Family Tree Frog

Sepia Saturday   this week encourages us to consider the dogs in our life or past lives and maybe the training thereof.  I could bore you witless with tales of the Adorable Arwen. Adorable Arwen She is, without a doubt, the Apple of my Eye and walking companion par excellence.  She has us wrapped around her dew claw and we have to be careful not to give her too many treats or she will end up as tubby as me. Let's have a look at some other puppies in the family tree. My mother and father both grew up with dogs.  I desperately wanted a dog when I was very little.  A black spaniel, Dino, was duly purchased and given to me when I was about six I think.  But Dino did not like me one little bit so he had to go.  Then the dachshund across the road bit me on the knee when I went to visit Elizabeth-Anne, so I was a bit shy of dogs after that.  My friends had dogs who were all very lovely - Jill's beagle Jip and Judith's endless success...

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...