Looking for a letter: Elizabeth Hardwicke’s (née Chapman) letter to her daughter Maria

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Do many of us who are doing genealogy research think, as we are searching Trove or gazing at microfilm to find that missing link, that one way we may find the answer is to write our story and put it out there on a blog and see whether some distant relative suddenly presents the answer? Sounds far fetched doesn’t it? I certainly thought so when I started to contribute to this blog. Perhaps I was naive because I thought you … Continue reading

Early migrants to South East Queensland

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As regular readers of this blog will be aware, I wasn’t born in Brisbane, let alone in Australia. At times, I do dip my toes into Australian records, however, and have gradually been picking up more knowledge. As well as my regular activities with GSQ, I also belong to a genealogy group that meets monthly. We take it in turns to set a challenge for the following month and some of these challenges have been awesome in opening our eyes … Continue reading

Tales my father told me…

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There were two things that my father told me about his father, John Charles (Jack) Wood, which intrigued me. One was that John Charles was born on a ship heading to India and the second was that Jack and his brother Percy, who later lived in Persia (Iran) and was a diplomat, wrote to each other in French. When I decided to go overseas in 1975, I tried to find Grandfather Wood’s birth certificate so that I could apply for … Continue reading

From the archives: Tombstones

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The following article first appeared in Generation, Vol 3, No 2 in December 1980, by EN Jacke, Cranbrook, North Queensland. The grave of FRANCIS JOHN EARL is the oldest marked existing grave in North Queensland, north of Bowen. The grave together with two others is thankfully well hidden at the base of the ranges, west of Townsville, and thus has escaped the attentions of the weekend marksman and the yahoo trail bike rider! Francis John Earl’s death was the seventh … Continue reading

The Wreck of the Undine 1900: is your German ancestor here?

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by Stephanie Ryan State Library of Queensland stephanie.ryan@slq.qld.gov.au The story of this particular shipwreck was given some exciting names in the newspapers: Romance of the sea, That strange story of the sea, A tale of the sea: a mystery explained. What happened and why should we be interested? The Undine, a German barque, built in 1867, owned by Messrs. Wachsmuth and Krugmann, of Hamburg, was bringing heavy timber from the west coast of North America to Falmouth, England.  She was … Continue reading