Edward and Ivy's wedding portrait taken on 27 November 1907 Just like mitochondrial DNA, a lot of family history stories are carried down the women’s line, both the facts and the myths that may be more economical with the truth. When the women in my family get together they usually exchange a lot of information and talk about different topics than the men in the family generally do. That’s how I came to hear the tale from my aunty, who heard it from her aunties, that my great-grandmother, Ivy Lorne Cruickshank, had been disinherited by her father because she married a Catholic. Th ..read more

A Guide to Searching the Find a Grave website  Why Use Find a Grave? The Find a Grave website is one of the most popular tools for genealogists to locate burials and cemeteries both within Australia and internationally. This site is a way of seeing a headstone on an ancestor’s grave that you may never get to travel to. By becoming a member, you can also connect with other members and contact distant cousins. History of the Find a Grave Website Launching in 1998, Find a Grave[i] was created by an American man, Jim Tipton, as a way of combining the graves of celebrities and famous people in ..read more

 A family secret came to light because my great-uncle Gus (Thomas Augustine O'NEILL) told his brother, Cyril. Before he died, Cyril told his daughter, Monica, and she told me a few years ago. Thomas Augustine ("Gus") O'NEILL 1908-1998 Gus told Cyril that he was paying child support for the child of a female friend of his. This baby wasn't his, but he was a beautiful, generous man and was doing this to help his friend, and I guess, to spare her some shame in the insular mining town of Cessnock, New South Wales, in the 1920s and 1930s. The child was actually fathered by the loca ..read more

My great-great-grandfather was Henry Burgess GIBB. He was born in Paddington (an inner-city suburb of Sydney) in 1864, and died near Teralba, near Lake Macquarie, New South Wales in November 1901. He died in his tent as he worked as part of the unemployed relief works at the railway. The coroner suggested that his fatal wound was self-inflicted, which is sad to read, especially about a relative. Henry had a letter from his father, John GIBB, on him when he died, so thankfully he was able to be identified. There are a few newspaper articles outlining the gory details if that's your thing...The ..read more

Thanks to Jill from GeniAus for kicking us off in 2020 with her Accentuate the Positive Geneameme 2019. 1.  An elusive ancestor I found was Les Snider, a half-brother to my grandfather, George Millard Kerville. I only found him because the boy's mother, Marion Snider, was advertising in the Melbourne newspapers for my great-grandfather, Leo Brenell Gabriel, to claim child maintenance from him. The poor little mite died at six weeks, only two weeks after the Police Gazette entry. He was admitted to the Receiving Depot for Neglected Children at Brunswick, Victoria. Very sad. 2.  A great newspa ..read more

While at a RootsTech London pre-conference dinner in October I finally got to meet genealogical crime mystery author Nathan Dylan Goodwin, whose books I have written about here. My father is a DNA match with his aunt, and while he has cracked the case and worked out the exact link, I don't recognise any of the family names. My relative, Barry, lives near the setting of Nathan's books, so he gave me a guided tour of his local area and all of the prominent locations. We visited Rye together, the location of Morton's home, The House With Two Front Doors. It was a dream come true to visit Rye ..read more

In September a few friends and I attended a celebration for History Week at State Archives in Kingswood, NSW. This included a tour of their back rooms and kilometres of archival shelving. The number of stories contained in this shelving is enormous ..read more

Looking back over 2019 it has been a wonderful year for family history, with many conferences attended, my first trip to England for RootsTech London, and the launch of a book I contributed an ancestor biography to. On 30th July, I went with Maria from the Genies Down Under podcast to the Lovett Gallery at Newcastle Library to attend a book launch and Blessing of the Bonnets as part of a worldwide female convict bonnets exhibition. There were over 1000 bonnets on display, lovingly made by a descendant of these convict women, or a volunteer. Since 2007, Dr Christina Henri has been working on ..read more

In November I returned from a 2-week trip to England where I attended my first RootsTech extravaganza. I arrived the weekend before so I could spend a few days with relatives in Hailsham, East Sussex. The conference ran for three full days, and I squeezed in everything possible so as to maximise my time there. I was lucky and had won a free pass from John at Antecedentia. Jill from Geniaus is an experienced RootsTech attendee and she organised a dinner the night before for us Aussies. Meeting a few other people was great, although I already knew most of them from previous conferences in Austr ..read more

While researching the land petitions and dealings of my convict ancestor, Esther Salamon Spencer Stubbs Bigge, I came across a document (1) at State Archives New South Wales which quoted: That your petitioner has been a resident in this Colony thirty seven years during which period she has resided in Phillip Street Sydney and maintained herself and a numerous family by her own industry. That your petitioner has had sixteen children Ten of whom are now alive and also Twenty one Grand-children now living. 1831 letter to Colonial Secretary (1) This letter was written for Esther by someone unrec ..read more