gathering dust

So I am in quarantine. My lovely NZ Cruise was ended early by the COVID-19 global pandemic and today we received notice that there were cases aboard the ship . So now instead of a preemptive quarantine, I am a close contactee. I am fortunate in that work is setting me up to work from home and for the moment I feel well (if a little paranoid), but the situation did remind me that I am certainly not the first of my family to be quarantined after a ship board outbreak. Charles Robert Muffett, alias Robert Moffitt (c. 1811- 23/11/1890) was one of the unlucky souls aboard the Bussorah Merchant in 1828, the first ship quarantined at what would become the North Head Quarantine Station. I do not know whether he was one of those with small pox or whooping cough or if he, like me, was one of the relatively healthy ones.  My journey was however a much more delightful one than that of my ancestor, a voluntary one that included 3 course meals and scenic tours of New Zealand. Robert's ...

While I have been chatting to my maternal grandfather's cousins about that side of the tree, my dad has been chasing birds. Not the feathered variety, but those of his maternal ancestry. See our line in Australia stems from Robert Bird born c.1819 most likely in Norfolk to - if his death certificate is correct - Richard Bird and his wife Susan nee Frost. In 1837 he was caught stealing a horse with Robert Greenwood and transported out here on the Bengal Merchant in 1838. We have a reasonably clear picture of his descendants, I don't think it is completely exhaustive but for the most part we know the lines of his 10 kids for at least a generation or two. However, speaking to Nana (who at 101 is still sharp as a tack) and her remaining sisters there are all these cousins  all these other Birds who they remember fondly from their childhoods that we just cannot place as descended from Robert. So there are a couple of possibilities. They aren't actually related by blood...

So I was terrible at the 52 weeks challenge. Are we surprised? Nope. But anyway, with the increase in it's database Ancestry's DNA estimates are being refined so I thought I'd have a look and see what these new estimates look like compared to the old. So Me: Mum: Dad: Given what I know of our geographic ancestry none of these changes are particularly surprising, except for that giant purple blob added to Mum's that represents the Baltic States.  Challenge Accepted Ancestry DNA. 

It was a challenge to narrow down this week's subject because many of my ancestors have proved elusive in one way or another and are thus a challenge, or have themselves faced what can be considered challenging times. But today we consider Jesse Friend who "disappeared and was probably murdered by aborigines in the St Clair region near Singleton" Well, at least that's what the family stories say. Jesse Friend was born in Salehurst, Sussex in 1817 to Jesse Friend and his wife Mary (nee Crittenden) and one of seven children.  Records suggest that the family was often at the mercy of the Poor Law Union and it was thus that in 1839, Jesse the younger, his wife Mary (nee Baker) their child of 6 weeks and various other relations and in laws were shipped off to New South Wales as part of the 99 souls sent by the Salehurst Poor Law Union on the Neptune.  The couple settled in the Maitland area of New South Wales and a second child, Sarah, was born in 1854...

There are many firsts that I could pull out of my research to discuss in this topic, our 'first convict' the 'first person I researched', instead we will go with a different and notable first:   "The first  white  boy born in this colony was born of  black  parents." -  Sir. J. H. Fisher   I have blogged about this little nugget before , and it is of course much disputed as these things are, but I thought it might be interesting to discuss who exactly this white boy of black parents was. William Josiah Black was born on the 2nd of February 1837 'not far from the old gum tree' to William Edwin Black and his wife Mary Ann (nee Bird). The couple had married a few years earlier in 1833 in a recently completed St Dunstan-in-the-West . In September 1836 the couple embarked on the Coromandel bound for Adelaide, South Australia with their 22 month old daughter and William's brothers James and Thomas and their families . The ship arrived in Ho...

Nana's 100th birthday was on the 7th of October and at a party of 130 odd people, the question most often directed at me was "Are we related to Nancy Bird?" My answer - "Well Nana says so but I am not sure how" was met with little satisfaction on the part of the questioners, so for those who wished for further elucidation on the topic, here is a more extended answer. Rita Muffett (nee Bird and her brother Neville Is this Nancy Bird's place in the background? For those of you who may not know, Nancy-Bird Walton was a pioneering Australian Aviator who operated an Air Ambulance service in Outback NSW, founded the Australian Women Pilots' Association, was patron of numerous charities and was one of those people considered to be national treasures. Basically she is the the kind of person that if you find in your tree you tell everyone. So yes I have done some digging, and Nancy Bird's tree - as near as I can figure -looks like this. Nancy ...