Bell’s picnic party

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Bell’s Picnic Party was the title of a small piece in The Worker in May 1908. It expressed the newspaper’s view of a trip my great uncle, Joshua Bell, who was Minister for Lands at the time, was taking along the Queensland coast in May 1908 on the Government steamer Lucinda. Mr. Bell, in the fostering atmosphere Ministerial authority, is developing a great gift of conviviality—at the country’s expense…taking with him a few chosen pals and political tuft hunters…[1]    … Continue reading

Questions for Rosina

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Did you wear crinoline, I wonder?  Layers of petticoats that weighed you down and a corset that constricted?  How did the swaying deck of the three-mast barque-rigged Reichstag feel under your feet?  How did you care for, and keep safe, a 9 month old child,  born in Bismarck’s newly created Germany, on a four month voyage from Hamburg to pre Brisbane Moreton Bay?  Or even on an overland journey to the tiny Darling Downs community of Meringandan?  Were you Jewish, … Continue reading

The fate of parish registers!

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by Annalies Nutley Where would we be without these incredible records? Indeed, one could not trace back through the generations so succinctly if these ever-important registers had not been so thoughtfully preserved, and now made readily available.  But woe is to me!  or to any amateur or professional who comes to trace a parish where they have not survived!  Sadly, quite a few are not around today…their old pages not here for us to peruse, search, and enjoy… many hundreds of years since … Continue reading

Tributes to two Townson brothers from Toowoomba

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by Janice Cooper   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 … Continue reading

What do they think we are?

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by Bob McAllister Have you fallen under the spell of the latest Australian series of Who do you think you are? [1] Have you been lured away from your own research to see what is being “discovered” by the celebrity of the week in the latest genea-porn episode? Why call it genea-porn? Because it is a public visual representation of an activity in which many of us engage in the privacy of our own home, but which has crucial elements … Continue reading