Family Tree Frog

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...