Globe trotting

 In today's genealogical wanderings I discovered a most wonderful saga.

It began when an Irish widow and a Somerset widower had a drink or two together in their middle years in a corner of the world the other side from when they came.

His childhood sweetheart Esther had given birth to at least 10 children in 20 years and the youngest surviving child to 12 before she had considered her duty here on earth done when she left it.

One of those 10 children she gave birth to whilst voyaging to the new land (having left her oldest at home in the earth, with a toddler at her skirts and a curious girl of six).

That brand new creature was my great -great-grandmother.

But two years on from his wife's death, the majority of his daughters had married or were soon to do so, and with only the company of a teenager he found friends with a bottle.

That friend and he decided to cement such a beautiful relationship with vows.

For a time things went along. She too had older children. 

The Irish woman and the Somerset man had at least two more of their own. A boy and a girl.

Alas there are organs that do not do so well. (perhaps to do with the fallout from a love affair with the panacea for disappointment) The poor Irish woman succumbed to such a fate.

So distraught was he that at least one of their children was omitted from the death certificate a decade later. Or maybe his Jnr wasn't easily pinned down. 

There we news reports of behaviours that screamed intervention required for father and both of his surviving sons - one from each marriage.

He indeed hit the skids for a while and authorities deemed he was unable to competently care for the children so to an orphanage they went. (Obviously they were subsequently reunited as the son is mentioned in the obituary a decade later).

The girl who went to the orphanage never married a man named Smith (the Irish Catholic mother may have spun in her grave) but she took on his name and gave him a half dozen children.

One of whom was born on New Year's Eve 1925 with a movie star's name.

She married a Yankee soldier and took him back to Idaho - or Illinois? Maybe Indiana or Iowa - one of those vowel starting places over there.

Because we enter the US realm with this search, we get to see yearbook photos of similar named people from similar named places. And because they have a whole heap of extra people over there to here, there are a lot of yearbook photos.

The daughter of the movie-star-named girl and the dashing GI - or at least A girl with a similar name from a similar town - has one photo that is the poster child for a mousy dork - no offence, I have a few of those photos in the hoard.

I kid you not, the next photo along is definitely the same girl that is the makeover after shot and she is ROCKING the whole 1950s cheerleader vibe.

What do you reckon - put a bit of polish on it and sell it to Netflix?

A spice by any other name

 I spend a fair portion of my weekends at my parents - they are well into their 80s now and Mum has "memory issues" (because we aren't allowed to call it by the D word in Dad's world, because people write people off if they say that word).

This has put Dad into the position of carer, and he does it as well as he is able - but Dad does have some frugality issues that border on him calling his children crazy about expired food etc.

I mean, I have to give him he is still alive, but I think part of that is because Mum did pay attention to such things for a large portion of it.

He recently ran out of pepper for the table.  Rather than buy some more pepper, he figured that Mum had many spices in the cupboard unused since - well, in some instances since the 1970s (because everyone knows that spices don't go out of date *).

He figured Paprika would work, since it added some colour to what was being seasoned and sounded like pepper.

Inevitably, his paprika ran out - I did pull him up and make him buy pepper in preference to his next choice - Nutmeg...

I don't think that his sense of smell or taste are all that crash hot these days. 

Four photos

I am a terrible blogger - its not that I don't have ideas and its really not that I don't have time - although that is my excuse.  It is that I don't have ideas when I do have time all too often.

 

So to kickstart myself today, I thought that I would find four random photos from the last few weeks and just give them. 

 

This is a photo taken at an afternoon tea that my Dad had for "a few friends with cake" for his and Mum's 60th wedding anniversary.  The few friends numbered 25, which lead to a bit of a mad scramble on my part.  In this photo, Dad is seated and his primary school classmate Laurie has the floor.  Laurie was the postmaster and tennis coach from my childhood, but apparently Dad and he had a few adventures when younger, and he told them with a great deal of wit on this occasion.  We were really there with the tiny trailer and the 60" concrete pipe at this point!

One of the blessings of spilling a half a cup of water on a bench when the drawer beneath is slightly ajar is that the 15 years of accumulated "stuff" has to be taken out and organised.  I am not by nature a tidy person - it takes effort EVERY DAY to not be able to be tracked by the detritus left in my wake - but I consider organising therapy at times.

 

I must admit, this really tickled my fancy - but some people just didn't get it.  Do I have a weird sense of humour?

 It is amazing how much this cat has grown, even since this photo.  She can be very "helpful" in the office.

To quote another blogger that I read today, just got rid of a whole lot of blah-blah-blah that really only needed to escape my head, didn't need to go to yours.

Have a lovely day - its now Thursday here and my mother-in-law's 80th birthday.  HB RB (and Uncle B too) 

A Wedding and Three Funerals

 Well, May's been a month for it (so far), hasn't it.

I had the expected - a weekend with Mum so Dad could go to a birthday party, organising a special acknowlegement through the representatives of the elected government to get the crowned head of state to comply and wish them a happy 600th wedding anniversary - you know, just your regular logistical palaver.

But also the unexpected (but expected) of the reality of mortality, and the need to make a connection in our lives.

So yes, some philosophy too.

Oh, and I unexpectedly (totally) binge-watched two-thirds of Ted Lasso too.

So really, the title of this post should be "A party, an email, a complete re-arrangement of a house, a scammer, two blows of death's bell, a drive with my daughters, a baseball game's requirement of an Apple subscription, an impromptu gathering delighting many and manifesting hostessing skills I had here-to-forth eschewed (thank god for Sal), a memory, a discovery of an addictive yet quirky soccer show, the third strike, a phone session to overcome an eighty-five year old's technological difficulties in order to attend an online funeral, a memorial service, a library trip and some great curry" but it wouldn't cover everything.

 

RIP Jack W.  I am so glad that you got to sit with your mates one last time.

Vale Lorraine.  You were a mentor and a saviour to me and to many of this town.  Your friendship and generosity of spirit was a blessing to have known and to have received.

And oh, beautiful Queen Jean. I am so glad to have known you and have had you in our lives for all of those years.  You live on forever in our hearts.

 

Rabbit Holes - or how my grandparents were begat

 I decided that I would "file" a few of the hundreds of lazy research screenshots I have gathered over the years, which means refinding them all in Trove which is a most wonderful research provided by our National Library.

 I maybe did a half dozen, but those rabbit holes keep poppin up!!

I won't go TOO far down the rabbit hole today, but some delightful moments of synchronicity discovered were my great-great-great grandfathers' ads for missing horses in 1862

18 April 1862 - North Australian, Ipswich and General Advertiser -STOLEN or strayed, one IRON GREY MARE,branded M/M on the near shoulder, and AS on the off shoulder. The above reward will be paid, if stolen, or conviction of the thief, or £3 if strayed, upon delivering the said Mare to JOHN RANKIN. Esq., Rose Hill; or to GEO. EVANS, Newtown, Ipswich.  

The fourth son of John Rankin (my "farthest back in time" migrant to Australia) married the second daughter of George Evans nearly 18 years later.

A different great-great-grandfather's in 1865 (the going rate for getting a horse thief was apparently a tenner)

 14 October 1864 - Sydney Morning Herald - Stolen, from the Lachlan Diggings, a Black HORSE branded W near shoulder, T off, star and snip, 5 white spots under saddle, collar marked, shod all round, £10 on conviction 

This relative is very much a man of mystery in research - we know plenty of what happened HERE but the man was a master spinner of tales, and finding a paper trail of what went on BEFORE is elusive 

And I did a big snip because the ads around it?!  Tell me your thoughts on the fourth "lost" article!?  (I am hoping that is about a dog);

His son-in-law landing in Brisbane almost exactly 11 years later:

7 October 1875 - Daily Northern Argus advises of shipping arrivals including The Isles of the South, immigrant ship, arrived with 316 immigrants - one of whom was my great-grandfather, the "nearest" relative of our migration story;

and nearly another 20 years later, their union - through the marriage of one's daughter to the other in a business transaction brokered over brandy (allegedly)

 

27 March 1895 (the wedding took place 4th March) the NQ Register used exactly the same copy that the Mackay Mercury used nearly a fortnight earlier, including the lovely little take-away "Mr Edwards replied.  He said that although he ad lost - no not lost - but given away a daughter, he had gained a son and now in these dull times when sugar was so low and cattle so cheap it was an advantage to gain even a son."