniliquin Genealogy Society Inc]
• The Seagull (1957-2015) [Richmond-Tweed Library Service]
• Coolamon-Ganmain Farmers' Review (1919-1937) [Coolamon & District History Group; Wagga Wagga & District Historical Society; Coolamon Shire Council; Lions Club of Coolamon]

SA

• Australijos Lietuvis - The Australian Lithuanian (1948-1956) [Australian Lithuanian Archives]
• Hills and Valley Messenger (1984-2011) [State Library of South Australia]
• Port Lincoln Times (1982-1986) [Port Lincoln History Group]

VIC

• Ararat and Mount Pleasant Creek Advertiser and Chronicle for the District of the Wimmera (1861-1873) [Ararat Genealogical Society]
• Brusnwick & Coburg Leader (1927-1929) [Merri-bek Libraries]
• Grenville Standard (1897-1914) [Linton & District Historical Society]
• Mount Ararat Advertiser and Chronicle of the District of the Wimmera (1857-1861) [Ararat Genealogical Society]
• Mount Ararat Advertiser (1857) [Ararat Genealogical Society]
• Nathalia Herald and Picola, Narioka, Kotupna and Moira Advertiser (1884-1913) [Nathalia & District Historical society Inc]
• Sun News Pictorial (1922-1954) [State Library Victoria]
• Sunraysia Daily (1942-1950) [Mildura Rural City Council Library Service]
• The Journal: Glengarry, Toongabbie and Cowwarr Journal (1930-1962) [Latrobe City Libraries]
• The Yarrawonga Mercury and Southern Riverina Advertiser (1927) [Yarrawonga Mulwala Historical Society Inc.]
• The Yarrawonga Mercury and Tungamah and Lake Rowan Express and St. James Gazette (1927-19360 [Yarrawonga Mulwala Historical Society Inc.]

You can see which newspapers and gazettes are already available in Trove's full digitised newspapers and gazettes list.

Ancestry Ethnicity Estimates Updated

Recently, Ancestry again updated their DNA Ethnicity Estimates, so I have again been studying my new, updated results.  I have commented before that with every ethnicity estimate, my results seem to move further from my family tree as I know it.  For the second time in a row the numbers moved a little back towards what my existing tree leads me to expect.

The table below shows my ethnicity estimates over the years since I first tested.  It is worth noting that in 2018 and 2019 the Irish ethnicity represented Ireland and Scotland combined.  According to my researched Family Tree, my father's family is 100% English back to the early 1700s and further and is primarily from the Essex/Suffolk area. My father's parents married in England before they came out to Australia.  My mother's family is at mostly English with some Irish (a Great-Grandmother), German (Great-Great-Grandfather) and Scottish (Great-Great-Grandmother) mixed in.  Most of her lines arrived in Australia in the 1840s and 1850s, and the various nationalities intermarried out here.  This is not reflected in my ethnicity estimate.  

This latest update gives back come of my Irish ethnicity while decreasing my Scottish, and much of my Sweden/Denmark percentage returns to Germanic Europe.  Completely new are the Netherlands and Yorubaland (southwestern Nigeria).

I would love to know where the Ivory Coast/Ghana and Yorubaland heritage comes from - both are from my mother's side of the family and I have a suspicion I may eventually find slavery in my ancestry.

As I say just about every time I post about Ethnicity Estimates, we need to remember that these numbers are estimates only and can still be quite inaccurate.