What Did Your Ancestors Do? – Shepherd Family Carriers in the Braidwood District

Lynn Shepherd III Bullock Team in the Main Street of Braidwood taking boiler to Araluen

In my last post "Visiting Past Connections- a Reflection on the Influence of the Gold Rush on our Family History" I mentioned that my father’s family were involved in the carrier business in the Braidwood district. Last week, quite by coincidence,  I received a phone call from a cousin who advised me that Braidwood was celebrating their “Back to Braidwood 175 Years”.  Deciding that this was too good an opportunity to miss, I made plans to return to Braidwood for the celebrations.  Seven generations of the Shepherd family have lived and worked in the Braidwood District since the late 1840’s and it was a good chance to catch up with relatives and follow up on some family tree research.

Braving a cold wet drizzly day, my sister and I set out to join the community to celebrate 175 years of the old gold mining town of Braidwood.  We had a wonderful day watching the parade which featured modes of transport through the times, even a bullock waggon hauled along by  a band of very content cattle.  During the parade there was a re-enactment of the  local bank being held up by a band of whip cracking bush rangers on horseback.  However, the display that really caught my attention was organised by (coincidentally) another distant cousin in the old Braidwood paper shop.  This display featured over 500 large photos of local families and their connection with local industry.  The Shepherd family featured strongly in this display with amazing pictures of the family members and their involvement in the carrier industry. Photos and a description of my return to Braidwood can be found in my recent post "Thankful Thursday - Back to Braidwood 175 Year Celebration".

A little back ground history on the Shepherd family.  (This is very abridged as the Shepherd Family branches now spread far and wide).  Lynn David Shepherd(I) (1795-1845) came to Australia with his wife Elizabeth Mariner and family in 1825 as a member of the Veteran Corps. When he retired from the regiment he was given an allotment of land at Bongbong.  Following Lynn Shepherd I’s death the family moved to the Araluen a gold  mining settlement in the Braidwood district. Elizabeth Shepherd remarried Richard Chappel in 1848 in Braidwood and they continued to live in the Araluen district until their death.  Initially the family were attracted by farming and mining for gold, however they soon recognised that there was an opportunity to provide carting services within the community and out to other centres such as Goulburn and Nelligen.*  

Lynn and Elizabeth's sons, followed by their grandsons worked together, helping each other in the carrying and logging business, transporting wool, gold, timber, mining equipment and stores between the various settlements, gold fields and even as far as Sydney.

The carriers played an important part in supporting and establishing the economy of the district carrying goods to the mining settlements and in later years the timber cutting industries, carrying produce such as timber, wool to the commercial hubs of Goulburn or to Nelligen for shipment to Sydney as well as the transport of mining equipment and boilers between mining centres.  This was a tough way to make a living, camping by the side of the road and travelling on substandard roads that were no more than dirt tracks.  The road over the Clyde Mountain from Braidwood down to Nelligan was particularly hazardous, with many horse teams coming to grief over the side of the mountain. 

Shepherd Brothers resting before taking their teams over the Clyde Mountain

The horse teams and bullock waggon teams were critical to the survival of the early settlers in the remote outlying areas of this area. They travelled along the tracks through all types of weather, some coming to grief as they traversed the precarious roads. One such incident is described "On the evening of October 11th, 1915, the 11 horse team of Johnny Rogers went over the precipitous side of the Clyde Mountain road, near Cabbage Tree Creek.  In the morning all except for 2 horses were found dead.  Such a tragic accident was nothing new in the history of the district, as the steep mountain ridges and flooded rivers and creeks had been a danger and a barrier since the first days of settlement."** 

They travelled through dust, snow and floods with mud up to the axle of their waggon.  One of these hazardous journey's is described in my blog about Angus Shepherd "Angus Shepherd - A story from TROVE"

Searching through TROVE  there are numerous articles that mention the exploits of the Shepherd Family  and other carriers of the district, describing their arduous journey's, pulling extremely heavy loads and providing much needed supplies for those in the outlying areas.

There are many many stories to tell about the escapades, hardships and adventures that were experiences generations of the Shepherd family in the Braidwood district. They lived in a colourful and exciting time, a time of bush rangers, gold mining and discovery.  They along with the other carriers of the district played an important and pivotal role in the settlement of the district.  

I am sure others have some interesting stories to relate about their ancestors and the industries and work they were involved.  It would be great to hear some of these tales!!!

Waggon fully laden with sSupplies at Nelligen on the Clyde River - ready to make the journey over the Clyde Mountain to Braidwood.

______________
* The Shepherd Book, (2001) compiled by Helen Jamieson.
**Braidwood Heritage (1983) Historical Photos and text by Netta Ellis, p.46.

Everyday Llife of our Victorian Ancestors

I've been trying to catch up after the mammoth daily April A-Z Challenge - so just a short piece from me this month on a book that is well worth reading as background material for writing your family history narratives.

Do you want to find out what life was really like for your ancestors living  in Victorian Britain?    

I recommend "How to be a Victorian" by Ruth Goodman, published by the Penguin Group in 2013.

It is  a fascinating read that gives us an insight  into how Victorians lived their daily lives, whether they be rich of poor, town or country based.  

Material has been gathered from contemporary accounts,  letters, diaries, newspapers and magazines.   

The author takes an innovative approach by following a typical routine  day in all its detail  for both men and women;  from the point of waking up - by a servant in a grand house or a"knocker upper" poking a stick at the window of a miner or mill worker's home.

Of added interest are the descriptions by the  author of her attempts to experience some aspects  of Victorian life  - such as doing the laundry, trying out Victorian recipes, heating the home or  struggling into the multi layers of dress.

We often can gather information quite easily on the life of the upper classes. but the emphasis here is very much on the day to day lives  of ordinary people.  

Chapters look at 

• Waking Up
• Getting Dressed 
• A Trip to the Privy
• Personal Grooming
• Breakfast and Midday Meal
• A typical  working day -  for both men & women 
• School
• Leisure Time
• The Evening Meal 
• Before Bed
• Behind the Bedroom Door 

Just one slight niggle - there is hardly anything on the the part church played in people's lives,    which I found surprising, given our perception of the Victorian preoccupation with religions observances.

This is no dry historical textbook, but an engrossing read, (or a book to dip into), to experience what life was really like for our ancestors.   

RECOMMENDED! 

Hello from New Hampshire, USA

Hello!  My name is Heather Wilkinson Rojo.  I've lived for 30 years in New Hampshire, and  I grew up in Beverly, Massachusetts where many of my ancestors lived since the 1630s. I also spent my school years in central Massachusetts in the adorably quintessential New England town of Holden.   I had one set of 5^th great grandparents who were married there in Holden, in the same church where my husband and were married.  Centuries of my ancestors were baptized in the Congregational church in Beverly, where I was baptized, too.

Four years ago I started a blog called Nutfield Genealogy, named for the original grant of land where the first Ulster Presbyterians first settled in 1719.  They renamed it Londonderry in honor of the county in Northern Ireland where they came from.  Their pastor, Reverend James MacGregor of Aghadowey, brought his flock of Scots Irish settlers to Nutfield, and I've learned a lot about them over the past 30 years.  I even learned that I had two Scots Irish minister ancestors, too, but they were in Massachusetts.

I started doing genealogy as a young teen in Holden.  I didn't know any of my ancestors, nor did my parents.  The lucky thing about starting my genealogy young was that I was able to interview my grandparents and their siblings.  My grandmother remembered her grandfather, who was in the Civil War!  I took a few genealogy classes, but I was already hooked on family history. 

In the past 35 years or so I have found a dozen Mayflower ancestors,  several ancestors hung as witches in Salem in 1692, traveled to Europe, Nova Scotia and Hawaii for research, read tons of books, and squinted at miles of microfilm.  I have pages and pages of notes, and many terabits of information and images saved.  It’s now time to take all that information and write up the stories.

Blogging is the perfect platform for a beginning writer.  You need only post a few paragraphs each day.  You can skip days and no one will care, but your followers will care enough to bug you if you take too much time off.  Cousin connections and collaborations with other researchers happen automatically, often by pure serendipity as soon as your blog posts appear in search engines.  All this has happened by luck, even without any planned “cousin bait” blog posts.   

As I write about my New England ancestors, I find deep connections to the area where I live.  It is impossible to drive far without seeing an ancestor’s surname on a street sign or in a cemetery.  Weddings and funerals of friends and relatives are often at churches where my ancestors were married, or in burial grounds where they are interred, too.  After nearly 400 years in just a few counties of Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine I feel rooted in time and history.  But I often think about those voyages across the Atlantic from Europe in the 1600s, and of connecting to my roots abroad.

On the other hand, I married a first generation American.  When I visit his parents’ villages in Spain I feel a deeper connection.  My father-in-law was baptized in a church built over 1200 years ago, and  generations of his family lived in that same spot.  My mother-in-law came from a military family on the border with Portugal where for hundreds, maybe thousands of years the political borders moved back and forth but the people stayed in place as the names of the villages changed.  It truly gives me a feeling that all our family histories go back millenniums as we all get our DNA results and find we are connected.  Even my very British New England Yankee family shares haplogroup H with my Spanish mother-in-law.  Perhaps many millenniums ago we were cousins?

And so according to our Ancestry.com DNA results, my husband has more British ancestry than me, and I have more Iberian ancestry than him.  He has more Irish ancestry than I do, and where did I get Viking DNA? 

That is worldwide genealogy!

So You Wanna Take a Genealogy Research Trip to Vermont?

 Have you been considering making a genealogy research trip to Vermont? I can’t say that I blame you! Vermont is an excellent place for genealogy research. There is a state-wide open records policy, meaning you can go into just about any town or city clerk and say, “Hey, I’m here to do genealogy,” and you’ll be lead to the archive vault. No questions asked. Occasionally you will find a town clerk who is a bit protective with their records and will want to bring you the books directly, though I have found this to be an uncommon occurrence.

Vermont Historical Society (Credit: commons.wikimedia.org)

 The first step in planning your research trip is searching online databases for your Vermont ancestors. FamilySearch.org, a free database, has many of the same records that are found at the Vermont State Archives & Records Administration in Middlesex. Do as much research online as you can so that you will have more time to focus on looking for records not available online once you get to Vermont. At this point you may be asking yourself if it is worthwhile to pay a visit to the state’s archives building since so many records are available online for free. Unfortunately, I don’t have a definitive answer. If you have the time, then it could very well be worthwhile to pay a visit and see if you can uncover new vital records. You may also be interested in exploring the other resources that are available, such as naturalization records, probate court records, and military records (a more complete list of records is available at the Vermont state archives’ website at www.vermont-archives.org).

If you know which town a record is located, or have a pretty good hunch, I recommend you plan a visit to the town clerk. As I previously stated, you will usually be granted unrestricted access to the archives vault at most all town clerk’s offices throughout Vermont, and most often it won’t cost you a dime (unless you want to make photocopies). There are some town clerks that charge a small fee for researching, but it’s not much more than $1 or $2 per hour. Because Vermont is such a rural state with lots of very (VERY) small towns, there is often only one person working at a town clerk’s office, and as such, the town clerk may not always be open during posted business hours. It’s a wise idea to call ahead and make sure someone will be around to let you in (I once drove almost an hour and a half to the tiny little town of Belvidere only to discover the town clerk wasn’t open due to staff shortage).

 

Ethan Allen Homestead, Near Burlington, Vermont (Credit: Doc Searls, Flickr.com)

Be sure to take some time to explore each town you visit. Vermont is filled with interesting museums, parks, and historical landmarks. You may want to pay a visit to the local historical society, where you may even discover more records about your ancestors, the cemetery where your ancestor is buried, or the town’s library to thumb for information in old newspapers or local history books. Take a walk through Main Street and strike up conversations with the locals (many Vermonters love to share their stories of yesteryear, and you never know who may even remember your ancestors).

Some genealogy points of interest in Vermont:

State of Vermont Archives 7 Records Administration

1078 Route 2, Middlesex
Montpelier, Vermont 05633-7701

Phone:  (802) 828-3700

Website: www.vermont-archives.org

Reference Room Hours:  Tuesday – Friday, 9:00am– 4:00pm

Fees: Free

Leahy Library of the Vermont Historical Society

60 Washington Street
Barre, Vermont 05641-4209

Phone: (802) 479-8509

Website: http://vermonthistory.org/research/leahy-library

Hours: Tuesday–Friday 9:00am-4:00; Wednesday 9:00am-8:00pm ; Second Saturdays 9:00am-4:00pm

Fees: $5 for non-members, Free for members

Vermont French-Canadian Genealogical Society

377 Hegeman Ave. (Across from St Police)
Fort Ethan Allen
Colchester, Vermont

Phone: (802) 482-3075

Website: http://www.vt-fcgs.org/

Library Hours:  Tuesday 3:00pm-9:00pm, Saturday 10:00am-4:00pm, and by appointment

Fees: $5 for non-members, Free for members

Roots tourism

Apparently, my Ancestor Swap Challenge I proposed last month was a bit too daunting, as nobody has taken me up to the challenge yet. So instead, I will talk about an aspect of the worldwide genealogy industry that I find fascinating: roots tourism.

Living in a country from where many people emigrated over the centuries (the Netherlands), we get a lot of tourists looking for their roots. I have several clients for whom I have prepared visits, doing research beforehand to find out exactly where their ancestors lived. In some cases, they went there themselves and in other cases I doubled as their tour guide.

I always learn a lot from these trips, especially about my own preconceptions about what is 'normal' :-) Like the time I said "your ancestor lived in the third house" and the client responded "what do you mean, I only see one house?" She had never seen houses that don't have yards between them and did not realize that those houses shared a wall. She saw one house, where I saw twelve!

Roberta Estes and Cheryl Ferverda looking for their ancestors' graves in Baard, Friesland

I am currently working with the archives in Friesland, one of the northern provinces of the Netherlands, to promote roots tourism. The Frisian archives are creating a 'roots package' for people of Frisian descent. They will research their immigrant ancestor's family tree back several generations and create a custom itinerary to show them where their ancestors lived. I participated in the trial last week, which was wonderful. An American client of mine, Roberta Estes, came over to see all the places I had found for her, together with her cousin Cheryl Ferverda. I wrote an impression about the first day of that trip on my blog.

Promoting roots tourism is pretty new in the Netherlands, but I think it has great potential. I know there are similar projects going on in Scotland and Ireland (the Homecoming, the Gathering). In Ireland, local historical societies were asked to reach out to the descendants of the people who left that area and to invite them to come back for a visit. It was a tremendous success. I think such a 'grassroots' approach would work very well in other countries of origin too.

Do you know of any other projects where people visited their places of origin? Do you know of any successful business models or marketing efforts? I would love to exchange ideas so please leave a comment or contact me via my website.

Back in the Stream of Blogging With A Hook

Fishing for Family - You Might Have A Great Catch!
Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net ID-100165715

I am so impressed with people who seem to be able to publish blog posts about all aspects of their family history - from stories about their ancestors, reviews of the software and apps, travel to their ancestral homelands, cemetery visits, research trips and conferences, to in-depth discussions of their methodology. I even have two genealogy friends who have outlined their A-Z Challenge blog posts (thematically) for 2015!

On the other hand, I am one of those bloggers who has the best of intentions, but not the best follow-through. That is one of the reasons that I jumped on this Worldwide Genealogy blogging bandwagon. Although I am busy with a variety of genealogy/family history related projects, I did want to get back into blogging (as that is where most of my personal family history research is found). When Julie Goucher first mentioned the idea, I thought I can post once a month in 2014 and Julie knows where to find me if I don't. I also hoped that the commitment to Worldwide Genealogy would get me back on track with my own blogs (hey it is always a little bit about self-interest). So I signed on and started with baby steps.

I wrote my first four blog posts here as the spirit moved me. All it took was a bit of thought (walking is a great activity to clear your mind and get ideas for blog topics) and a bit of discipline (calendar the publish date, write up the post at least a few days early, and give myself a day to review before hitting the publish button).

Now it was time to take a look at my own blogs (oh, the horror and all those cobwebs!) and see if they could be saved. I have one blog for my paternal side The Keough Corner and one blog for my maternal side Scandia Musings. The first decision was whether to invest the time and effort in updating the layout, cleaning up (actually pruning) the pages, and committing to posting on a regular basis. I spent some time in April doing just that - reading a variety of blogs, playing with colors, fonts, sidebars and widgets - spring cleaning the layout, tweaking the content, and checking out the results. Now I needed a hook - something that would nudge me to post at least once a week.

Enter Cheri Hudson Passey who publishes her blog at least weekly using the meme of writing about her family history calendar - she uses the calendar creator/list feature in Legacy to note the birthdays and anniversaries of people in her family tree. She borrowed this meme from Linda McCauley (one of my partners in crime over at the Legacy Virtual Users' Group Community on Google+). This looked like a great plan to get me back in the blogging stream with baby steps.

Using Legacy (most of the genealogy database programs have this same feature) - I print to PDF the calendar list for any given month - in my case, one for my Murphy-Keough direct line (tag 1) and one for my Zagradisnik-Lidman direct line (tag 2). Then I go to my Legacy database and check out the family members whose names are in the upcoming week to get a bit more of their back story. The first time I did this I spent a few hours doing a bit of research to fill in some blanks. This is a great way to focus on family members you might miss otherwise - and who should not be remembered on their birthday or anniversary? It is also interesting to see who had a birthday in any given month (if you are into astrology at all  you will find those family members who share a sign - as in "oh, that explains it, he was an Aries").

If you are getting back into the blogging habit or thinking about blogging for the first time, why not try a meme (simply a hook) to get you started. And nothing could be easier or more rewarding than to focus on your own family. An added benefit - if you use the names, dates, places, and a bit of their story, you might just get a nibble on that cousin bait hook you put in the internet stream. I have already heard from two potential connections this past month.

Cousin Bait Anyone?
Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net ID-100224539

So, why not try fishing for ancestors. Do you have suggestions for topics that make blogging a bit easier and/or more fun for you? Please share them with the rest of us in the comments section. Now it's time to bait those hooks (I fish on Sundays).

Gone Fishing!
Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net ID-10028030

Family History - A Key to Meaningful Conversation

I am presently on the high seas on a cruise ship and have lost track of time. I note that the post for the 3rd of May has already appeared but I also note that in Hawaii and other places in the Pacific it is still the 2nd of May so I am bashing out a post and hoping that the ship's internet will behave and allow me to post it before midnight.

What strikes me as I enter into conversations with fellow cruisers and visit sites in various countries is that many people outside my genealogy circle are interested in family history especially if it relates to a place or location familiar to them. Being able to make a connection with a fellow traveller from a village or town through a story of one of my ancestors from that area breaks down barriers and enables one to enter into meaningful and interesting conversations. 

I just had coffee with a Scotsman who loves whisky, he was waiting for the bar to open. When I told him we had ancestors from Islay, home of eight malt whisky distilleries, we were able to skip those questions one normally asks when meeting someone new and launch into a meaningful conversation about Islay, the clearances and beautiful 12th century Scottish Churches. That gentleman is presently paying someone to research his Scottish roots. When his wife from Aberdeen joined us I told her of my issues in tracing my "James Duncan" from Aberdeen ; she wished me luck and said "That is like trying to find John Smith".

Yesterday a lady noted that I had a Familysearch pen and that started a conversation. It turns out that she is an avid family historian and was most impressed that I had such a prize. Our conversation immediately turned to the village in which she lives, the lectures she attends and a discussion of the  1801, 1811, 1821 and 1831 English Censuses.

The Americans on this trip are well travelled but very few of them have ventured to the genealogy mecca of Salt Lake City. So many have been interested in our stories of visits to that place for Rootstech and The Family History Library and have asked many probing questions..

On this trip I have connected with people from the UK, Ireland, Canada and the US with whom I have been able to discuss family history and places that are familiar to them. My family history stories have given me a set of keys to enter into interesting conversations with fellow travellers.

What is in Your Wardrobe?

There are many historical treasures held in individuals hands, many of whom are so accustomed to the item they don't realise its significance.

A case in point is this amazing discovery which has become a cornerstone for a new exhibition in Brisbane.

Serendipity also played a role as if Trish had not gone to the presentation she would not have known about the upcoming display. Of course then she also actually spoke to someone rather than thinking "oh I don't think anyone would be interested"

as you saw people were very, very interested and this painting which had a frame falling to pieces and had been wrapped in plastic and towels and placed gently into a wardrobe where it sat for at least 30-40 years is the only (known) painting or image of St Helena prison while it was a working prison (the one near Brisbane not the one where Napoleon spent his days). The other image they have is from 1914 after it had stopped being a prison.

It does make you wonder what other treasures may be hidden in someone's wardrobe.

In this electronic age we have the ability to share (and this blog is a perfect example of this) our stories. 

I am very thankful for the people who also share other people's stories. A case in point was this photo on Flickr of Norman George Busby which I will duplicate here.

This kind person ( who is also a great researcher and I thank them for it!) found a suitcase in their attic when they bought their house and it contained photos, postcards, letters,  memorial cards and more. They did not relate to their own family but they became intrigued and started doing some research. 

Then they scanned the contents and put them onto Flickr with information they had researched. I came across it because a Google search (Busby and Coombe). Norman is my third cousin twice removed and he died in World War One.   Our ancestor in common was Moses Busby born 1790 in Coombe Oxfordshire..

So what if this person (lossow.vamp) had found the case and just discarded it as rubbish? Or had found it and thought they were nice and put them onto Flickr without doing any research and adding detail about the family? Without these items found in the suitcase Norman would have been a name on a memorial with some information around him but not a person he has now become.

With Flickr, Facebook, our blogs, family history society journals there are many ways we can share some of our precious items, even some of those photos of people who may be named but don't link into our family except as a friend, neighbour or workmate. Someone might be looking for them!

Our old photos also have value such as the old photo of great-aunt Mary having a picnic at the beach in the 1920s which shows clothing, entertainment, maybe the shops of that area and so much more. There are a number of Facebook groups that showcase old photos of an area so why not look and see what is available for your area? 

A number of libraries, archives and museums are also putting up pictures onto Flickr so don't forget to do a search there as well. Google will pick up a lot of things but I still consider it worthwhile searching Flickr too.

So what treasures do you have in your wardrobe?

History is all around....

Is it me, or does the time seem to fly past? My Grandmother always said that was a sign of ageing and perhaps she was right.

At the start of this blog I had planned to share an galaxy of historical information with you all each month. Sadly, my domestics and the loosing my Mum stopped my organic flow of writing. I became somewhat absorbed in a variety of things linked in some way to Mum. We all have our own way of dealing with death and the aftermath of something that is inevitable and yet has the power to know you so out of kilter.

A few months ago I was talking to +Tessa Keough who used the expression of "tooting your own horn".The UK equivalent is blowing your own trumpet and I much prefer the US version. Anyway, I am not one to blow my own trumpet, that involved too much breath and tooting my own horn is well, simply not done, or at least I don't feel comfortable with that. BUT, I am going to, just this month and hopefully you will see why in a paragraph or so.

Then earlier this week, I wrote the phrase, "Yesterday is already history" and indeed it is. The hardest thing I have ever done was to add my Mum's death date to my genealogy program. I can not even express how hard that was. The realisation that Mum, my Mum, had passed from being a loving living soul to an ancestor in the blink of an eye. The good genealogist in me, wrote the obituary with all the genealogical loveliness I could manage.

I then was thinking that so much of what we each do, demonstrates our character, our interests. All those little bits of randomness that take an individual with their dates, in various stages - what I call hatched, matched and dispatched (I read that somewhere, can't recall where), and turn a name and dates into an individual. A person who does all the things that we do, that unless captured are simply cast aside with the test of time.

So having set the scene, I am ready to toot my own horn.  I do hope you all ready to read, share and toot that horn with me and for yourself.

One of two quilts made by Christine Butcher
in the ownership of Julie Goucher

Anyone who has read my blog posts of late, or seen my Google+ stream will already have seen mention of this. Mum was a very keen seamstress. It took me heading into adulthood to realise just what a skill it was for Mum to make some of my dresses, knit some of my woollen clothing and create a quilt that I had on my childhood bed. I didn't see the wonder, didn't express the gratitude and didn't appreciate it for the skill and love Mum exhibited. Mum on her demise left more fabric, sewing equipment and knitting than I can shake a stick at. If you are not familiar with that saying, it means way to much!

I absolutely could not give it away. That was out of the question. It felt disloyal. So I had to keep it all. I thought I could make a quilt. Mum is I hope, looking down on me, smiling and I am sure saying you will never in a million years get those two sewing machines to work. (Mum had two, why was only known to Mum). I cast my mind back to the support, love and friendship I received whilst Mum was unwell and in the days following. Social media is phenomenal.

I thought further and realised that if we take one of life's certainties and the fact that we have all lost someone, we can each commemorate that individual. To create something that brings "alive" the wonder and love we felt for someone in a here and now concept whilst sharing an historical moment, some details of their life and contribution.

So in the spirit of "tooting my own horn" I am sharing this, that I launched last week, on the 19th anniversary of my Grandmother's death.

The In Memory of .....Quilt

All the details are on the page, the background, the idea, the how to take part and the Facebook page.
I even wrote a small presentation for those that like video's!


Please share and consider taking part. Help us to create a piece of history.

A little earlier this week, I read a post on a genealogical friend's Facebook wall about the demise of letter writing. Her late Mum was a prolific letter writer and therefore she has launched a project which is called Snail Mail Day. Then a day later I came across another project, commemorating another lost and fragile life, The Primrose Project.

These projects, enable us to give comfort to friends that are dealing with loss, they enable a legacy of a loved one to go forth into the future and most of all they commemorate an individual who meant so much to their families.

As I said, History is all around.

Until next times folks!

To do lists in Evernote

I have enjoyed reading how others use Evernote to help with their family history research.

Screenshot from my desktop version

My main collecting point for my family history is my tree on ancestry.com synched with a tree on my desk top computer using Family Tree Maker and also on my iPad using the ancestry.com app.

For research projects though I use Evernote. In particular if there is a book, a manuscript, a database I want to look up and explore I add it to Evernote with the questions I want answered and tag it with the relevant surname  and the repository plus to do.

The same to do list on my phone - I can click on a note to bring up the content

For example if there is a manuscript in the State Library of Victoria, I will tag it with SLV to do. When I get down to the SLV then all my to dos can be grabbed together by retrieving notes that are tagged. Once I have completed the to do I might collect my findings against that note and updating the tags by removing the to do tag but replacing it with the repository, ie the tag SLV to do is replaced with SLV.

I use this for interstate repositories too, for example the State Library of South Australia which I get to visit less than once a year. It is really useful to have collected in advance all the things I want to achieve there as I think of them.

Evernote is synchronised across my desktop computer, my iPad and my android phone. Thus I have my to do list with me all the time.

See also  Diane Hewson's post in February on collaborating with Evernote: http://worldwidegenealogy.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/evernote-collaboration-sharing-of-tips.html

Passing Things Down

This week, I received two big boxes from my mother.  They contained belongings of my father's maternal grandmother, Sarah Adeline "Addie" O'Hara Hall.   Our family has very few family heirlooms and now I am keeper of these.  I have a few other things from other branches that may appear in a future post.  One of my plans for this year is to make a catalog of the family treasures we do have so that my children will know what they are and to whom they belonged.
Since my grandmother saved these bowls to pass down to my dad, they were important to her and probably special to her mother as well.  Having them in my possession has made me wonder about Addie this week and so this month's post is about her family.

Addie's floral china bowl

Addie's glass bowl on a stand

Addie was born in Kansas City, KS to James O'Hara and Emaline Jane Reynolds in 1879.  She and I share a birthday -- 86 years apart.  She died in 1970 when I was four years old, but I never met her.  She and her husband, Arthur Hall, had six children.  I never met any of them except for my grandmother, Treasa.  I feel a loss not having known them.  I knew/know, or at least met, most of the siblings of my other three grandparents.  

Arthur and Addie Hall

A few generations of my grandmother's family can be easily traced through census records that are available online.  However, my mother did most of the work before online census searches were available.

On the 1910 census, Arthur Hall is listed as a mechanic.  Besides himself and Addie, his household consisted of his first three children, son Postelle, daughter Vera, and baby son Lawell who had not yet been named.  Also living with them were Arthur's father, Milton Hall and Addie's father, James O'Hara -- the Mark Twain-looking fellow in the outdoor family picture below.  Sometimes Addie's brothers, Tom and Harvey lived with the family as well.  In other censuses, Arthur is listed as a farmer.  Arthur and Addie's children were born in Oklahoma, but the family also lived in Florida and Georgia.

The Hall family c1915

Someone wrote 1916 on this photo, but I'm pretty sure it was taken in 1917 because my grandma is the baby in her uncle's arms and she was born in the middle of 1916.

The family picture has Howie, Florida written on it.  My grandmother was born in Oklahoma and the family is on the census, owning a farm in Leesburg, Florida in 1920.  So they moved shortly after she was born.  At some point, they bought a Florida citrus farm, but suffered a freeze the first year and lost the farm.  Howey-in-the-Hills, Florida was across Lake Harris from Leesburg.  It was incorporated in the mid-20's when it's founder, William John Howey, was looking for buyers for his citrus land.  I wonder if Arthur and Addie purchased their ill-fated property from him.  By 1930, they had moved to Georgia.  Arthur never recovered from the heartbreaking loss of his farm.  He became ill and died in 1934 at 61 years of age.  My grandmother was the only child left at home by this time.

Addie, pregnant with my grandmother

Arthur a few years before his death

My grandmother, Treasa

Addie's father, James O'Hara, was a house painter.  Some census records say he was born in New York.  Other sources say he was born in Ireland and came to the USA as a young child.

Addie's mother, Emaline Jane Reynolds, was born in Iowa and spent most of her life in Kansas.  Beers and Proper are other surnames in Emaline's line.  We know James O'Hara's father was Patrick O'Hara, but we don't know any other surnames from this line.

"Pocahontas" Alias Metoaka and Her Descendants

Since I'm from the oldest surviving English colony in the United States, I thought I'd focus this month on one of the most famous Native Americans from Virginia: Pocahontas. She had one son but her descendants now number in the tens of thousands. There are several ancestor associations, which people may join if they can prove their descent from Pocahontas.

Rev. James Mitchell is my 4X great grand uncle

My relationship to Pocahontas is very tortuous and certainly wouldn't gain me admission to any Pocahontas ancestor association were I to want to join. I find it interesting nonetheless as every elementary school history book I was required to use included a chapter on her. I am from Virginia after all!

Matoaka "Pocahontas" also known as Rebecca Rolfe, engraving by 

Simon van de Passe; courtesy of Wikipedia

When I was researching her descendants, I discovered a wonderful old book on Google Play, Pocahantas and Her Descendants, written by Wyndam Robertson and published in 1887.  

The book included seven generations of Pocahontas descendants, including Wyndham Robertson (1803-1888) himself. Robertson included a delightful declaration of love by John Rolfe:

"Pocahontas…to whom my hartie and best thoughts are, and have long bin so entangled and inthralled in so intricate a laborinth, that I was even awearied to unwinde myselfe thereout." 

Wyndham Robertson, painting by Louis Mathieu Didier Guillaume; 

courtesy of Wikipedia

Robertson was the acting governor of Virginia from 1836 to 1837. As senior member of the Council of State, he was also Lt Governor when Governor Littleton Waller Tazewell resigned the office.  At the time the legislature elected the governor and it was controlled by the Whigs so Robertson was not returned to office in 1837. After his term was over he was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates several times and was in that office during Virginia's struggles over secession from the Union. Robertson was a staunch Unionist and tried to prevent secession. 

When Abraham Lincoln made his call for troops on April 15, 1861, Wyndham Robertson became "zealously active in all measures in defense of his state." After the Civil War he served on the Committee of Nine, which sought Virginia's readmission into the Union. After long and faithful service to Virginia, he retired and wrote his genealogy book. He died on February 11, 1888, and is buried at Cobbs, Virginia.

He later said about his service to his state during the Civil War:

"And now, after twenty years of experience of yet unripened results, I have no regrets, nor repent a single act of my State, or myself, in these unhappy affairs -- welcoming the end of slavery, but still believing it would have been reached without the horrors of war."


And this is yet another reason I love old books so much -- not only are the subjects of the books fascinating so are their authors.

_______________

Genealogy books are great references but should be considered just that a reference. They are not sources. Even experienced researchers make mistakes. And one of those mistakes put me on a trail that ended Pocahontas. For several months, I believed my sister-in-law descended from the Bermuda Tucker family based on a Tucker genealogy book that claimed her 6 times great grandfather's father was a Henry Tucker of Bermuda. But DNA has proved that the author confused several Henry Tuckers, who lived in Southampton County, Virginia, in the late 1600s. The Bermuda Tuckers married into the Randolph family,  one of the first families of Virginia, that do descend from Pocahontas, but my sister-in-law's Tucker line still deadens with Benjamin Tucker (1714-1799).