Category Archives: Mariners

The Next Genealogy Journey – Discovering an Adventurer.

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For years I had been darting from one family member or ancestor to another belonging to my late wife, Helen, gathering the usual dates and places of birth, marriage and death. But that strategy had to change if I was to find how these people lived. Following the advice of seasoned genealogists at talks and conferences, often with their own website, blog or Facebook page, I needed to focus on one ancestor at a time. Who might be a likely … Continue reading

Out in the weather

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Weather? What Weather? Many Australians are still recovering from the latest floods, bushfires, and storms. Our unforgiving climate has battered settlers since their arrival. For tens of thousands of years, indigenous Australians have wrapped their lives around the seasons. History is alive with weather related sliding door moments. As the Spanish Armada in 1588 fled north from the English attack, their only route back to Spain was to sail around the north of Scotland, keeping well out to sea. However, … Continue reading

From the Azores to Australia

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Do you know where the Azores are located? It is an archipelago composed of nine volcanic islands in the North Atlantic, which are an autonomous region of Portugal and located about 1,360 km west of that country. This is about my maternal great great grandfather Joseph Antoney and my paternal great grandfather, Emanuel Vero. What a coincidence, an ancestor from the Azores Islands on both sides of my family but two generations apart. Growing up on a remote group of … Continue reading

A life on the ocean wave!

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Two things prompted me to write about life on the ocean wave – in my family’s case the merchant marine and the Royal Navy. The first was a book I bought at the Lifeline Bookfest and, serendipitously it seems, an article in the latest issue of Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine.  The book is called Passage to America by Terry Coleman (1972, Pimlico Books, London). It tells the story of the, mainly Irish, emigrants ‘shovelled out’ from Britain … Continue reading

Mariners Sailing the Sea

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I have recently returned from the 8thUnlock the Past Baltic Cruise where I was able to listen to many excellent presentations. One I was particularly looking forward to was Caroline Gurney speaking on  ‘Tracing Merchant Seamen’. Caroline has a lot of experience with tracing seamen. A stellar example of this is the work she has done since 2012 on the Cutty Sark, a clipper with an amazing history. Caroline took us through the range of records that were collected as … Continue reading