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.

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 : 

• MyHeritage becomes the first family history company to use conversational AI for genealogy
• Almost 400,000 individuals available to search on the 1939 Register
• Ready for RootsTech 2024!
• Petition to save the wills
• 80 million people added to the world’s largest family tree at FamilySearch
• Discovering a whole new heritage via DNA
• New online genealogy encyclopaedia with the release of MyHeritage Wiki
• 1931 Census of Canada available to explore for free at FamilySearch
• Medieval Ancestors with Chris Paton
• Enhance your family history with Maps, photos & tax records
• And more...
  

 

The Family Histories Podcasts Series 6

Series Six of The Family Histories Podcast is now complete.  The series began with a trailer on 31st October 2023, followed by 7 regular episodes weekly from 7th November, with a bonus episode on 24th December 2023.

The series saw guests cover topics ranging from fraud, slavery, oral history, family rumours, injustices, and seriously dodgy family trees. Each guest will also pitch their own research brick wall, in a hope that a listener could help them make a break-through.

Series 6 featured the following quests;

• Episode 1: ‘The Quilter’ with Phyllis Biffle Elmore

• Episode 2: ‘The Antiquarian’ with Rick Glanvill

• Episode 3: ‘The Nurse’ with Clare Kirk

• Episode 4: ‘The Accused’ with Sven Grewel

• Episode 5: ‘The Churchwarden’ with Jackie Depelle

• Episode 6: ‘The Runaway’ with Teresa Vega

• Episode 7: ‘The Loyalist’ with James Danter

 

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.

Hardwicke's Marriage Act of 1753

Hardwicke's Marriage Act 1753 was also titled ‘An Act for the better preventing of Clandestine Marriages’ and was the first statutory legislation in England and Wales to require a formal ceremony of marriage and to require that formal ceremony to be conducted in the Church of England Parish Church. It was also a requirement of Hardwicke's Marriage Act that the union was registered by a parson.

During the 1740s, out of the approximately 47,000 marriages taking place in England, 6,000 took place outside of a parish church, and so it was felt that marriages should be regulated in order to prevent so many clandestine marriages from taking place.

Prior to Hardwicke's Marriage Act, the canon law of the Church of England stipulated that banns should be called (which gave people the opportunity to raise objections to the marriage) or a marriage licence should be obtained before a marriage took place.  Obtaining a marriage licence meant banns did not need to be called.  It is worth noting that prior to the 1753 Act this was not compulsory and a marriage was still considered valid even if it was not celebrated in church.  

The Act came into force on 25th March 1754 and was read out in churches and chapels on Sundays in 1753, 1754 and 1755 because a lot of people could not read or write. 

The main points of Hardwickes Marriage Act 1753

• Before a couple could get married, banns had to be read out on three consecutive Sundays or a marriage licence had to be obtained.
• If a person was under the age of 21, they required parental consent before they could legally marry
• Marriages should be recorded in separate books which had numbered and ruled pages so that no fraudulent entries could be made to the register.
• The entry should be signed by the minister, the couple and two witnesses.

If your ancestors were nonconformists (Methodists, Baptists, etc) they had to marry in a Church of England ceremony or their marriage would not be recognized legally and their children considered illegitimate.  Quakers and Jews were exempt from this ruling and could marry in their own places of worship.  Members of the British Royal Family were also exempt.  

If a member of the clergy was found to be breaking the Act’s new law, they could be sentenced to transportation for 14 years.

The stipulations laid down by Hardwicke's Marriage Act 1753 meant that many couples chose to marry in Gretna Green or other places in Scotland in order to get around the Act.  The law was different in Scotland where couples only had to declare their intent to marry in the presence of two witnesses. This loophole was not closed in Scotland until the Act of 1856 which that declared that a couple could not marry in Gretna Green (or elsewhere in Scotland) unless they had resided in the country for three weeks prior to the date of the marriage.

Hardwicke's Marriage Act was repealed in 1849.

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: 

• Workhouse records Our complete guide to tracing your ancestor in the workhouse
• Bigamy How to trace ancestors who married twice
• Tuberculosis The story of one of the deadliest diseases of Victorian Britain
• Travel and passenger lists Tracing ancestors who emigrated overseas
• The Holocaust Where to find records of the genocide online
• Kent Our complete guide to family history records in the county
• And more...
  

 

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.