Family Tree Frog

Sydney Morning Herald Tuesday 14 May 1918 courtesy of National Library of Australia Some of you may remember me blogging about my 2nd great grandmother, Isabella Ellis (nee Sinclair) last month .  Lovely Jill Ball of Geniaus asked me if I had looked for her Probate files. I hadn't.  So guess what turned up in the mail yesterday?  The probate files.  Hoorah!! It cost $34.13 to be precise.  Item 19/10252 Reel 3033.  No less than 11 pages for me to digest.   I can see the signatures of her sons - James St Clair Ellis of Hurstville and Henry Victor Ellis of Bondi.  There is an inventory of her estate.  It was valued at less than one thousand pounds so was not subject to stamp duty.   It totalled £783.0.10. The debts were interesting.  The greatest of these was the exhumation and removal of her husband's body £27.6.  He had been buried a couple of years before at the Field of Mars Cemetery as per this...

Alan from from Sepia Saturday  says: Marilyn chose this splendid image from the Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Centre .  She suggested as possible theme interpretations - bobbies, bellies, bums and brushes - but one could keep the alliterative pendulum swinging by adding beards. Well, as per usual, I am going to break the non-existent laws of Sepia Saturday by NOT following the prompt and carrying on in my own sweet way. Those bobbies are looking back at me as I jay-walk through my latest digital acquisitions. Here is a photo of yet more WW1 soldiers.  Last week I posted about Roy Duncan.    Here we have a photo of Alex Duncan.  I'm sorry but I don't know whether he is the chap on the left or the right but I'm going to guess the one on the right as the Duncans tend to be tall chaps.  Alex was the third son or fifth child of seven born to Alexander Duncan and Julia O'Sullivan.  He was born in 1891 and the old...

On 27th August 1917 Alex Duncan rejoined the 42nd Battalion.  The weather according to the War Diary was dull and showery and the Battalion was engaged in training at Remilly-Wirquin for the Ypres offensive. On 25th September they started to march. By 3 October they had reached Ypres.  Extracts from the War Diary read as follows: During this period the weather was extremely bad and both men and animals suffered severely.  During the first 4 days 64 men were evacuated to hospital suffering from trench feet, exhuastion and shell-shock.....Never since the Battalion has landed in France has it been called upon to face such abnormal conditions.  Never have the men had to face such hardships or to show such endurance and never have the Officers and men risen so well to the occasion and upheld so well the honour of the Battalion and the best traditions of the Australian Forces. Ypres 18 October 1917 courtesy of  AWM Alex Duncan was wounded fo...

Alex Duncan married Mary STANFORD in 1920.  (One of the STANFORD girls went on to marry a SPENDELOVE but that's another story).   Six years later Alex Duncan died as the result of a blasting accident near Nerang in a quarry.  He was working with eight men at the time.  He lost three fingers on his right hand and his right elbow was fractured as well as his ribs on his right side.  The explosion was so severe that the newspaper reports that: Duncan and Buckley hard hardly a thread of clothes on them. courtesy of the National Library of Austraila  Brisbane Courier 31 March 1926 page 7  Alex was suffering severely from shock.  He was taken to Brisbane by train but died the following morning.    This article is rich in detail and I recommend reading it.  My husband and I were fascinated to find a mention of Stanley HINDE in it. Stanley was one of my husband's great uncles or his grandmother's older brother.  The ...

You may have read recently that I have been entrusted with digitizing some family heirlooms.  This is my next contribution to the "finds" therein. Coincidentally and most fortuitously it fits in with this week's Sepia Saturday theme. Marilyn aka Little Nell says: You can let your imagination run free with your responses to this one. Street traders, roadside artisans, menders, cobblers, tools-of-the-trade, hand-colouring and lantern slides This postcard has, I think, Dorothy Grace DAW (nee HINDE's writing on the back of the postcard) on the right hand side.  On the left, very faintly, you can see some other writing.  It says from Cousin Roy to Hinde family.  So I imagine that is Roy's writing.  How precious. Roy enlisted in the AIF 25 August 1915 at the age of 21 years and 5 months. Less than a year later he was killed in action.   Roy was the sixth child of Alexander DUNCAN and Julia O'SULLIVAN.  He was born 189...

The picture comes from the TAHO ( Tasmanian Archive and Heritage Office ) via Flickr Commons, and is simpled titled ‘Old Coaches 1900’. Little Nell aka Marilyn from Sepia Saturday says: There are any number of themes that can be taken from this picture: coach rides, old transport, roof-racks, luggage, waiting, animated discussion, clowning, cab drivers, or whatever else pops into your head. Of course you don’t have to theme and can simply post an old picture or two with a link back to Sepia Saturday, on or around 11 October. Actually it's well worth going to see the original of this image because it explains the headless horses and the bottomless horses.  And you get to see the driver of the coach more clearly - and the other driver of what I think is a sulky on the right, who is a woman.   So in fact, I think, the two men standing down are probably passengers and there is perhaps a one lane bridge and people are waiting their turn to cross or some such. ...

Postmaster's daughter speaking with an inmate from the institution, Dunwich, North Stradbroke Island, ca. 1920 courtesy of Picture Queensland , State Library of Queensland Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending yet another fantastic seminar held by QFHS at the Queensland Baptist Centre at Gaythorne. There were two speakers - Shauna Hicks and Pauleen Cass.  From the promo material we were advised that: Shauna Hicks is an archivist, librarian, and family historian with over thirty-five years’ experience. She is the author of a number of research books published by Unlock the Past. Shauna is a Fellow of the Queensland Family History Society. and that: Pauleen  is a dedicated family historian with nearly thirty years’ experience in tracing her families and their lives through the records, both online and offline. She writes a number of blogs including Family History across the seas and East Clare emigrants. Pauleen's blog has long been an inspiration ...