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Showing posts from February, 2017

Sepia Saturday 356: 25 February 2017

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Bayfront Painting Class 1945 : Florida Memory (Flickr Commons) This is the photo prompt for Sepia Saturday this week. It reminds me a bit of this photo...which was taken by the water at a regatta - showing happiness with friends....you get the picture.  My mother is the one in the middle with the Alice band on her head drinking some lemonade, I'm guessing.  I've blogged about this photo before ....so won't say anymore about it today.   No-one is painting in the picture sadly, although my mother was and my father is a competent artist. Here is a photo of my father when he was a young whipper snapper in the Public Works Department I think. It's the only photo I could find of either of them even thinking about drawing...   So I have little to show for this week's prompt I'm afraid...but here are some scans of my mother's drawings to give you an idea of her work. Alex by Barbara Conner My mother did quite a few drawin

Sepia Saturday 355: 18th February 2017

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Feeding the pigeons- Royal Library Denmark This week's photo is an easy prompt for me.  I found this photo of Cecil and Gladys Maloney in Trafalgar Square London.   There is no date on this photo.  Would anyone like to hazard a guess?   Cecil and Gladys used to live at Gulgowra near Lue in NSW.  Then in about 1954 they moved to Church Street in Mudgee.  Cecil died in 1974.   I reckon this photo was taken somewhere between 1950 and 1960.   I wrote about Cecil earier here. For more pigeons click here.

Sepia Saturday 354

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"Steinmetz, Joseph Janney, 1905-1985. Assistant Niki Vasilikis at work in John M. Gonatos' curio shop in Tarpon Springs, Florida. 1942. Color transparency. State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory. Accessed 11 Feb. 2017.<https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/245153> The photo above is this week's theme for Sepia Saturday.  If you go to the link on Florida Memory you will see a general note that advises that Niki Vasilikis was also the first Greek member of the W.A.C. or Women's Army Corps.  There's some great information about the W.A.C. on this site  and this site. But I'm not going to focus on the W.A.C. today but look at another shop - this time from Brisbane. Anyone who knows me well knows that I am a sucker for a good cake shop.  Check this out! George E. Adams' cake shop, Brisbane Arcade, Brisbane, ca. 1938 John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland Some cake shop huh?  Wait til you see the front window display!

Sepia Saturday 353: 4th February 2017

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STEPS OF INGLESIA SAN TOMAS, GUATEMALA - STATE LIBRARY OF FLORIDA (1938) Well I'm going to use a photo I've used before for Sepia Saturday but I think I cropped it earlier.  Here it is in all its glory again..... Alex and Barbara Conner Leith Waters Edinburgh 1971 I'm not going to talk about the photo because there isn't much to say.  You can figure out why I picked it. I did have fun though looking up Chichicastenango in Guatemala.  I have to date been remarkably ignorant about Guatemala and feel that I have led a somewhat narrow existence. The photographer of the photo prompt in Sepia Saturday this week was Joseph Janney Steinmetz.   Here's a photo of him on his way to Guatemala. I wondered what music might be connected to Chichicastenango and found this on YouTube. Speaking of music, I went to a funeral this weekend.  Sounds glum I know.   It was a hot day.  I should have worn a hat like the people in the photo but I wasn't really t

The Body (okay Ancestor) in the Library....

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Greenham Studios. (1901). Victorian Parliament House, Federal Parliamentary Library, Melbourne, [1920?] Retrieved January 30, 2017, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-136761356 Libraries are my happy place.  So you can imagine how pleased I was last weekend when I discovered that one of my ancestors worked in this fabulous looking place in the 19th century. How did I discover this?  Well, I was mucking around, as you do, trying to be a good family historian.  I had received an email from the Lost Cousins mob and was trying to add more ancestors and their households to the site.  I knew my Sinclairs had come out from Scotland and was trying to remember when and then trying to find relatives in the 1881 Census.  I didn't have much joy in that regard but in the process reminded myself of some earlier research I had done here.   Do you use your blog to remind you of previous research conducted?  I do all the time. Thank goodness I have a search bar on my blog. It is my lifesa