Family Tree Frog

I was beginning to wonder if I was going to have to go to Winnipeg myself and get Edward Forfar's Marriage Certificate in person.  As some of you may remember, in early May on this post I was rather chuffed to have discovered a record of Edward Forfar's marriage.  I duly sent off my credit card details and the charge was processed 23 May.  Having no reply after a few weeks,  I emailed the Archives at the end of June and was told it would take 8-10 weeks to process the request. More like 12 weeks I think.  So, if you are ordering anything from the Province of Manitoba be prepared to be patient. Here's the envelope - see I scored three great stamps of otters, I think, which I hope to be seeing in animal (as opposed to person) in the not too distant future. And here's a glimpse of the certificate So here's what was on the certificate: BRIDEGROOM Full name Forfar Edward Occupation or profession: Provincial Police Bachelor,...

Annotated map of Taemas This blog post will be a bit waffly because I am fast running out of time to think clearly and make sensible well considered posts.  Please forgive me.   Recently, for another University of Tasmania course called Place, Image, Object  we had to make an annotated map of a place that was significant to us or our family history, bringing together subjective and objective elements. What an agonizing but fruitful exercise it was.  I chose to do a map showing some of my ancestor's land near Yass and Canberra where I grew up.  My ancestor was Samuel Taylor. Here is my reflection on the task. I created several annotated maps in the process of creating the final annotated map for my ancestor, Samuel Taylor.  At first I wanted to show how place names can be duplicated in different areas.  For example.  George Willmore originally called Arana Hills, the suburb where I work in Queensland, after Camden Park – a place familia...

The Dairymaid's Occupation Print made by John Faber, 1695–1756, Netherlandish, active in Britain after Philippe Mercier, 1689 or 1691–1760, Franco-German, active in Britain (from 1716) This work of art is believed to be in the public domain or has no known copyright restrictions. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund This blog post is a combination of research conducted as part of a course undertaken earlier this year with the University of Tasmania into my convict ancestry and a bit of musing on my part since then. Margaret Taylor (nee Jones) was my 3x great-grandmother on my maternal side of the family.  An article in  The   Liverpool Mercury  dated 24 October 1828  [1]  reported that Margaret Jones, Ann Tierney and William Wakefield were sentenced to be transported for seven years for an extensive robbery of the property of  Christopher Buckle  at the Quarter Sessions on Monday.     Lancaster Castle by  srie...

Week 4 - Sunday 28 August August is National Family History Month in Australia and Australian Family and Local History bloggers thought it would be a great idea to have a - Blogging Challenge!  Everyone is welcome to join in, even if you don't live in Australia, we'd love to hear from you and hear your stories. Australian poet Dorothea Mackellar in her poem My Country talks of a "sunburnt country, a land of sweeping plains, of rugged mountain ranges, of droughts and flooding rains".  What does "country" or place mean to your family?  What makes your place unique or special? What are the features or landmarks  that stand out in your family history? Share your stories with us on or around Sunday 28 August and link them using the Mr Linky widget below so we have one central place to read all the stories on this theme.

Week 3 - Sunday 21 August August is National Family History Month in Australia and Australian Family and Local History bloggers thought it would be a great idea to have a - Blogging Challenge!  Everyone is welcome to join in, even if you don't live in Australia, we'd love to hear from you and hear your stories. Significant military battles are commemorated during the month of August such as Mouquet Farm in WWI and Milne Bay in WW2.  The Australian Comforts Fund was also founded in August 1916.  Did your ancestors have connections to these places, battles or organisation? Is there another anniversary or significant event that your family commemorates/remembers in August? Share your stories with us on or around Sunday 21 August and link them using the Mr Linky widget below so we have one central place to read all the stories on this theme.

Week 2 - Sunday 14 August August is National Family History Month in Australia and Australian Family and Local History bloggers thought it would be a great idea to have a - Blogging Challenge!  Everyone is welcome to join in, even if you don't live in Australia, we'd love to hear from you and hear your stories. Blogger Anne Young reminds us that 16 August 1891 was the date the Shearers' Strike Monument was dedicated. This week why don't you honour your working ancestors and the challenges they faced in their occupations? Whether they were a butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker or something more exotic, tell us about their working conditions and what you have learned about them.  Did they have a guild?  Did they have to wear special clothes or a uniform?  What hours did they work?   Share your stories with us on or around Sunday 14 August and link them using the Mr Linky widget below so we have one central place to read all the stori...

A Settler's Home, New South Wales, ca. 1841 / watercolour by Frederick Garling.  The image is from the collections of the State Library of NSW. According to Nick Vine Hall's Tracing Your Family History in Australia: a Guide to Sources :  " The first full census of new South Wales was not made until 1828. Subsequent censuses were taken sporadically in the various colonies until 3 April 1881, when a census was taken for the first time on the same date throughout Australia." I decided to look at the 1841 Census for my 3 x great-grandfather, Samuel Taylor.   The 1841 Census was taken on 2 March and is indexed and held on microfilm by the State Records of NSW (referred to as AONSW in Vine Hall's book) and the National Library of Australia (NLA).  You can search the index on State Records site here or you can look at the digitized version on Ancestry .   I am lucky that Samuel lived on the Murrumbidgee as not all places have names of individuals lis...

Week 1 – Sunday 7 August  August is National Family History Month in Australia and Australian Family and Local History bloggers thought it would be a great idea to have a - Blogging Challenge!  Everyone is welcome to join in, even if you don't live in Australia, we'd love to hear from you and hear your stories. Census Night in Australia is 9 August this year and so we decided that Census stories should be our first week's theme.    The State Library of Queensland Census and Muster Records Info guide tells us that:  " prior to 2001 it was Australian federal government policy to destroy all name-identified census returns for privacy reasons, and all returns between 1901 and 2001 have been destroyed." You will notice if you look at the Card Catalog of Ancestry that there are a few census returns outside this time frame, but that between say 1902 and 1980, you will be relying on electoral records.   Of course not everyone's ancestors we...