Accentuate the positive 2023- the lost, found and convoluted stories of 2023

 

 

 

My focus in 2023 was to revisit research on my great grandmother. My goal this year was to unlock the mysteries of her of my grandmother’s relationship with her mother, Mary McLaughlan.

This was a family found in lost and found again. My Covid findings became a Covid fuddled mix-up and much had to be deleted from the tree at one stage.

Still a few mysteries with my grandmother Lavinia Strelley, but her mother Mary’s family eventually unfolded before my eyes with a little information about their origins in Ireland, still to be a project this next year.

I got generousity from the lady who works in a Scottish genealogy society and gets access to lots of Scotland People records. She attached plenty of good ones to her tree. I still spent a fortune on certificates this year, but her findings managed to help me find what I needed.

 

I managed to attend a few New South Wales archives webinars. Having used up most of my local records and sources, my focus is now on wills, probates and divorce cases. A personal visit to Kingswood will save me heaps but if all else fails I’ll throw cash at getting some files digitised and sent to me.

Hooking up with someone else’s cousins A Genea surprise came in the form of a DNA message on an Ancestry tree while doing a project for a cousin. It piqued my interest and that lead to more and more of the story of my relatives’ grandmother sad early life. Through some clever detective work by someone with DNA matches Mary Thelma’s mysterious mother’s and father’s real names have been revealed.  All the cousins coming out of the woodwork or is that the closet? It is incredible and of course leads to more unanswered questions.  Mary Williams Campbell Begg and Maria Wheelhouse have been revealed. Believe me it has been an Australian wide project you. I was impressed by the detective, work of the big family in making the Wheelhouse connection through DNA. It is much more fun when people share and collaborate. 

I'll acknowledge here the power of Ancestry's algorithm. Two very dis-similar names and the syncing with  Family tree maker program managed to throw up the most useful hint - I love it when technology works! 

 

Same woman - different name and they had a photo!

A social media post I am most proud of during the year. The Henderson’s Hat building burnt down in Sydney. I have written about the famous business as my husband’s mother, grandfather and step grandmother were entwined in the story “Love and Other madness at the Hatworks”. Not only was the Facebook post reminding people of the story gathering speed but through the magic of tagging the post anyone googling Hendersons during the tragedy boosted the people visiting the blog. Eventually my pictures got used in a TV television story. Later a second Facebook discussion followed about copyright and TV journalists knowing better manners and etiquette.

 My most valuable subscription this year was multiple points purchased for Scotland’s People. Despite the number of wrong certificates, I purchased. I do love the instant gratification. It is like a poker machine addiction. I will just have one more pull.

 It is great that the National Archives Australia is slowly releasing digitised World War II records. I followed up on my son-in-law’s grandfather Max Palmer.  Much was revealed to the next generation, and it got the family talking about him in a good way. 

The genealogist of the future will despair at the lack of graves, church records and funeral notices. Somewhere down the line someone will start archiving and recording funerals that have eventuated from the Covid funeral video trend, and the availability of technology for people to watch online. I love it recorded eulogy!

I finally completed the revised Frank Kelf memoir started years ago. With newly inserted photos, pilot records, and expanded story I’m publishing it, regardless of the lack of effort to proof and fact check it for me by “people who know who they are.”

 

 

It’s been a year of updating the records.  People I have discovered mainly remotely through Ancestry and DNA research – the hatches, matches and dispatches for 2023 have had a few updates. Vale Mark Overton, Jessie Martin, Brian Cassidy, Airdrie Petersen, Airdrie Srath, Wendy Cornish, Patricia Hepworth, Di Hansor.  The hatches and matches I’ll leave off due to privacy. Lots of babies expanding the field, especially on the Kelf side. Congratulations to all.

I post I’ll need to write next year… Dealing with the end of life, wills or lack of, and probate has consumed me this year. We don’t do “wills “well in my family.  My experience of the past few years shows that you need to get good advice. Cross all the T’s and dot all those Is lovely people.

I’ve read the New South Wales Successions Act from cover to cover, and what don’t I know about invalid wills now? Don’t start me on legislation to do with cemetery plots. Considering Willing your interest in a spare plot to save on interment, land space and heartache.

Another positive I’d like to share is… I was certainly valuable being the Family Historian this year. Even the solicitor was impressed with how much I saved them buying birth, death and marriage certificates and my knowledge of who was who in the tree.

When the solicitor said "I don't suppose you have Bryce's death cert...."

I’ve written a lot but I hate the tidying up process. I wrote a lot of blogs about my research and some reflective posts. Plenty are still in draft because the research is not quite happening. Not all are ready for public publication.  

Yikes, my family booked a trip to Japan at the beginning of Covid

 

I’d like to start a movement where people record some reflections on how Covid pandemic and isolation affected your own family.  We don’t have much on how our family coped 100 years ago and what changed. It would be nice to record it this time.  

I might have been down on my blog count this year, but the interest is there and collaboration has been up. It is not so lonely, and I find the results are greater than the sum of the parts. Collaboration brings local knowledge and perspectives expanded research and bigger brains trust. We all have different favourite “go to“  websites. I might find the shipping list where someone else finds a relevant article on a cattle station.

I’m up to 91000 hits on my Robyn and the Genies Blog and 7343 on my Schweidnitz POW Camp blog.

As usual my range of Facebook groups has expanded. I love my love, my local Aussie ones, but the Irish, Scottish and British ones are a great fall back.

I’ve attended a number of writing courses to strengthen my biographical skills on the blogs. I particularly enjoyed Voices from the Past- Memoir Writing Workshop by Christine Sykes, and Gwen Wilson and a Biography and Ghost-writing talk by Jeff Apter.

 I finally got a cousin to sit down with a photocopy of his photo album and pen to label his photos. We had an enjoyable morning driving to a funeral, chatting about people he recognised in the photos and his memories. The bonus was meeting up with cousins. You know what they say – “we only see each other at weddings and funerals. “

“we only see each other at weddings and funerals. “

 I’m glad I read my fifth cousin Simon Smith’s  newly published book “A Man Of Honour”.  It has snippets of Allan family history inserted in this true story about Henry James O’Farrell’s failed attempt in 1868 to assassinate Queen Victoria’s , son Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh in Sydney.   Worth the wait Simon- I want more of your beautiful writing.

My goal for next year is transcribing Lucy Harris’ diaries from her pioneer days in Swan Valley Western Australia circa 1830s

 

Merry Christmas  and a productive 2024 to all the Geneabloggers out there. 

Robyn xxx

Accentuate the Positive 2023 #