1st January Birthdays over the years in my Family Tree.

For fun, I thought I would check who were my related New Year babies. I used the Publish tool in Family Tree Maker to find who was in my Calendar for that date.

 

First, I found a young man, living in Australia, who is a 1^st cousin twice removed in our descending family. 

Then the excitement of finding twins born in 1899 in Scotland -- John R Dalgleish who died in 1947 and his brother Stanley Dalgleish who died 50 years later in 1977. However, they are extremely distantly linked -- being brothers-in-law to a great uncle!

 

My best ancestral link and New Year baby was Alexander Shanks born in 1820 in Lisnabrague, Co Down, Northern Ireland. 

 

 

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.