Family Tree Frog

The fabulous and amazing Jill Ball from Geniaus has invited us once again to reflect on our Geneayear.  What a great tradition.  Here are the questions with the proviso that we Accentuate the Positive and stop lashing ourselves for those things we didn't get round to or achieve: 1.  An elusive ancestor I found was Thank goodness for death notices.  I discovered my ancestor Peter Sinclair was a librarian at the Parliamentary Library in Melbourne on this blog post here.  2.  A great newspaper article I found was I reckon I found a photo of my maternal grandmother and her twin sister at Randwick Destitute Asylum in The Star in 1908 as per this blog post here.   3.  A geneajourney I took was I had hoped to go to the NSW Family History Conference in Orange this year but we mustn't be maudlin.  By all accounts it was fantastic.  Shauna Hicks reports on it here. 4.  An important record I found was Peter Sinclair's death certifica...

Well here we are!  We've made it to the last week of the blogging challenge in National Family History Month.   Have you learned some more about  your ancestors and their lives? Have you unearthed some new sources or facts that you didn't know before?  Have you made interesting connections or found new blogs in the process? I hope the experience has been rewarding for you.  Here's the last challenge... Frank Hardy's novel Power without Glory covers a wide range of notorious characters from criminals to Archbishops and politicians, wrestlers to gamblers and everyone else in between.   One of the themes is conscription during WW1 but you can interpret the title as broadly as you like.   Were your ancestors powerful in some way? Legitimately or  not.   Did they have a stoush with the authorities or strong political beliefs? Lets hear their story. By the way, speaking of stories, have you seen the 31 Links in a chain page on QF...

Having possibly bored everybody (including myself) to death with the last post, you will be pleased to know I'm going to keep this one short and sweet. I've decided to list all the rivers that might have a connection to my ancestors (oh and me too - why not?) And here is a suitable literary quote... “Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.”  ― Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows Here they are in alphabetical order with pictures wherever possible and the surname/s of the family/ies I am researching afterwards: Afon Seiont, North Caernarvon, Wales - JONES (Afon  means river in Welsh) Welsh Countryside by Nelo Hotsuma from Flickr - some rights reserved Aray River, Inverary, Scotland - SINCLAIR Inverary Castle and River Aray by David Jones on Flickr - some rights reserved Brisbane River, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia - DAW, CONNER Grey Street Brid...

This is my contribution to Week 2 of the #NFHM2017 Blogging Challenge - Careful He Might Hear You .  I've been inspired by Pauleen Cass' post about the orphans in her family. While technically not orphans, my maternal grandmother and her twin sister were placed in the Randwick Destitute Asylum at the age of 3.  Their mother - Kate Amelia Forfar (nee Ellis) died on 31st December 1905 at Denison Street Arncliffe.  My maternal great-grandmother Kate (Kitty) Amelia Forfar (nee Ellis)  Kate had four children at that time - the eldest was Ernest Henry aged 6,  then Dorothy Emily aged 4, then the twins aged 3 - Grace Isabella (Belle) and Helen Kate (Kit) - my grandmother. There was a younger child Walter William but he died earlier in the year from asphyxia.   The four children were admitted to Randwick Asylum on Saturday 24 February 1906 by their father Walter William Forfar of Denison Street Arncliffe.  They were discharged seven years later...