L is for Letters

Letters can be a magical find in family history. They can include, birthday wishes, anniversaries and death details, as well as what was happening in the family, the town and the country. Sometimes even overseas news of family who moved away.

Letters can turn up when spring cleaning, de-cluttering and selling or moving house. 

Another way of finding them is through relatives. Your folks wrote to their siblings and family members, meaning that information that they shared about themselves could be in other relatives’ possession.

 

I have been lucky with distant relatives (also distant in location) who have saved media on their family trees online. 

I was thrilled to read letters referring to their correspondence back and forth between my Great grandfather in Australia and his brother in England.

They became so much more real to me, and as always, left more questions for me, that will probably never be answered. 

I have typed them out as written and added some bits in brackets.(see below)

 

J is for Joseph

 

A Christian name found many times in my maternal family tree and still being passed down.

 

The name Joseph is a biblical name. Its earliest origins can be traced back to the Old Testament of the Bible, where it was defined as: “he will add” in Hebrew. 

Origin: The name Joseph comes from the Hebrew verb yasaf (to increase). 

In the Old Testament, Joseph is a favoured son of Jacob and Rachel. And in the New Testament, Joseph the carpenter has the role of father to Jesus. 

 

I have checked back to find the Josephs in my mother’s line, start in the Partington Family in the early 1700s:

I is for Isabella, Isabel, and Isobel

Isabelle is the French version, Isabella the Italian one, and Isobel the Scottish  

spelling  -- of the female given name Isabel. My Scottish ones go back to the 1600s.

H is for Henry. Henry Stanley REES

Henry Stanley Rees was born on 07 November 1879 in Thebarton, South 

Australia, where his father (Rees Coventry REES) was working at the time. 

He was my 1^st cousin twice removed, on my maternal side.

Map showing two suburbs Henry lived in, Adelaide, South Australia.

G is for Gertrude Nellie Gayner Cottam née Honeybone

My Auntie Gert,  27 Dec 1907 - 26 November 1992, married my mother’s brother Phillip Douglas Cottam. She died at 84 years of age, just a month off 85.

We loved to visit our cousins and Aunt and Uncle at Sandmount. We would walk across this lovely orange earth to the innovative home-designed chook sheds. Dad and Uncle Phil would chat away there, whilst we watched all the chooks under the low roof of the poultry farm. 

Genealife in Lockdown 5 NFHM Blogging Challenge

Over the last few months during the Covid-19 pandemic, my mind has been occupied following the Olympic Games and the Paralympics. So many of the athletes in their interviews commented that they were so glad to provide great sport for us all to watch at home, especially for those in lockdown. Those participating in the Paralympics shared an extra message: Hoping they provided inspiration to those with disabilities at home to join the Paralympics community and find a sport they love to participate in.

After finishing with a bronze medal in the women's 100m T34 Paralympics final, Australia's Robyn Lambird shared this message in a post-race interview for Channel 7:

“I just want to show all the kids out there - with disabilities or not - if you have a dream, chase it ... there's always a way, and you can find that way.”

Genealife in Lockdown 4 NFHM Blogging Challenge

This week I am collating some of the images and messages I have found important, supportive and humorous relating to the Covid pandemic. 

I will start with a cartoon ‘welcoming’ in the New Year.

It was hoped that in 2021 we would be rid of the virus.

 Sadly it was not to be.

Around the world, there continued to be supportive and entertaining insights into how others were coping or helping others to cope.

Genealife in Lockdown. 3. NFHM Blogging Challenge

A new strain of the Covid virus arrived here in July 2021, 

the SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant, which is commonly called ‘the Delta virus’.
It is more virulent than the first, Covid-19 and many carriers were asymptomatic for days, thus spreading the germs, unbeknownst. Stronger control was necessary for those infected, and urgency for the new vaccines to be available and issued. Now that the ‘Delta’ variant of the virus is circulating, no-one knows how long it will stay. Sadly there is a lot of misinformation being shared, inhibiting people from having the vaccination, not wearing masks in public and freely attending group gatherings.

Having a pandemic like this has reminded us of the last one years ago – the worldwide influenza epidemic, Spanish Flu’ in 1918, also known as 'La Grippe'. Well before my time, but I remembered reading about it when I was researching my first cousin X 2 removed, Andy Crawford who served in the First World War with the 8thLight Horse Brigade. How easy it was for sickness to spread in the trenches, cold, dark, stagnant, all so close with the sick and the dead laying there. 

Genealife in Lockdown 2. 2021 NFHM Blogging Challenge

In the initial times of the 2020 Lockdown around the world, people were ingenious at finding ways to bring some joy into their lives

Image by: manuel-peris-tirado-fFhhUff5PJ8-unsplash.jpg

Many in high rise apartments played music and sang on their balconies. Others contributed from neighbouring units making up mixed bands, orchestras, and choirs. Much of it was shown on television and so shared internationally. Virtual singing groups formed from well-known musical stars, unknown musicians, parents, and children, even hospital staff.
In one way it was a beautiful time of collective happiness and a ‘sense of community’.

Genea-life in Lockdown 1 NFHM Blogging Challenge

It is National Family History Month in Australia, and I have accepted a challenge to write about Genea-life in Lockdown. Blogging every Sunday in August will be an Olympic effort and tie in with the Olympic Games currently in action in Tokyo, Japan. 

 

We started our second lockdown here in Southeast Queensland on Saturday 31^st July 2021, coincidentally the 50th birthday of my oldest daughter. We couldn’t visit her for the day, as the area she lives in – Central Coast of NSW is considered part of Greater Sydney and has been on lockdown for a while. 

This nasty virus arrived in Australia on 25 January 2020 (my husband’s birthday) when a man returned from Wuhan, Hubei, China, to Victoria and it has spread since then. 

F is for FAMILY. 14 William Street, Port Fairy (Belfast), Victoria. Historical Fiction based on fact.

 

My photo of the Wells family cottage in Port Fairy,

 taken 2014

The little wooden sign painted with a shaky hand (using the

olive paint left from the outside loo) advertised the goods and prices to the passers-by.

He'd always gardened, as had his father before him. The 'green thumb' had been handed on, and he was the lucky one of the five children. Was it a help? Definitely, it meant he'd been able to start work quickly once they found a cottage in their new hometown, named after Belfast in Ireland.