By Jill Ball © 2021. Does the excitement you feel when you find a promising reference to a book suddenly disappear when you are unable to locate a copy? On rare occasions we can simply beg, buy or borrow a copy of that book but often it takes some sleuthing to track a tome down. In this post I will discuss some of the places where you may be able to find that elusive title. In many cases we … Continue reading
By Bev Murray. It was a few years ago that I started to wonder about my many possessions, which are heirlooms. What would become of them, after I have ‘Gone to God’? The result was that I created an “Heirloom Register” in Word document format. This register is a source of essential information about every precious item in my possession, therefore, hopefully preventing massive dumping at the local charity shop, or perhaps even worse! It is divided into several categories … Continue reading
Finding a “mariner” in your family tree, might sometimes lead you to discover that he was in fact a merchant seaman. Other terms you might see are merchant mariner, officer in the merchant navy, merchant navy seaman, master mariner, etc. These are more often than not, some of the hardest ancestors to research, due to the fact that very few records exist. In fact, after 1858 you will not find anything until the First World War began in 1914, because … Continue reading
By Margaret Doherty. After researching my family history for about twenty years, I was given a photo of my great great grandmother, Ann Ferguson Laird. Seeing her image made me feel closer to the person, who, along with her first husband, James Porter, took the giant step to move their family to the colony of New South Wales in 1849. Ann’s photo shows a stern woman with thin lips. She is wearing a black bonnet with the image softened by … Continue reading
As another summer day dawned, exhausted Elizabeth lovingly attempted unsuccessfully, once again to entice her sister Harriett to take some medicine. During the long warm night, her patient had alternated between incoherent ravings and frightening stillness. For a moment, she locked eyes with Honora Stewart who had been helping nurse Harriet for the last four days, the women exchanging a thought neither wished to express. *** Born at the height of the Irish famine, Harriett Grant and her sister … Continue reading
