Saturday, March 2, 2024

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: 

  • Money-saving tips How to make your money go further while researching your family tree
  • For Evermore Discover a new project to commemorate Commonwealth soldiers killed in the World Wars
  • Evacuees The stories of the children evacuated during the Second World War
  • True stories Including a family connection to Franklin's doomed Arctic expedition
  • Merchant Navy relatives Where to find their records online
  • Lancashire family history Our complete guide to 'the Red Rose County'
  • And more...

Thursday, February 29, 2024

RootsTech 2024

Don't forget the RootsTech 2024 "Remember" Conference this weekend February 29 to 2 March 2024.  The conference will once again be run as a paid in-person and a FREE virtual conference.  Registration is still open at https://www.rootstech.org.
 

Online:
  • 200+ new online sessions in over 26 languages
  • Join keynote sessions live from the comfort of your own home
  • Chat online with other attendees worldwide
  • Get digital syllabi and class handouts

I will be attending the conference online, as I have for the past few years.  I have already examined the sessions, scheduled to ones I want to listen to, and am ready to visit the Expo Hall to see what the various exhibitors and sponsors have on offer.  As many of the sessions I want to see run concurrently, I'm very glad recorded session remain available after the conference is over, so I will be able to work my way through my list of sessions.

So take a look at what RootsTech has to offer and take advantage of the many online talks and sessions that are available to those, like me, who are unable to attend the conference in person.

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Week 9 (Feb. 26 - Mar. 3): Changing Names

Our ancestors changed their names for a variety of reasons.  By far the most common was a surname change for a woman upon her marriage, but there were many other reasons a person might change the name they were given at birth.  From using a preferred nickname, name contractions, altering names to fit a new home, or completely changing a name to escape the past - there were many reasons you might find an ancestor under a different name.  

We also need to remember that it was often a clerk, secretary, enumerator or other official who recorded names on official documents, and mistakes were often made and not corrected.  The name was recorded as the recorder heard it, and so spelling variations abound. They all can make tracing your ancestors that much more challenging.

There were the commonly used spelling variations, abbreviations and diminutives.  For example, if you don’t know that Polly was a diminutive of Mary or that Nellie was a diminutive of Ellen and Eleanor and Helen, you may struggle to find your ancestors’ entries.  Harry for Henry, Bill for William, Fred or Alf for Alfred, Dick for Richard, Charlie or Lottie for Charlotte, Maggie, Meg or Maisie for Margaret.  Elizabeth was another extremely common name with multiple diminutives - Eliza, Liz, Lizzie, Betty, Betsy, Beth, Bessie, Lisbeth, Liza - the list goes on.  

I have one female ancestor, baptised Elizabeth, who was known throughout her life as Betsy.  This was the name she used in census records, her marriage record, her children's birth/baptism records and on her death certificate and burial records.  The only time I can ever find her referred to as Elizabeth is at her own baptism. 

Naming patterns were common in many families, although they are by no means a reliable way of predicting the names of children.  Traditionally, the first son would be named for the paternal grandfather, the second son for the maternal grandfather and the third son for the father.  For females, the first daughter would be named for the maternal grandmother, the second daughter for the paternal grandmother and the third daughter for the mother.  Providing, of course, these names were not the same.  

For my German branch of my family tree, anglicization of names when they emigrated from Germany to Australia saw the entire family change their names.  Friedrich became Frederick, Suatus became Susetta and eventually Susan, Heinrich became Henry, Margaretha became Margaret, and so on.  It helped to family to fit in with their new homeland.

Thursday, February 22, 2024

Traces Magazine

Edition 24 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
  • St Patrick’s Cathedral, Melbourne
  • Finding the Throssell Sword
  • Colonel Gibbes: bigamist or impostor?
  • The fortress and the castle - Defending the nation
  • Affairs of honour
  • Unearthing graveyard clues
  • Memories of a Melbourne childhood
  • What’s that thingamajig?
  • Elizabeth Morrow versus colonial misogyny
  • Old Colonist mosaics inscripted
  • ‘Bandicooting’ and other phrases
  • What’s new online?
  • Exploring Hill End Historic Site

Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Week 8 (Feb. 19-25): Heirlooms

A few years ago I posted about my experience of my sister and I cleaning out the family home after the deaths of our parents - our father in 2013 and mother in 2015 - and the importance of knowing the stories behind the many treasures tucked away in cupboards and drawers, or out in the shed.

Cleaning out the house, we came across treasures in every corner.  A hand tinted photo of my mother as a child, a box of slides and negatives from early in our parents' marriage, a small garnet brooch that belonged to my great grandmother, a bronze alligator nutcracker made by my grandfather, and so much more.  

Before the family house was sold, I took the opportunity to take cuttings from several plants I could not take with me.  One of these was a hares-foot fern that lived in our old, falling down greenhouse.  The original hares-foot belonged to my grandmother.  Before she passed away, my mother took a cutting from her plant, brought it home and potted it.  It thrived in our greenhouse and by the time my parents passed away it had overgrown its pot, attached itself to the wooden shelf the pot sat upon, and was firmly attached to the shelf.  Clearly it was not moving with me to my new home.  So much as my mother had done, I took a few cuttings, potted them and hoped for the best.


These two little cuttings have thrived.  They quickly outgrew the little pots I had started them in, and have since been transplanted to bigger pots.  They sit, one in my main bathroom and one in a stand in my dining room, and I think of my mother and grandmother whenever I see them.  I have recently taken a new cutting from one of these plants and potted it for a friend.  And so the heirloom hares-foot fern continues on, hopefully for many years to come.

Saturday, February 17, 2024

Week 7 (Feb. 12-18): Immigration

As we research our family history, we all want to trace our ancestors movements, especially when they emigrated between countries.  As an Australian of British and European descent, tracing how and when my ancestors made the journey out to the colony is fascinating to me.  It can, however, be extremely challenging - it appears several of my ancestors might have swum out to Australia!

For a couple of my ancestors, making the assumption that they moved directly from A to B let me astray, in one case for several years.  The family of my great grandfather, James Nicholas Clark, came from Bristol in England.  They left England at about the time James was born and eventually settled in Melbourne, Australia.  It took me several years of fruitless searching for their immigration details before I widened my search to find the family first arrived in Launceston, Tasmania, which is where James was born shortly after they arrived.  The family spent at least 5 years in nearby Port Sorrell before travelling across Bass Strait to settle in Melbourne.

So why is it so difficult to find some of our ancestor's immigration records?

  • Consider alternate spelling of their name.  The clerk who recorded their embarkation or arrival was unlikely to ask about spelling and just recorded the name as he heard it.
  • If the person travelled in steerage/was an unassisted immigrant/was a crew member who jumped ship, the details recorded about them may be scant or non-existent.
  • Females, children, servants and steerage passengers were frequently left off the passenger lists altogether.
  • Did they migrate in stages?  Not everyone went straight from A to B – some visited other points along the way, sometimes taking years to arrive at their final destination.
  • Prior to 1852, ship's masters were not required to record the names of unassisted passengers travelling from Britain to the Australian colonies.
  • Port Phillip District of New South Wales was established on 10 April 1837.  Victoria was not proclaimed a separate colony until 1 July 1851.  Check NSW records if your ancestor arrived earlier.
  • After 1923 records of people arriving by sea and air are held at the National Archives of Australia.
  • Not all records have survived the passage of time and remained legible.

Friday, February 16, 2024

National Farm Survey

The National Archives has announced a project to digitise the National Farm Survey, taken in 1941, thanks to a £2.13 million grant from the Lund Trust.
 
The survey includes details of over 300,000 farms in England and Wales including how the land was used, location, condition and management as well as details of owners and tenants.
 
As one of the most requested documents at The National Archives, the digitisation of the 1941 National Farm Survey will help to preserve the original documents as well as improve access for local and family historians researching agricultural labourers and farms.
 
The first records to be digitised will be the individual farm records (MAF 32) with the accompanying survey maps (MAF 73) coming later. 

The project is planned to be completed by March 2027, with the first digital records coming online from March 2026. The resulting databse will be freely available online, enabling researchers to discover more about family farms or their local area.  
 
Jeff James, CEO & Keeper of The National Archives said: “This is a unique opportunity to realise the potential of what was seen as a ‘Second Domesday Book’, a ‘permanent and comprehensive record of the conditions on the farms of England and Wales’. Thanks to this partnership, the National Farm Survey, an enormous database of land ownership and land usage in mid-20th century Britain, will be freely available online to researchers in the UK and globally.”