gathering dust

I've mentioned before what a great resource Trove is for fleshing out those little anecdotes my family is so fond of dropping into random conversation. The not married couple in this case was my paternal grandmother's grandparents Jane Clifton and Frederick Charles Brown. Now it was Nana who told me they weren't married but she didn't know the whole story - and it's a good'un. Frederick Brown and Jane Clifton never married because Frederick Brown was already married to Jane Hollege. A rather shotgun affair in 1878, which resulted in 4 children and desertion within the next 5 years. The divorce takes just a little longer. "47 YEARS."  Evening News  (Sydney, NSW : 1869 - 1931) 26 Mar 1930: 10. Web. 22 Sep 2015 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article125975218>. Jane Clifton meanwhile had had two children (father unknown - son registered to her parents as she was only 15, daughter born 3 years later died the same year) prior to her taking up w...

"WORE DUNGAREE SUIT AND BOWYANGS."  News (Adelaide, SA : 1923 - 1954) 26 May 1936: 3. Web. 3 Mar 2015 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article132204484> Yes I had to google it and then had a "huh, so that is what they are called" moment. Laurence Thomas Tulloch is my gg great grandfather on my maternal side. He arrived in Australia as crew on the City of Adelaide   in 1882.

Well it appears I may have found the antecedent to that bushranger anecdote passed along by my father: "HIGHWAY ROBBERIES ON THE GREAT NORTHERN ROAD." The Maitland Mercury & Hunter River General Advertiser  (NSW : 1843 - 1893) 22 Dec 1863: 3. Web. 26 Feb 2014 < http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article18711885 > Mrs Friend being Mary Maria Friend (nee Baker), my 4th Great Grandmother and the outlaw she met none other than Captain Thunderbolt  or at least someone purporting to be him.

Yesterday was Remembrance day or Armistice day, commemorating the end of the First World War. I have a quite a few soldiers in my tree one of whom is Reginald Faithful Muffett, the youngest brother of my Great Grandfather James. Rex was a member of the 6th Light Horse and his service included time at Gallipoli. He was also a conscientious correspondent writing often to his brothers and sisters. One such letter was extracted in the  Goulburn Evening Penny Post. "LETTERS FROM THE FRONT."  Goulburn Evening Penny Post  (NSW : 1881 - 1940) 21 Aug 1915: 2 Edition: EVENING. Web. 12 Nov 2013 < http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article98846448 > You can find all the #TroveTuesday posts over at  Branches, Leaves & Pollen  or search the hashtag on twitter

I did have a different item prepared for today - an article containing a lovely sketch of one of my forebears - however, during one of my general surname searches I came across this essay. ESSAYS, SKETCHES, &c. (1886, November 20).  Goulburn Herald  (NSW : 1881 - 1907), p. 6. Retrieved September 30, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article99903863 Mr & Mrs Robert Muffet are my 3x great-grandparents, their eldest son Charles and his wife Mary Matilda (nee Reader), referred to in the article as Mrs Charles Muffet are my 2x great-grandparents. The funeral is that of their daughter Eliza. There is a published tree of the descendants of [Charles] Robert Muffett & Louisa Muffett [nee Green], a copy of which originally helped to feed my love of family history (I'm on page 72). No mention of Eliza's disability is mentioned. I wonder if it was not known or just conveniently forgot?

My Great (x4) grandfather, Walter Le Pelley (c.1840-?), the youngest child of Ernest Le Pelley (1801-1849) the 16th Seigneur of Sark , migrated to South Australia presumably due to the reversal of fortune encountered by the family. He married Elizabeth Gunther, the daughter of John & Mary Ann Rendall in 1863, and the couple had two children: Louisa Elizabeth (1864-1941) and Frances (Fanny) Amelia (1866-1885). In April 1869, Walter makes his first appearance as 'missing.' Going missing of course, is a curious thing. I doubt Walter himself considered himself missing, that is, if he wasn't dead. But he was un-contactable and people rather wanted to contact him. Missing Friends. (1869, April 21). The South Australian Police Gazette (Adelaide, SA.), p. 55 Elizabeth died in childbirth later that year,  and it is rather ambiguous as to whether he had returned by then or not. In any case two years later, a warrant was issued for his desertion of his children. Deser...

Being on uni break and suffering from brain fog inducing sinusitis, I've spent the past couple of days meandering through my family tree research and following whatever tangents caught my interest. A pleasant morning was had searching for and reading about early German immigration to the Hunter Valley and it is that subject that lead me to this little drama. "Maitland Quarter Sessions."  Evening News  (Sydney, NSW : 1869 - 1931) 11 Jun 1884: 4. Web. 18 Jun 2013 < http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article107266484 > John Phillip Gail (shooting with intent) John Phillip Gail was the second husband of my 3x Great Grandmother Christiana Sophia Boss (nee Rusch) - one of the aforementioned German immigrants - and the couple is already a little bit scandalous having had at least one child out of wedlock 2 years after Christiana was widowed, and unconfirmed family gossip indicating that John may have been married at the time, so 'shooting with intent' was ...

I have been rather remiss of late when it comes to Trove Tuesday and blog posting in general as my own research has been sidelined in favour of uni assignments and research tasks for others, but today's task has reminded me once again of the many ways in which I utilise Trove for things outside family history. Today I am creating content and resources for a website that forms an assessable component of CSG4112 . As part of a group I have been working on creating an e-learning website on the study Western Australian History (the website could have been on any e-learning type activity, our group just ended up being a bunch of history nerds and as the only non-Sandgroper I was outvoted when it came to the specific focus) so not only have I been learning a lot about Western Australian history, I have been researching and writing articles on available resources, and Trove cannot be overlooked. I think when I am done with the article on Western Australian Newspapers available via Tro...

I was rather amused to come across this series of correspondence within the Chronicle  and   The Advertiser    and even more amused to find two of my maternal grandmothers branches claiming ownership of this title, one on her mother's side and one on her father's. A nice little anecdote to share with the cousins. THE FIRST BORN, SOUTH AUSTRALIAN MALE. (1901, June 12).  The Advertiser  (Adelaide, SA : 1889 - 1931), p. 6. Retrieved February 12, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4842932 THE FIRSTBORN SOUTH AUSTRALIAN MALE. (1901, June 15).  The Advertiser  (Adelaide, SA : 1889 - 1931), p. 11. Retrieved February 12, 2013, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4843307  The second letter appeared also in in the June 22nd edition of the Chronicle. You can find all the #TroveTuesday posts over at  Branches, Leaves & Pollen  or search the hashtag on twitter  

I mentioned yesterday my desire to map out my family history in some way and to this end, Trove has been a fabulous resource. I've previously used a family notice found in Trove to begin a search of electoral roles and confirm some names , and again the family notices of Trove'd newspapers have turned up some wonderful gems. "Family Notices."  The Advertiser  (Adelaide, SA : 1889 - 1931) 25 Oct 1902: 6. Web. 5 Feb 2013 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article4891551> According to this, at the turn of the century, my great (x3) grandparents, Charlotte and Edward Black were living on Pulsford Road in Prospect, South Australia. According to Google Street View, there are still some delightful houses with period features along Pulsford Road. I wonder which one was the Black's! You can find all the #TroveTuesday posts over at  Branches, Leaves & Pollen  or search the hashtag on twitter.

I am of the general belief that every one has in their family tree a celebrity of some sort, in my case it is the husband of my great (x2) great-aunt, Monica Sinclair. They met on the ship to Australia, as the extract below shows. Can you work out who her husband was? MMIGRANTS' CHILDREN. (1848, February 5).  The Sydney Morning Herald  (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 5. Retrieved December 11, 2012, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12899825 If you guessed William Arnott (yes THAT William Arnott, the one of Biscuit fame) you'd be spot on! You can find all the #TroveTuesday posts over at  Branches, Leaves & Pollen  or search the hashtag on twitter.

One of my major historical interests is the history of education, something to which my shelved PhD project will attest, so it has always been a pleasure to know that one of my ancestors at least placed great stock in educational opportunity. The letter below with a family bible was given to Charles Robert Muffett of Rosevale, Windellama by the children who attended the schoolroom he built on his property. I was pleased then to find a mention of this school in the SMH REPORT OF THE COUNCIL OF EDUCATION. (1880, May 4). The Sydney Morning Herald  (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 3. Retrieved December 4, 2012, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13459378 One day I am going to have to trek out to Kingswood and look at the records held about the school by the State Archive. I'm sure it will be fascinating.  You can find all the #TroveTuesday posts over at  Branches, Leaves & Pollen  or search the hashtag on twitter.

... given the state of my house as I emerged blinking from the assignment fog. [No heading]. (1933, September 2).  The Australian Women's Weekly  (1933 - 1982), p. 28. Retrieved October 30, 2012, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-page4602358 Hope the rest of you Trovites have had more fun with your research than I have the past week :) You can find all the #TroveTuesday posts over at  Branches, Leaves & Pollen  or search the hashtag on twitter.

If you have been paying any attention to the media this week or last you would have noted that it is the 70th anniversary of the Second Battle of El Alamein . The Sydney Morning Herald. (1942, October 26).  The Sydney Morning Herald  (NSW : 1842 - 1954), p. 4. Retrieved October 23, 2012, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article17814451 The final line of the article comments that the battle  is "likely to develop into one of the decisive struggles of the war" and in hindsight we know this to be true.  The coverage in the press of the desert campaign is extensive and makes for interesting reading . You can find all the #TroveTuesday posts over at  Branches, Leaves & Pollen  or search the hashtag on twitter :) 

One of the things I have been using Trove for is to find out more about places that are mentioned to me by various family members or that come up in the course of research. One such place is Cowra Experimental Farm. According to Nana (dad's mum) her husband, Walter Thomas Muffett ( 9/4/1916-13/3/1958) , had spent three years at Cowra Experimental Farm before they married. The photograph below was taken there. Cowra Experimental Farm sometime between 1934 &1937 - My grandfather, W. T. Muffett on far right. I knew vaguely, that an experimental farm is a sort of cross between an agricultural college, a working property and a science lab, from Trove I was able to find newspaper articles (such as the one below) on it's opening in 1905, and on its continued successes over the next 50 odd years at agricultural shows, irrigation improvements and in developing new hybrids of wheat. Experimental farms have played an important role in the development of Australian agriculture...

One of the troubles I have had in researching my family tree is the reticence of one side of the family in talking about the past. Whereas one side is happy to tell you anything and take great delight in all manner of scandals and anecdotes, the other is tight lipped and 'the past is the past' and best not brought up. So tracing the family tree without asking the family questions, challenging but as I am finding out, doable. If that is, you have some place to start. In my case it was  Trove . That sexy little knowledge tool, is quite a minx ;) I started with a surname. On typing that into Trove and narrowing the results to South Australian Newspapers, I now had a list of lots of people in that locality with that surname. Browsing through I spotted a familiar one. A VERY familiar one. Brilliant! In the family notices section of the Adelaide Advertiser, the family had placed birthday announcements. This you see, gave me an address and a timeframe. Family Notices. (1...