This week’s Sepia Saturday is about the horse, the cart and the drivers. While my Denis Gavin from Kildare and Dublin worked as a bullocky out west when he first arrived in Queensland I have no photos of him, or his bullock dray. Many of my ancestors also rode the iron rails but today’s photo … More Men of the Queensland Bush: Sepia Saturday 249
This week’s Sepia Saturday 243 is one of those topics where a personal theme leaps to mind. Every family has its story traditions and family anecdotes, perhaps even about get-rich schemes and near misses. All my life Dad used to tell the story of “the one that got away” in our family. My grandfather who … More A near miss in Coolangatta: Sepia Saturday 243
Last Saturday’s Sepia Saturday 242 theme was fans, costumes etc in which host and coordinator Alan amused with his comments:I have never been a fan of fans. Whether they are slats of painted paper or those large metallic jobs that whirr around and threaten to lift your hairpiece into space, I would never volunteer to act … More Sepia Saturday 242: A costume fan
Our good friend Trove has done it again! I mentioned in my East Clare post last week that I was waiting on a new release news story which looked tantalisingly optimistic. It’s now been released and has exceeded my hopes. Regular readers will recall my excitement back in late December when I found a clue … More Trove does it again – Bridget Widdup and the Florentia
In the early months of 1915, two young brothers enlisted to serve their country in the First World War. It’s unlikely they felt they were going to fight to defend “home” and the “motherland” as their grandparents and uncles were German-born, not unlike my own Kunkel relatives. Perhaps they felt they needed to defend their … More Two brothers go to war: Les and Fred Fisher
In my previous post I mentioned the newspaper remarks of problems on board the barque Florentia, and my hopes of getting to the bottom of the mystery…and finding reference to Mary O’Brien. Only a matter of hours after disembarking from Voyager of the Seas in Sydney I was ensconced in the reading room at State … More Was it all fun and games on Florentia?
Growing up as a child in Queensland, we had a large Queensland nut tree in our back garden. Now known as macadamias, these nuts make you work hard to get to their delicious centres (unless you buy them stripped bare). First you have to work through the hard protective casing around the nut, unless it’s … More Mixing my metaphors: Macadamias and Glass Slippers
My East Clare Emigrants blog has been neglected since the cruise but today I was determined to add a story, and the one I’d selected was about Mary Ann Morton, nee Massy. One thing led to another, as it does, and eventually I also followed up her husband, James Morton. An Irishman born in Ballymena, … More Trove Tuesday: James Morton of Ballymena, County Antrim and Grafton, NSW.
I’ve just begun an e-book of short stories, A First Place, by David Malouf. Absorbing stories written by Australians always seem slightly disorienting, so accustomed are we (or is it only me?) to reading books whose settings are elsewhere. Which came first, the sense that “other is better”, leading to the exodus of much of Australia’s … More My thoughts on David Malouf’s A First Place
Shauna Hicks is writing a 52 week series on genealogical records to “stimulate her genealogy blogging efforts”. She’s invited us to join her on the journey and while I’m behind, how could I miss out on the Week 7 topic: local histories…. after all they take up a fair bit of my bookshelf space. Why local histories? … More The joys of local histories
Family history across the seas 