#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.

Changes to Find-A-Grave

Find A Grave has recently announced a new system for the posting of memorials for the “recently deceased” - which they define as those who have died within the past year - in an effort to give the families greater opportunity than they have had previously to control the death reports and memorials for their own loved ones.

The announcement has been posted on the Find A Grave website under the title “Memorials for those who are recently deceased,” and the new conditions stated applied from 11 January 2022.

 

^{Over the past few years there has been some controversy over people dedicated to the website adding memorials for anyone and everyone, scrolling newspaper death and funeral notices and rushing to create memorials for complete strangers.  For some it seems to be a numbers game, trying to create as many memorials as they can, as quickly possible.  There have been ongoing complaints by family members who have gone online to create a memorial for a loved one, only to find one already listed, owned by a complete stranger.  While some memorial creators have been happy for family members to take ownership of, and update or correct memorials, others have not.}

 

^{The new system announced attempts to address this issue, and while it is not perfect - there are still questions about editing existing memorials, proof of relationship and so on - it is certainly a big step in the right direction.}

WDYTYA Magazine February 2022

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

• Reading old handwriting
  How to decipher old documents
• Transcription Tuesday
  Discover the date and featured projects for our 2022 volunteer event
• The story of the 1921 census
  How the landmark records release was the most turbulent census collection of all time
• Using DNA Painter
  The website that can help you decipher your DNA test results
• Reader story
  Leila Barratt’s great grandfather escaped General Franco’s Spain
• Plus…
  The best websites for Victorian wars, using online newspaper collections, how to use FTAnalyzer and more

 

Famiy Record Sheets My Way

Over the years I have used several Family Record Sheets that I have downloaded to use when I am researching - these are what I use to scribble notes and record new data, and take with me when I am researching.  These sheets, however, never quite did just what I wanted, so a few years ago I decided to try creating my own.

After some trial and error, I finally created a Family Group Sheet I liked.  It was done using Microsoft Word, and I quickly realised that this meant I could easily type new data onto the sheets, save and print them, and this was MUCH easier than trying to read my own scribbled handwriting, especially after several corrections and additions.

My original sheets had the standard information - for both parents there was space for name, occupation, birth, marriage and death, their parents names and any other spouse(s).  Below there was space to record up to 10 children - birth, death, marriage and spouse's name - but unusually I included space to record birth and death for each spouse.  

Family Group Sheet example

 
The reverse side of each sheet was for notes - details of certificates and printouts held such as BMD certificates and extracts, census records, military files, wills, baptism or burial information, newspaper articles, stories and so on - all those little details that flesh out the names and dates.

I also discovered that using Word meant I could add a little color to my notes - printing male names in blue and female names in red, dates and places in purple and leaving all my headings black.  Later I added space to include baptism and burial information for both parents on the main page.  The resulting document can be downloaded here, and I am happy for anyone out there to save a master copy and use it if they wish.

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 : 

• Family Business - A Ford factory tour employee discovers his great-grandfather worked there, too — before Ford even made cars.
  

• First Generation - Make these three kinds of records your first stop when researching immigrant ancestors.

• On Her Majesty's Census Service - Dive into the soon-to-be-released 1921 census of England and Wales with this guide.

• Lost in the Woods - Stay on course with these 7 tips for fact-checking information you find in online family trees.

• Being of Sound Mind… - Create a “genealogy will” that outlines for your heirs what you’d like for your research after you’ve passed on.

• Picture Day • Clothing clues and good ole-fashioned research help date this school class photo.

• Immigrant Ancestor Worksheet • Track known information about the immigrants in your family.

• And more...

 

Really Useful Podcasts - Episode 4

 

The Family History Federation has now launched Episode 4 of its new series of Really Useful Podcasts.

This new episode focuses on Social Media.  The website describes it : 

"Joe is joined by Andrew Martin, family historian, author, digital archivist and host of The Family Histories Podcast, Margaret Roberts, editor of the Playing Pasts online sports history magazine and Publicity Officer for the FHS of Cheshire and Daniel Loftus, Gen-Z Genealogist and founding member of The Hidden Branch group for young family historians.

Social media can be a fantastic tool for both the individual family historian and societies to communicate and connect. We discuss the different platforms, their pros and cons and our guests offer some top tips on using them."

As a dedicated user of social media for genealogy, I have been using social media platforms Blogger and Twitter for a number of years, but there is always new information to be gained in how to best use various platforms.   This podcast helped me see new ways to get the most out of my time and resources - many thanks to the presenters.