Moon Landing – memories of a 6 year old

moonwalk in progress The Moon Landing of July 20 1969 is one of those events which makes people recall where they were at the time. This weekend it is 50 years since that momentous day. For those of us who were small children at the time, our memories are a little unreliable and lend a creative context to the official documents of the time.

In the mid north of South Australia, heavy snowfalls were recorded, lending a contextual layer of reality to the day. Given the rarity of snow in the region, the day was far more memorable than it might otherwise have been.

snow in the Mid north of South Australia My mother had driven us to school because of the inclement weather, snow not yet falling. In front of the school cars arrived, parking on angle to the pavement to drop off their cargo of children. On the pavement stood a teacher dressed for the wet weather, approaching cars as they appeared to inform the unsuspecting parents that school had been cancelled for the day. Cars then reversed out and moved off without unloading children.

On returning home, my sister and I were allowed to play in the lounge room, and more unusually, we were allowed to have the television on. The snowy black and white images did not hold much interest for us. Our story telling Grandfather had always told us stories about ‘The Man in the Moon’, and he had reliably informed us, the moon was made of cheese. Surely this was about him, ‘The Man in the Moon’. As a five and a six year old, we were more interested in playing with the dolls we had acquired for our recent birthdays.

In the warmth of the kitchen, Mother had set up the baby bath on the kitchen table and was attending to her six month old babe.
We were busy with our dolls when Mum called from the kitchen to look out the window. Snow! I remember dashing straight to the kitchen to ask permission to go play in the snow. The answer was a firm ‘no’. Bargaining – ‘we will wear our rain coats’. Still no!

Resigned to the fact that the snow was beyond our reach, we returned to the lounge room, but now our attention was held completely by the scene outside the window. When Mum entered the room some time later, she found us perched, like cats, on the cupboard in front of the window absorbing a memory that would stay forever.

When school resumed the next day, there was discussion about the moon landing, and children moving about the class room in re-enactment of the moon walk. The snow long gone. I do remember being a little confused about the men walking on the moon, after all, the was already a ‘Man in the Moon’!

For many years, I had assumed that we had a day off school due to the snow. Growing up in a Peterborough, a small country town, the shared memory of my friends re-enforced this impression. It was not until I had left school and moved to Adelaide, that I became aware that the day off had been widespread, and granted because of the Moon Landing!

James Quinlan – Farm Apprentice

James was born and raised in Battersea, London. He was seventh of eleven children, and at the time of the 1911 Census, there were 12 people living in a 3 roomed house [1]. Conditions were crowded to say the least. It is little wonder that as a young man, James had a dream of a life less crowded.

In 1914, at the age of seventeen, James boarded a ship bound for Australia in search of that life. The story told by his wife and children followed the line that James had travelled to Australia to join an older brother, Fred and his wife Lily, who had emigrated to South Australia two years earlier. When I asked him directly why he had emigrated to Australia, James answer was different to the assumption provided by his nearest and dearest. James would say “I came to join the Australian Army, (to sign up for WW1).” The next question was naturally, about why he had not joined the English army. His response “both the pay and the were better in the Australian army.”

After my teenaged interview of James, armed with this new information, I followed my own assumptions regarding his reasons for emigration, which revolved around his intention to enlist for the war, but James had withheld a key piece of information.
Thinking logically about how a 17-year-old could travel alone in the year the war began raised new questions. I found him emigrating on the Irishman, March 1914 [2]. The Passenger list consisted almost entirely of teenaged boys! There were a few girls also listed of similar ages. The girls were all listed as ‘domestic servants’, while the boys were all listed as ‘Farm Apprentices’. Interestingly, his ship sailed from Liverpool, rather than London. With WW1 just months away, this was likely a safety issue.
How had James, a city lad, gone from being a ‘printer’s messenger’ in the 1911 census to being a ‘farm apprentice’ in the passenger list?

Brother Fred had undergone some agricultural training prior to emigration, likely a condition of his passage. Looking at this new information with fresh eyes, it dawned on me that James had possibly been a ‘Barwell Boy’. What transpired through further research, was that James was part of an earlier assisted immigration scheme, known as the ‘Farm Apprentice Scheme’. This scheme was aimed at providing an agricultural workforce for regional areas of South Australia. There was a contract to be signed and criteria to be met. Within the contract was a clause which stated compulsory military training would be required [3]

requiremnt for military service — page nine of the Farm Apprentice Brochure reveals a military obligation.

In James mind, this was likely his way in to the Australian Army. It explained his answers regarding his reason for emigration. His early life in South Australia was not happy. He and the farmer he was allocated to did not see eye to eye [4].

unhappy placement — From a letter by James to the Immigration Officer dated June 11 1914.

As part of his contract with the immigration department, James was required to write a monthly report to the Immigration Office. Part of his wages were given to him, the remainder were ‘held’ for him at the Immigration Office and would be paid to him on completion of his contract.[5]

JQ Hinndmarsh Is — A portion of the wages were with held for payment to the apprentice at the end of the contract.

James, unhappy with his placement, sought and found a new employer. This placement was however short lived. Unhappy with conditions provided by his contract with the Immigration Office, James resigned his post and enlisted for service in WW1 [6].
Discovery of James previously unknown life as a Farm Apprentice provided a significant surprise in more ways than one. It had changed the script of his arrival, but it had also provided a rich and informative file held at State Records which told the tale of his brief life as a Farm Apprentice.

References
1. Ancestry, 1911 England Census, Class: RG14; Piece: 2168, Corunna Place, Battersea, https://www.ancestry.com.au/ Accessed 25 January 2019.

2 Findmypast. “Passenger Lists Leaving UK 1890-1960”: Ship: Irishman, departing: Liverpool 21Mar1914

3. South Australia – the wheat & garden state. Opportunities for boys to become Farmers. Brochure. The commissioner of Crown Lands Immigration, p. 9.

4. State Records of South Australia: Attorney Generals Department; GRG7/3 Applications for assisted passage by agricultural laborers. 1911 – 1914. Quinlan, James no 145, 1914. Letters form James to the Immigration Department, 1914.

5. SRSA: GRG7/3, 145. Account for J. Quinlan, 1914.

6. The AIF Project, James Quinlan 2412, https://aif.adfa.edu.au/showPerson, accessed 24 January 2019.

In search of Seven Brothers.

A couple of years ago, I spent hours at the State Library searching through old news papers on microfilm. I was looking for a particular photo from my family history, and I only had the memories of my 10-year-old self to rely on. I spent so much time at the Library, that the librarians were familiar with my search purpose, and often offered suggestions they hoped would be helpful.

In a significant moment in sparking my interest in family history, my father showed me an article in the Adelaide Advertiser. A photo of my grandfather and his brothers. Seven elderly gents all looking chipper. I was struck by the size of the family. As a girl with sisters, I immediately wanted to know if there had been any girls. The sisters had all died. I was intrigued by the size of my grandfather’s family and immediately recognised the fact that if Dad had that many uncles, then he must surely have a huge number of cousins! He told me there was to be a reunion of all the descendants of ‘Pop’s father’.
The reunion took place in a warm month, but not the height of summer. There was an estimated 500 people in attendance, and many photos taken on the day. I remember meeting my father’s uncles with a kind of awe. It was like discovering a whole bunch of new grandfathers. The respect and warmth my father held for them was evident.

Fast forward a few decades, and my interest in family history is renewed. I wanted to find that photo! So, based on the memories of my 10-year-old self, I spent hours at the State Library trawling through microfilmed newspapers in search of the article. I didn’t have much to go on. I remembered a full length photo of seven elderly gents seated in a garden. I had a photo taken of my family at the reunion where my brother was a babe not more than a year old. We were dressed in summer clothes, confirming warm weather. Based on my brother’s age I knew that I had to be about 10 when the photo was taken.

I spent months trawling through past editions of the Advertiser. I started in March 1973, and went on from there. I was going cross-eyed scanning old editions, sometimes getting distracted by events of the era. The Librarians were very helpful, and became familiar with my quest, offering suggestions to find my goal, and kept encouraging me.

My breakthrough finally came after I had met some descendants of my great grandfather’s brother, uncle of my grandfather. Those amazing women, older than I, had been collecting family history documents for many years, and were keen to connect and share information. There it was, in the large file they had collected, a copy of the article I sought! It looked nothing like the one I had in mind. The photo was from chest up, not full length, and the article I recalled was far briefer than I could have imagined. The date of the article stuck with me, it was May 1, 1973. I had begun searching in March of that year, but had such a strong image in my head that I had not been able to search effectively. 7 brothers (3)

The day I returned to the library to download my own digital copy of the article, my favorite librarian was present. She had followed my progress and checked in with helpful suggestions regularly during my search. She understood my joy at achieving my goal.

The memory of my 10-year-old self had proved unreliable and misleading! The photo I was remembering was the one which family members had purchased from The Advertiser. That had been a full length version, and I had seen it more often than the one reproduced in the paper!

Memory, no matter how certain we are. can play tricks on us and be rather unreliable.

[1] ‘They are seven who total 512’, The Advertiser, Adelaide, 1 May 1973.

Elizabeth Raven

elizabeth (raven) west My family tree is liberally peppered with strong women. There are several I would like to meet, not least Elizabeth Raven, my great – great grandmother.
Elizabeth’s arrival in South Australia is not clear. Her father William, came to South Australia as a soldier with the 96th Regiment. One source suggests William Raven was in South Australia by 1836 [1]. While I have not found a birth record for Elizabeth, other documents suggest her birth about 1834, making her approximately two years old at the time of arrival in South Australia. Elizabeth was the second child, and oldest daughter in a family of six children. She outlived all of her siblings.

In the first South Australian Marriage in my family tree, Elizabeth married Robert West in 1853 at the Holy Trinity Church in Adelaide. Robert was 20 years old, Elizabeth 19. The first child, Frances Elizabeth, was born the following year. There were a total of twelve children born to this couple over 19 years. Five of those children would pre decease their mother.[2]

She was 38 years old when husband Robert died at the age of 40, leaving her with nine children aged between 20 and one.

I would like to talk to Elizabeth about her strength, and how she kept her family together in a time when there were no widows pensions, or any significant social support.
Providing for a large family of growing children would have required a great deal of resilience, Elizabeth appears to a have been able to hold the family together and rear strong and resourceful daughters. For me this is evidenced by the handicrafts, and resourcefulness I witnessed in my grandmother who would tell of having learned her skills from her mother, my great grandmother, Mary Ann.

If I trace the newspaper death notices of the daughters of Elizabeth, there is evidence of headstone for robert & elizabeth west (nee raven) + several of their children. (reduced) strong bonds between them. A trait most likely forged through the need to work together for survival. In another show of unity, all of the children born to this line of women, bare the middle name of ‘West’, a way of carrying forth the family name. Only one son had survived to a marriageable age, but he did not had children. My grandmother had always been proud of her middle name and the connection it gave to her mother, and it has made the cousins of my grandmother easier to find in records.

There are so many questions I would like to ask Elizabeth Raven, matriarch of my line.

[1] Family History SA. ‘South Australian Pioneer Families’ http://familyhistorysa.org/colonists.html Accessed Jan 22, 2019.
[2] Genealogy SA. ‘On line Database’ https://www.genealogysa.org.au/ Accessed Jan 22 2019.

The Challenge of DNA

Without a doubt, one of the biggest challenges I have had since I began tracking down and documenting my family history, is trying to get my head around my DNA results. It was an easy decision, to take a chance and submit a DNA test with Ancestry. I was hoping most of all to crack some brick walls and stir up some new direction.
There was initial excitement when my results came through. I don’t recall how many matches I had, but there were no close matches, and barely anything that made sense. There was one name which leapt out at me. A surname which matched the married name of my grandmother’s Aunt. I duly sent off a message, and was rewarded with confirmation I had made a right connection. Something was working.
There was one particular line, I was hoping to find help on, which has remained elusive. There are a couple of confirmed 3rd or 4th cousins descending from Henry Foreman, but they have produced no new leads as to where he came from or who his parents were. Despite having produced a total of 16 children from two marriages, the clues to when and where he came from continue to elude me.
Of course the success of a DNA test depends entirely on the number of people connected to you who have tested. There has to be something to compare it to. A stand alone DNA test without any known connections is difficult to interpret. Three or four years on, I now have some close matches which I use as comparison to help me sort how the more distant cousins might connect to me. I have managed to find people from almost every branch of my tree, and there is a large chunk of people who match each other, who cannot be placed confidently anywhere – I call them “the unknown contingent.”
And, it helps if those you send messages to in hope of establishing the shared link respond, or at least in a helpful manner. Some do not respond at all, and others want you to do all the work for them. The point is, we all want something different from our DNA results. There are the adoptees hoping to find biological parents, and others whose parentage has not been revealed to them who hope to find where they fit. A large proportion of DNA testers are like myself, just looking for information to help them build their tree.
Whatever the purpose of the DNA test, the learning curve in understanding and interpreting the results is steep, and there is almost no way to prepare yourself for it. For me, I learn best from ‘doing’, so despite having read, I had to actually ‘play’ with my matches to begin to bring it together. Knowing a little bit of the science behind it helps. People choose to delve as deeply (or not) as they need to. The number and quality of your matches goes a long way to determining the success of desired outcomes. Not least in measuring your success in understanding, or making sense of matches is the factor of time. It takes time to accumulate the matches that make sense. Be patient, it does begin to make sense, and yield results.

The Journey Begins

Thanks for joining me!

I have been researching the family history for a few years now, and have a collection of family stories which need to be shared. Come with me on a journey of discovery and story telling.

For the most part, my ancestors have come from England, a few originated in Ireland, and a couple from Scotland. To date they are all free settlers with no convicts having been discovered…. yet!

Let the stories begin!