Above The Fold

Today I had the honour of meeting Aussie author and screenwriter, Peter Yeldham, at Tuggerah Library as he launched his latest novel 'Above The Fold'. I first discovered his writing when I found his book The Currency Lads, about two boys in 1830's Sydney. Early Australian historical fiction is my favourite genre, and this book is wonderful, as are all of his novels. Each one teaches me about a period in history or historical figures that I didn't know much about previously. He was an engaging speaker, and signed my copy which is next on the very tall "to read" pile.

I'm particularly looking forward to reading this novel as Peter's character is a journalist covering issues such as the British nuclear testing in South Australia, which my grandmother's brother was involved in as a Squadron Leader for the Royal Australian Air Force. Uncle Geoffrey Tuck was ordered by the British to fly through the mushroom clouds and follow their drift. He refused to let his men do this, but followed orders himself, and died only a few years later from a rare form of cancer. I'll be writing more about this war hero in the near future.

Love over time is the same

I just love this picture. It just goes to show that our ancestors weren't all stuffy and serious all the time, even if their photos make it look like they were (well, maybe some actually were, but that's their problem). I wonder what they'd make of the silly faces we pull nowadays for our phone cameras.

Love doesn't change over time, just how we record it.

From the Twisted Twigs on Gnarled Branches Facebook page

Sign here

I've recently discovered a new addition to Ancestry, the New South Wales Land Grants 1788 - 1963. They are provided to Ancestry through the awesome State Records NSW. Much as I love visiting their facility, it's great to not have to trek to Kingswood, and be able to look these records up from my lounge room. I have several ancestors and their partners who received land grants, including Thomas Dixon, Richard Brownlow, Esther Spencer, James Brackenreg, and Joseph Bigge. These records are fantastic for helping me figure out exactly where these parcels of land were, and other little snippets of information. Eg, one of my ancestors (Esther's daughter and my 4x great grandmother) was born Mary Ann Spencer. Spencer was her mother's surname, and even though she had Thomas Stubbs as her partner and father of her child, because they weren't married Mary Ann was christened as a Spencer. Thomas does get a mention on the christening record, though. So Mary Ann grew up and married Charles James Brackenreg, named after his father, James Brackenreg, who was a soldier on the Second Fleet. Charles was almost always known as James, which makes it nice and confusing of course. These land grant records showed me two things that I love: one is that Mary Ann was known as Marian, and secondly, these grants were all signed by the Purchaser, so now I have actual signatures for some of my people!! By comparing the signatures on land grants to Charles James and grants to James, I could tell that the grant was to the same man, the son of the soldier, because the signature was the same on each record. I find it thrilling to see these people's names hand written on the page. It really brings them to life for me. I was happy to see Marian's name as that, to help differentiate her from her daughter-in-law who was also Mary Ann, but also to know that she had a pet name within the family, like a lot of us do.

Esther wasn't literate, as far as I can tell, and/or maybe they didn't ask for the spouse's signature on documents back in the 1830's, so I've never seen anything signed by her. I would love to have faces to put to these names, but sadly they had all died before photography took hold. Having their signatures is the next best thing!

Charles James Brackenreg 1797 - 1878

Thomas Dixon 1801 - 1847

Richard Brownlow 1794 - 1845

Joseph Bigge 1768 - 1833

This ends all world confusion - well, about the British Isles at least

I've often wondered about which label was the correct one when describing various countries or groups of countries in the British Isles, and thanks to the Grammar Girl Facebook page there's an easy to follow diagram.

In a nutshell:

The Channel Islands are Guernsey and Jersey.

The Crown Dependencies are the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands (above).

Great Britain is a combination of England, Scotland and Wales.

The United Kingdom is Great Britain plus Northern Ireland.

The British Islands are the United Kingdom plus the Crown Dependencies.

Ireland consists of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

The British Isles is all of the above!

Source: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/whats-the-difference-between-england-great-britain-and-the-uk

The British Government were a busy lot when you also add in their British Overseas Territories of Akrotiri and Dhekelia, Anguilla, Bermuda, British Antarctic Territory, British Indian Ocean Territory, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Montserrat, Pitcairn Islands, Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands. On top of that they also have the 53 Commonwealth of Nations countries (usually ex-territories), which includes Australia and Botswana among many others.

So in case you were wondering...................now you know!
 

One lovely nomination, and an interview with a Genie Down Under

In early September I was thrilled to be included in Geniaus Jill Ball's nominations for the One Lovely Blog award. Thanks Jill! I haven't had time to nominate others as we've been away for 3 weeks touring NSW in a campervan during the school holidays - travelling 5,000 kilometres!! I'm creating a separate blog for our family travels, which of course includes many cemetery visits, even if none of my people are buried there. The cemeteries I photographed this trip will be coming up on this blog, but the travel photos and maps will be on the new one.

Before we left I was interviewed my the lovely Maria Northcote, who is the genealogical genius behind the Genies Down Under podcasts. Maria's podcasts and blog feature all things genealogical, but with an Australian twist. This particular episode is 39+ minutes long, but my interview doesn't take up the whole amount of time. 

In late October last year Maria and I were lucky enough to be drawn from the ballot to do the Tank Stream Tour beneath the streets of Sydney's CBD . Here is Maria's blog post about the trip.