Family Tree Frog

It has been a ridiculously long time since I blogged.  All work and no play makes Alex a very dull girl indeed.  And I do miss blogging.  Particularly Sepia Saturday.  So here goes.  A short post about a basket.   I picked up the nearest old photo album I could find and found this on about the third page. Dated August 1950, my mother would have been 14 years old - a couple of months shy of 15.  The photo would have been taken by her BFF Val.  And I love this photo because it is of my mother painting and she was very good at drawing and painting.  See previous post here. So there you are.  You can carry a sketch pad and paintbrushes with you in a basket.  And there I was thinking it would be food.  Well, there was probably food too.  Starving artists notwithstanding. And I am completely fascinated by what she is wearing.  My mother always loved a good kilt.  Scottish heritage and all that....

It's been another busy week of assignment writing.  I'm on the home stretch now, submitting my last assignment for the Convicts in Context course as part of the Diploma of Family History through University of Tasmania. Life has thrown a curve ball at me and I have been pretty much flat on my back with a sore foot after dropping a table on it a fortnight ago.  I am an impatient patient and have been a bit glum.  But I got a mark back today for an assignment I submitted last month for the Writing the Family Saga course and it made all the pain worthwhile.  The feedback was really lovely too. So without further ado, here is another chapter in the saga of Kit....which I have submitted rather belatedly as part of Sepia Saturday. Interior view, from top of staircase, 108 Buckingham Street, Redfern, 4 June 1950. Creator: NSW Police Department Kit didn’t think it was possible for them to go any lower, but here they were in a boarding house in Redfern. ...

I haven't blogged for ages because I've been busy with work and Uni.  Here's a story that I submitted for my Writing the Family Saga course recently. It is a case of imaginative fiction that is based on research conducted into my ancestor Kitty Ellis. Sydney Girls High School c 1892 NSW State Archives Digital ID 15051_1_31_a047_000653 Series NRS 15051 No known copyright restrictions At nineteen years of age, Kitty Ellis seemed hell-bent on turning her parents’ hair grey.  Bella Ellis, her mother, worriedly checked for silver streaks in the dressing glass every morning, whilst George, her father, regarded his receding hairline soberly.  Kitty’s older siblings had done their parents proud. Her brothers were studying at University or gainfully employed. Esther, her sister, found a suitable match in John Flynn, who was the pharmacist for Callan Park.  c. 1883  No known copyright restrictions Kitty was godmother to the Flynns' darling baby ...

This week's Sepia Saturday prompt photo is a Caddy Master and his caddies at the Shaughnessy Golf Club and is from the Flickr Commons stream of the Vancouver Public Library Historical Photograph Collection. When I "googled" golf AND caddy on Trove one of the photos that came up was this one. Isn't it a beauty? I would love to post the photos here on my blog but even though the copyright status indicates that it is out of copyright, under the terms of use it states that restrictions on publication apply.  Reading the Fairfax site  it suggests that if I want to use the photos on social media (not advertising), Fairfax would charge $157 per photo to do so.  Sigh. I just love the photo of Mrs Triglone and her caddy for so many reasons.  I love that she and the caddy are essentially the same height.  I love the caddy's grin.   I wanted to find out some more about Mrs Triglone.   I discovered from this article that she was origi...

This shows Ida Zornig along with her bicycle and - very well behaved - dog (from the State Library of Queensland's Flickr stream). Sepians are well known for being very well behaved and therefore they will undoubtedly come up with something inventive and interesting in response to this prompt. Whatever you come up with, post your post on or around Saturday 24th February 2018 and add a link here. One could not say that I am a big bike rider.  All right, I'll be honest, I don't possess a bike at all at the moment.  However, I have many pleasant memories of owning a bike or riding a bike at different stages of my life.  As a child, it was a means of freedom and adventure, riding around the suburbs or by the lake in Canberra.  As a young adult, for a while there, I would ride a bike from Taringa to work at Toowong (not a great distance I know) and sometimes at lunchtime, I would ride with my colleagues into town and back again for fun.  Once the kids came al...

Manly Swimming Pool Queensland 1936 Sepia Saturday this week encourages us to explore: obvious theme possibilities of swimming and water available, but you might also want to investigate the possibilities of standing around and - like the child at the end of the diving board - hanging around. It's difficult to know where to begin with this blog post.  I've been sitting on it for at least 24 hours.  In those 24 hours, I have managed to list just about every article/listing I could find about my paternal grandmother's swimming feats as found on Trove as well as those of her sisters. This is no mean feat - using the search words "Carrett AND swim*" I found 792 results.  Of course, not all of them are relevant but to give you some idea I now have the following lists and number of items for each sister: Daisy - 70 items Ethel - 130 items Millie - 166 items Nora - 94 items Rene - 258 items Moi - obsessed? Just maybe! I have blogged about the...

Photo by Nicole Köhler on Magdeleine I've been researching family history for a very long time...a very long time.  Let me say that again....a very long time.  So you think I'd know better but....we all get into habits and routines.  We all think we know how to do research.  So, let me tell you a story about what happened to me the other day.  The other night actually.  Wednesday night specifically. Wednesday night had been looming large in my consciousness because it was when my final assignment was due for the Writing Family History unit I'm studying at University of Tasmania (yes - even though I live all the way up in Queensland - don't you love modern technology?) The assignment was due at midnight. So anyway, I'd decided to write about my two great-great-aunts Clara Rebecca Conner and Harriet Conner because I am ob sessed with them.  During the course I had written a couple of short stories about them.   Photo by...