Author Archives: Janice Cooper

Using Masonic records to help track men across Queensland and beyond

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William Page Shakespeare was a well-known publican moving west as Queensland’s central western railway line was constructed. His memory is retained through the iconic Shakespeare Hotel in Barcaldine. Masonic records available online have helped to trace his journey from England to Queensland and Africa. As George Page Shakespear, we find him installed in the Lodge of Industry (361) of Cheshire on 7 August 1873, a railway servant aged of 27 residing at Ryde, Cheshire, England.[1]   Next, we find him … Continue reading

Filling gaps with Dead Letter Office lists

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There are gaps in my knowledge of the life of my grandfather Philip Shepherd[1], who died before I was born. One of these gaps lies in the decade between his marriage in November 1882 to Catherine Heffernan in Cometville, on the Central Queensland Railway, and his purchasing of a town allotment in Jericho in the central-west in April 1892. Philip was a carrier so that the building of the railway line west from Rockhampton provided him with work carrying goods … Continue reading

They didn’t hold property but they could vote

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I continue to hear fellow family historians say that they won’t bother searching early Queensland Electoral Rolls because they believe their ancestor was poor so didn’t own property, and therefore wouldn’t have been able to vote. So a very valuable resource is being ignored because researchers do not realise that residence (generally for six months) was a qualification our male ancestors could use to vote. The residence qualification has been very useful in tracing one of my early Queensland families. … Continue reading

Tributes to two Townson brothers from Toowoomba

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    Oh for the touch of a vanished hand            And the sound of a voice that is still. On the 18th September 2018, 100 years after the death of Toowoomba born Private Stanley Joseph Townson on the Western Front, Paul Shepperd will fulfil a wish the soldier’s father, William Townson had for his son’s grave by placing two lines of poetry at his memorial in Bellicourt British Cemetery, Picardie, France. Paul, an Englishman and … Continue reading

Disappointing for the descendants of Alma R Readford

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Guest Blogger, Janice Cooper relates her experience of an online tree Recently, I was curious to discover an online family tree which included Alma Readford as the daughter of Henry Readford and Elizabeth Jane Skuthorpe, a couple from New South Wales. The family tree indicated that she had died in 1940 and it seems possible that the brief information included there came from the death entry on the online index of the New South Wales Registry of Births, Deaths and … Continue reading