Category Archives: family history

Christmas at Grannie Bell’s.

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My mother always enjoyed telling a story and as the year’s end approaches, I am reminded of one of my favourites from her childhood, “Christmas at Grannie Bell’s”. Grannie and Pop Bell were Mum’s maternal grandparents. Grannie’s parents, Gottfried and Augusta Kuhn were of German heritage, having come to the Colony of Queensland as young newlyweds aboard the Herschel in 1873.[1] Grannie, Louisa Theresa Kuhn, was born in Townsville in 1877, the third of their six children.[2] Pop, Charles George … Continue reading

The Hallams’ Pioneer Days in the Whitsundays

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I’m planning to write a longer story about the Hallam family and their pioneering life in the Whitsundays. This blog shares some starting thoughts. My great-grandparents, William (Billy) Hallam and Mary Josephine Sheehy, raised nine children, all born in Bowen, North Queensland. What strikes me about Billy, a man of short and nuggety build, is how industrious he was, taking all kinds of work depending on the season. It was a pattern that repeated itself in the next generation. When … Continue reading

A Comedy of Errors or Just Bad Luck.

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As family history researchers or genealogists, we know that to find our ancestors in the records, we need to try all sorts of different spelling of their surname. One of my late wife’s paternal great grandmothers was born Alice Iland, though some records show that surname as ‘Ireland’, ‘Island’ or even ‘Ilund’ or ‘Hyland’. We accept that ancestors may not have known how to spell their name and informants on records may have been vague about spelling too. But we … Continue reading

Mary Ann’s Cottage.

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A few years ago, I came across a blog post titled, Musings, where Neil Ennis wrote about his cycling trips around the world. One post from 2010, ‘Along The Old North Road‘, caught my attention while I was searching for information about my Franz family.[1] I found details about a Bed and Breakfast cottage called Mary Ann’s Cottage, which turned out to be the home of my great grandfather’s half-brother, Maurice Schneider, and his wife Mary Ann neé Westaway. I … Continue reading

My Mum, the Nurse.

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“Tip it in! Tip it in!” This was the ditty that my mum, trainee nurse Rene Morris, sang with her fellow trainee nurse friend, Ella, as they emptied their patients’ pans as part of their nursing duties at Mount Morgan Hospital in central Queensland. Being a trainee nurse in the late 1930s and early 1940s was arduous, so friends and fun were essential components for survival and completing the rigorous training. Rene, born in 1919 in Mount Morgan, was a … Continue reading