British Parliamentary Papers

I have just discovered a very useful new resource – the British Parliamentary Papers.  They are available through the eResources on the National Library of Australia web site (www.nla.gov.au) and are available to anyone living in Australia.  You need a library card to access the resource, and can apply for that card for free online.

You might think that British Parliamentary papers would be boring and of no relevance to Genealogy, but you would be wrong.  I found “Accounts of superannuations and retired allowances in public departments” for the years 1857 and 1863, and these gave me information I have been seeking for ages about my g-g-grandfather, Thomas Spiller.  Thomas was an Inland Revenue Office, or Excise Officer, in Ireland.  I knew he must have died before 1864 as there was no death for him in the Civil Registers, but could not pin it down in anyway.  Nor did I have any idea when he was born.

The 1857 return I mentioned contained a list of Superannuation Allowances granted, and among the list for the Inland Revenue dept for 1856 was Thomas Spiller, salary on retirement £100, age 53, period of service 26 years 11 months, cause of retirement “disease of lungs”, yearly allowance granted £53.

The 1863 document contained information about Superannuation Allowances ceased, and in it I found an entry for Thomas Spiller, died 10 Jul 1862.

So now I know he was born about 1803, and died 10 Jul 1862.  What a find.

UK Railway records on Ancestry

I love Ancestry.com, and it really is worth every cent I spend on my subscription.  The ever-growing list of new resources being added is so useful.

The two most recent additions I have been using are the records of the Post Office employees in the UK, and the records of the UK railway employees 1833-1963 which went up this week.  My husband’s grandfather and great-grandfather both worked for the railways.  Strangely, I couldn’t find any records for his grandfather, but when I entered the great-grandfather’s name (Frederick George Welch), several entries came up.  I clicked on the first on the list, expecting to find something like a list of employees with his name included, but instead a page from a book of retired senior staff came up, which included his photograph!  We had never seen a photo of this man before.  I called my husband (who has no interest in family history) to come quickly (he probably thought I’d seen another spider or something like that), and showed him the photo.

“So this is Grandpa’s father”

“Yes, that’s right”

“Yep.  I can see it.  I can see the resemblance.”

This entry had his dates of birth & death (although I already knew them) & a complete summary of his professional career

Entered the Service of the London & North Western Rly Company as an apprentice clerk at Aylesbury in November 1881.  He was transferred to Camden in 1882 and in March 1903 was appointed Goods Agent at that station.  In March 1912 he received a similar appointment at Broad Street, London, and in November 1914 he was made Assistant District Goods Manager in London.  He was promoted to District Goods Manager at Leeds in June 1920 & held this position until his retirement in June 1925

The moral of this story is to keep checking the list of recent additions to the ancestry site.  You can check this from home, even without a subscription, and then you know whether you need to go to a library that has access to Ancestry.com to further your research.

My Manning family from Wicklow

Wicklow Church of Ireland marriages have just gone online on the pay-per-view site www.rootsireland.ie but any hopes that I may have got any further back with my Manning ancestors seems to have been in vain.  There is nothing obvious amongst the Manning marriages that helps me.

I was told that my great-grandmother, Susanna Manning, came from the Meeting of the Waters in Ireland.  Her parents were William Manning and Susanna Manning, who I was told were cousins.

When www.rootsireland.ie put on line the Church of Ireland baptisms for Wicklow, I was able to find the baptism of Susanna (junior) and many of her siblings.  They were all baptised in Ballinaclash, and their abode was specified as Ballynatone Lower/Ballynatone/Ballinatone.  This isn’t exactly at The Meeting of the Waters, but it’s not far from it.  By pure fluke I found the marriage of William Manning and Susanna Manning at St Peter’s in Dublin (why did they marry in Dublin?) on the free site http://www.irishgenealogy.ie/.  They had married on the 3^rd August 1842.  This was before civil registration, and their marriage entry did not name parents.  All I had was that William Manning of Rathdrum had married Susanna Manning of Corballis and that the witnesses were Richard Manning and Sally Manning.

Unfortunately, the only C of I baptism of a Susanna in Wicklow seems to be the wrong one.  There is a Susanna born 1826 or 1827 (rather young to marry in 1842, but possible), but lots of online sources say this Susanna died in 1847.  It also wasn’t in Corballis.  There are still too many William Mannings to possibly know which is which.  So for now, at least, this stays a brickwall.

In case anyone is interested, the children of William and Susanna Manning are

·         Sarah Manning – born 1844

·         Richard Manning – born 1846

·         Maria Manning – born 1848.  Known as Minnie?  Married the Rev. Edward Cassian Crotty in Madagascar (what was she doing in Madagascar?) and immigrated to Victoria, Australia 1887, where she died in 1920.  My grandfather remembered their children.  Not surprising as they were his 1^st cousins

·         George Manning – Born 1850, died 1900 in Victoria.  I don’t think he ever married, but am not sure

·         Emily Josephine Manning – born 1851.  She married Edmund Manning (son of Abraham Manning and Elizabeth) on 20 Sep 1876 at St Thomas’s in Dublin.  The witnesses were Robert Manning and William Manning.  I would guess that he was some kind of cousin of hers, but don’t know.  They arrived in Victoria in about 1877 and their children were born there.  She died at the young age of 41 in 1892.

·         Ambrose Manning – born 1852

·         William Manning – born 1854

·         Robert Manning – born 1856.  Went to Victoria (probably in 1878) and set up business as a Draper in Echuca in Victoria.  In 1884 he married Annie Craig Jamieson in a double ceremony, when his sister Susanna married William James Spiller.  He eventually moved to Western Australia.

·         William Manning – born 1857.  Died in Melbourne in 1938.  I don’t think he ever married

·         Susanna Manning – born 1859.  My great-grandmother.  She arrived in Victoria about 1883 and married William James Spiller in 1884.  She died in 1941

·         Alfred Manning – born 1862

·         Herbert Manning – born 1869.  Moved to Victoria and married Florence Tamson Jamieson. 

·         Edward Manning – born 1869

As you can see, at least 7 of the children moved to Victoria.  I spent years looking for their arrival as a group until I realised that it was a case of what Dr Perry McIntyre described as “serial migration”, which I think is a fantastic phrase.

The nature of memory

I have just attended two days of sessions about Oral History.  At one point there was an open discussion/Q&A session and the discussion revolved around what do you do when you know what you have been told is incorrect.  What this really comes down to is the nature of memory.  Many of us will have heard a story from our very early childhood so often that we become unsure about whether we really remember the occasion, or whether we have “invented” the memory based on the story we heard over and over again.

An example was given of a rural community who all would have sworn blind that a certain family owned a property, because they had lived there for a couple of generations, whereas the Land Records categorically showed that it was owned by someone else.  The residents had been renting it all along.  But when we find two bits of conflicting evidence when studying history, we usually decide that the balance of probability is with the more commonly written/expressed point of view if we cannot find definitive official evidence.  The land ownership versus occupancy is a particularly relevant example, as land transactions are often used to identify people or branches of certain families in the times before parish registers. 

Even believing the official documents might not give us the true or full story.  My great-grandmother, Merab Brockbank (nee Annesley), lost a son aged 4.  His death certificate says that he died of pneumonia, but according to one of her daughters she always said that was wrong.  She claimed he “got a strain” helping a next door neighbour get out of some barbed wire he was caught in.  He came inside crying and from that time on was in pain and she believed he had strained something.  Within less than a week he died in bed in his mother’s arms. 

To us the concept of dying of a strain seems ridiculous, and the reality is that we’ll never really know what happened in this case, but I have a theory.  Both his parents died of heart conditions, and his father had to retire from work early because of a bad heart (the family used to say he had strained it from too much hard physical work – bit of a theme here from this family).  What if the young boy had a congenital heart problem, and what if he really did injure himself and the pain was as a result of that injury.  In 1911 would a country doctor think that a four year old could have heart problems?  Then once he was already injured, he might have been more susceptible to infection, leading to the pneumonia that was the ultimate cause of his death.

Or maybe the story that came down to me was the result of ‘chinese whispers’ and had changed since the original event.

We’ll never really know the truth, but it does illustrate that stories from family members can indicate that an official document may not contain the whole truth, and that commonly held beliefs may not be true

The nature of memory

I have just attended two days of sessions about Oral History.  At one point there was an open discussion/Q&A session and the discussion revolved around what do you do when you know what you have been told is incorrect.  What this really comes down to is the nature of memory.  Many of us will have heard a story from our very early childhood so often that we become unsure about whether we really remember the occasion, or whether we have “invented” the memory based on the story we heard over and over again.

An example was given of a rural community who all would have sworn blind that a certain family owned a property, because they had lived there for a couple of generations, whereas the Land Records categorically showed that it was owned by someone else.  The residents had been renting it all along.  But when we find two bits of conflicting evidence when studying history, we usually decide that the balance of probability is with the more commonly written/expressed point of view if we cannot find definitive official evidence.  The land ownership versus occupancy is a particularly relevant example, as land transactions are often used to identify people or branches of certain families in the times before parish registers. 

Even believing the official documents might not give us the true or full story.  My great-grandmother, Merab Brockbank (nee Annesley), lost a son aged 4.  His death certificate says that he died of pneumonia, but according to one of her daughters she always said that was wrong.  She claimed he “got a strain” helping a next door neighbour get out of some barbed wire he was caught in.  He came inside crying and from that time on was in pain and she believed he had strained something.  Within less than a week he died in bed in his mother’s arms. 

To us the concept of dying of a strain seems ridiculous, and the reality is that we’ll never really know what happened in this case, but I have a theory.  Both his parents died of heart conditions, and his father had to retire from work early because of a bad heart (the family used to say he had strained it from too much hard physical work – bit of a theme here from this family).  What if the young boy had a congenital heart problem, and what if he really did injure himself and the pain was as a result of that injury.  In 1911 would a country doctor think that a four year old could have heart problems?  Then once he was already injured, he might have been more susceptible to infection, leading to the pneumonia that was the ultimate cause of his death.

Or maybe the story that came down to me was the result of ‘chinese whispers’ and had changed since the original event.

We’ll never really know the truth, but it does illustrate that stories from family members can indicate that an official document may not contain the whole truth, and that commonly held beliefs may not be true

Memories of a World War I Soldier

Today is Anzac Day, so naturally my thoughts turn to my grandfather, Private William Spiller #411, who fought in WWI.  He was one of the lucky ones who came back intact in both body and mind, but the latter was probably because he had firmly closed the door on the War and refused to discuss it.

He was born in Melbourne in 1896, so when the war broke out he was too young to enlist, although his older brother, Walter, did and served at Gallipoli.  My grandfather enlisted in February 1916, when he was aged just 19 years and 8 months.  When I think of the boys I know who are that age now it really make you understand how young that was.  He was posted to “A” Company, 37^th Battalion AIF.  They trained for a little while in Seymour in Victoria, then embarked on the H.M.T Persic on the 3^rd July. 

The majority of the 1,573 troops on board the Persic had been born Australia, and had never left its shores.  I can’t even begin to imagine what they must have been feeling.  They stopped at Albany in Western Australia, but that was the last they were to see of Australia for a long time.  For some, it was the last time they would ever see their homeland.  Next stop was Cape Town, where they picnicked in the park surrounding the mansion built by Cecil Rhodes.  The Persic came into port at St. Vincent in the Cape Verde Islands, but the troops do not appear to have been allowed ashore.  On 25^th July they finally anchored in Plymouth Sound.

Once disembarked, they boarded a train for their camp at Larkhill on Salisbury Plain.  Soon after they had settled in to their camp they were all given four days’ leave, and two extra days were given to those who wished to visit Ireland.  My grandfather’s parents had both been born in Ireland, and my mother told me that while overseas her father had visited (and kissed) the Blarney Stone, and also traced down some elderly aunts of his mother’s in her home town, known as “The Meeting of the Waters”.  This must have occurred at this period.  It was probably also at this period that the pictures of him (below) were taken.

Salisbury Plain is, of course, the location of Stonehenge, and many of the soldiers took the opportunity to visit this iconic landmark.  Did my grandfather?  I don’t know.  I’d never heard about any of these places he saw before he went to the front.  They can’t have been traumatic, but the memories were locked away with all the others.

On the 27^th September there was a divisional parade in front of King George V.  I never heard anything about this either.

On the 22^nd November he proceeded overseas to France, ex Southampton.  “A” Company was sent to the front immediately.  This was during that incredibly severe winter of 1916-17.  My grandfather spent a lot of the war sick with pneumonia, chronic bronchitis and trench fever, but was lucky not to have been wounded.

Although they had been involved in raiding German trenches from their arrival at the front, it was not until June 1917 when they were involved in their first major battle, namely Messines.  The Captain under whom my grandfather served, Captain Robert Grieve, was awarded the Victoria Cross for his bravery during this battle.  The History of the Thirty-Seventh Battalion A.I.F. by N.G. McNichol, contains a facsimile of a letter from the N.C.O.s and men of his company written to Grieve to congratulate him on the honour, and among the signatures is that of Pte W. Spiller.

The 37^th went on to fight in the battle of Broodseinde, the battle of Passchendaele and the Somme in 1918 amongst others.  In late 1918 the 37^th was disbanded to provide reinforcements for other battalions, and on the 18^th October 1918, less than a month before the end of hostilities, my grandfather was transferred to the 5^th Battalion.

He returned to Australian per Soudan, arriving on the 29^th July 1919 and was finally discharged on the 13^th September.

We know so little about his experiences during the war.  I understand his need to put it behind him, but I still wish I had heard more.  The few things we were told was that at one period he had nothing to eat for three weeks except plum jam, and he would never eat plum jam again.  During one of the periods of convalescence from illness he was billeted on a French family and kept a photo of the daughter.  My grandmother used to tease him about his French girlfriend, and he’d crossly reply “she wasn’t my girlfriend”.  We also heard that after he was better he told the French farmer that what he had really wanted when he was sick was some fizzy drink (he usually had lemonade), and the farmer exclaimed, saying why hadn’t he said so?  They had hidden all the champagne in the cellar in case the Germans came along!

Those couple of anecdotes are such a tiny proportion of the experiences he’d have gone through during his two and a half years war service, yet they are all we will ever know.  I’m aware this is common with veterans, but it is frustrating for the rest of us.

Book about Crew Deserters

I promised people on the cruise that I would post the details of a book about Crew who deserted ships in Australia - how many people have you met who have been told that their ancestor jumped ship!

The book is called Ship's Deserters 1852-1900 and is written by Jim Melton.  It doesn't contain every single deserter, but it does contain a lot.

The other place to check for them are Police Gazettes - sometimes (not always) details of deserters being sought were published there.

Something new about Australian Newspapers on Trove

I learnt something new about the Newspapers on Trove the other day.  Some of the entries have a little envelope at the bottom of their summary.  These are on entries that are "coming soon", which have been digitised, but are being checked before being made live.  If you click on the envelope you can enter your email address and then you will be notified when the article is made available.

Below is an example....

Last day of the Unlock the Past Cruise

Friday was a very full-on day, from a point of view of presentations I attended.  A few highlights only of the day:-

Cora Num gave a talk entitled “How did they get here:  Locating Shipping and Immigration records”.  Key points were that there can be more than one index to any particular record series, and there may be differences between them, so if there is more than one index, make sure to check them all;  hospital admission records may list the ship of arrival;  children over 14 are listed as single males or single females, and not with the family, so make sure you check that section of the passenger lists.

Jeremy Palmer’s talk on English and Welsh Probate Records pointed out that although Ancestry has the National Probate Calendar from 1861 to 1941 (with some gaps), the Society of Australian Genealogists has the microfiche for these calendars from their start in 1858 to 1943, without the gaps.  The other point is that the maps in Phillimore’s Atlas show which parishes were part of “peculiars” for the purpose of proving wills.

I went to a talk on document preservation by Diane Foster, who had been an archivist working in various archives throughout the world.  She started by acknowledging that the ideal materials to facilitate preservation are expensive, and that people will not always be able to make use of them, but said she would talk about the ideal solution, and then an “acceptable” one.

She spoke about the differences between Ground Pulp Paper (the normal type) and Chemical Pulp Paper (much more expensive – this is the “archival” paper which can also be labelled Permanent Paper or Long Life Paper).  Paper labelled “Museum Quality” has a high content of rag, and is even better.  Next point was about shelving.  Ideally it should be metal, but as most of us have (and want) wooden shelving at home, the best way to avoid the wood coming into contact with the valuable book etc was to line the shelf with Tyvek.  A few other points

·         Paper (and books) should be stored on edge, unless it is oversized

·         Even plastic paper clips will damage paper by bending it and making the paper fragile at the position of the bends

·         Don’t use hairdryers to get photos out of old magnetic albums (will damage the photo)

·         Henzo photo albums are good – the best are the ones with slip covers to keep out the light and dust

·         When printing digital photos print matt copies, not glossy, and make sure you use pigment ink, not dye

At lunch I was again “hosting” a table, this time on Oral History, which went well.  One of the people on the table was from Penrith Library, so was interested in capturing community history as well as family history.

At the end of the cruise I will say that I learnt a lot, met lots of new people, and am totally exhausted – it was more like work than a holiday!

Thursday on the Cruise

Thursday I attended a talk by Mike Murray on DNA for the Genealogist.  I had listened to a talk on DNA by Kerry Farmer a few years ago, but since then the autosomal tests have come forward leaps and bounds, but they are still not going to tell you your complete family tree back to Adam and Eve.  Next was a talk  by Cora Num on Occupational Records, where she mentioned lots of useful places to get information about your ancestor via his/her occupational records, or at least built a picture of what that occupation was like.  Many of her examples related to South Australia, which was not as relevant to me, but a couple of things she mentioned that I must have a look at were that SAG has indexed Sydney’s Sewerage Plans (I didn’t make a note of the date), which shows the names of occupiers (or was it owners?) of properties, along with maps, and that State Library of NSW has Surveyor General’s Detail Sheets on their web site.  These don’t list names, but are still relevant as historical maps.

Next I spoke on Medieval Genealogy.  Had what I considered a very good turn out – 20 (which was the maximum that room can hold) – which I thought was very good as I think it is a rather specialist subject.

This afternoon was Rosemary Koppitke talking on Findmypast Australasia.  A few interesting records there that I must look at, like Victorian Monumental Inscriptions, Government Gazettes for most states, Police Gazettes and some Victorian Land Records, just to name a few.  Shauna Hicks talk about Trove came up with a couple of interesting things.  If you search for pictures through Trove or through Picture Australia, they will come up in different orders, so try both.  Also, searching the newspapers through Trove is faster than going to the Newspapers link.  Don’t ask me why.  Finally Allan Murrin spoke on Familysearch, comparing the old site to the new one.  A key point with the new one is that if you create a login (which is free, of course) and sign in, you will be given access to more records than if you come in as an anonymous user.

Tuesday & Wednesday on the Cruise

Tuesday was another shore day, this time on Lifou.  Very pretty, and not at all built up.  In the morning we went on a Melanesian Encounter, where we were taken to a Melanesian Village, shown their church, visited the chief’s hut (a round thatched hut very like an English iron age hut) and then taken to see a demonstration of their chicken cooking, which was an underground style of cooking.  We got to taste a bit of “one they had prepared earlier” which was very nice.  The afternoon tour was scenic drive and a swim at a beach – much appreciated because it was incredibly hot and humid.

Back on the ship there were some talks in the dome.  I missed the first one as I was not yet back on board, but attended one by Allan Murrin and Jan Gow on the recent RootsTech conference in Salt Lake City.  They videod all the talks, and a few of them have been put online – they can be accessed at www.rootstech.org/video.  There was also another excellent historical chat by Dr Leigh Summers, this time on Contraception and the Victorians, followed by a Trivia Quiz.

Wednesday had nothing scheduled as it was a full day ashore on Vanuatu.  Once again it was incredibly hot and humid, but we had a great tour around the island.

Monday on the Cruise

It’s been a few days since I have been able to enter a blog, as everything has been so busy, especially with the shore tours...

Monday morning I was too tired to make it to the talk on “Using unit histories to unlock the past”, which was at 8am, and didn’t think I’d get any value out of “Beginning your Family History”.  So the first talk I attended was one I’d given before – Assisted and Bounty Immigrants, which was in the Captain’s Lounge.  It went well, and after that I had nothing until lunchtime.  At lunchtime I was on a table in the main dining room, leading a Q&A on NSW research.

The afternoon marked our arrival at our first port of call – Noumea in New Caledonia.  Unfortunately, the tour we had selected and pre-booked had been cancelled, so we had to make another choice.  In hindsight, I don’t think we made the best choice.  But before our tour started, we had a little wander around Noumea.  Nothing much very interesting to see.  That hasn’t changed in the 30 years since I’ve been there, although Noumea is a lot bigger now.  The tour we chose was the scenic drive with wine and cheese stop.  It basically consisted of a drive through Noumea, then going to two lookouts (Our Lady of the Pacific, and then Ouen Toro) and then driving past Anse Vata beach where we stopped and went to a restaurant.  There we had three French cheeses, accompanied by three French wines.  That was very nice.  We had thought of eating in Noumea, but it was starting to rain and we hadn’t seen anything promising on our little walk, so we went back to the ship for dinner.

First full day of the Genealogy Cruise

Saturday continued wet and raining.  Dinner that night in Luke Mangen’s Salt Grill Restaurant was really yummy.   Sunday morning it was still raining, and continued raining most of the day. 

First talk was at 8am (bit early for a holiday!) and it was Shauna Hicks talking about the conditions on the emigrant ships that bought our ancestors to Australia.  She pointed out the importance of looking for diaries etc to get the feel of what the voyage was like, even if those are not written by your ancestor, or even from the same ship.  It will all paint a picture of the voyage.  She mentioned various sources that can be used to get pictures to add to that understanding, such as Picture Australia and the Illustrated London News (available on the NLA site under eResources)

Next talk was Jeremy Palmer on “Tracing Back to the Country of Origin”, which was about where you can look to find clues as to where people came from.  He kept using an example of his wife’s Kelly ancestors, and then he put up a copy of a death certificate of a Kelly, which had been registered in Hampton.  After the talk I asked if they were the Kellys who had run the Half-Way Hotel at Hampton.  They were.  My great-grandmother, Merab Annesley, had a half sister, Minnie, who married Joe Kelly!  So that was a connection found.  Maybe one day it will lead me to a better photo of Minnie.

Next I had a bit of a break, then off to hear Helen Smith talk about breaking down brick walls.  It really was a good talk.  I had never heard her talk before, but will definitely look out for any other talks she gives.  In this one she talked about a lot of things that should be common sense, but which people forget.  She particularly stressed going back to the start and reviewing what you know.  It may be that a witness to a marriage is now someone you know, whereas you didn’t when you first got the marriage certificate.  Interestingly, that had happened to me, when I went back and saw that the witnesses to the marriage of Joseph Brockbank and Agnes Nelson were Jane Ellen Brockbank & Ned Ward.  By that time I knew that Ned Ward was Jane Ellen’s fiancé, who went on to murder her and kill himself. 

Another point she made was not to skip straight to an index, but to make sure to read the introduction etc, which most of us don’t do.  Even though a particular index may say it covers a certain date range, the introduction may make it clear that some years are missing, and there is no point in looking for an event if that year is missing.

Next thing it was my turn to give my UK Census talk.  It had to be very rushed, as it is a one hour talk and I only had 30 minutes to do it, so couldn’t spend as long stressing the different search techniques as I would have liked to.

After lunch I listened to Carol Baxter again talk about the Biographical Database of Australia, and then Dr Leigh Summers talk about fashion history in the 1920s.  Not strictly genealogical, but a very interesting talk – she is a very good speaker – and I kept thinking about my grandmother who was a flapper in the 1920s, so I guess for me there was a genealogical connection.

By the end of the day the rain was starting to clear up....

We're off and cruising

Today we boarded the ship and started on our cruise.  It has been raining ever since we left the hotel, which is a bit of a pity.  Means that sitting on our own balcony is not an option at the moment.

There was some mix ups with the times, and the Unlock the Past meet and greet, which was scheduled for 1:30 had to be postponed, because that was when we had to do an emergency drill.  So it took place at 2:30 instead. 

They still haven’t worked out who will be doing extra talks when, so I don’t know if I will be doing any talks yet.  There is nothing scheduled for today, and dinner is at our own leisure, so we have booked to go to Luke Mangen’s Salt Grill restaurant.  That way we can be sure we a free for any dinner table talks I am interested in, or to give any talks over dinner.

Ready for the Cruise

Well, we are up in Brisbane, ready to go on the Unlock the Past Genealogy Cruise tomorrow.  I’ve had a walk about the South Bank Parklands, and will start to think about dinner.  From tomorrow on it’s genealogy galore.

I will be trying to update this blog with what I have learned, internet access permitting