gathering dust

Yes, yes, I am aware that it is now 16 days into 2015 but the truth is between finishing my Masters, getting the results - I passed of course - Christmas, New Year and the beginning of this week; I kind of just collapsed. In a heap. And did a whole lot of nothing. Well, if nothing is defined as eating too much, drinking too much and reading a whole lot of novels. But thanks to Janelle, over at Janelle's Family Tree Addiction , I was back into the swing of things by the 13th. You see Janelle was lovely enough to organise a day trip and tour of the State Records Office at Kingswood. So spurred into productivity I preordered 4 probate packs but didn't think about what further I might want to look at. One can only be so organised when one is still off in the land of novels and general laziness. The tour of the archives lasted about an hour and was a brilliant look at the masses of buildings, shelvings and infrastructure needed to house the State Archives and the Government Doc...

I often joke that I am related in someway to half the people in the town that I grew up in, and with my maternal grandmother's family having been in the region since the 1840s it is pretty true. So it is no surprise that when Mum and Dad came to visit this weekend Dad had plenty of family anecdotes and gossip to share. He'd been to have his hair cut and the barber is his second cousin. They talked a lot it seems about their mutual great-grandmother Julia Christiana Boss later Winter then Bird. I have a bit of a fascination with this part of the family due to the lashings of scandal  that make life interesting. In any case I now have the following tidbits: Julia was, according to our cousin, born in Australian waters and as such was an Australian Citizen. Now this is something I have been having trouble proving, she is not listed as one of the births on the Commodore Perry. The family was questioned as enemy aliens during WWI.  As such I really hope I can find t...

Sometimes you come across a character in your research who for one reason or another sparks your curiosity. One such person is John Phillip Gail, the second husband of my 3x Great Grandmother Christiana Sophia Boss (nee Rusch). I have mentioned him in brief twice before in relation to a newspaper report  and a gaol entrance record  but as he is on my mind of late I thought I'd expand a little, who knows maybe someone in the ether knows something of him. Born around 1810 in Germany and possibly died 1892 in Liverpool, NSW.  He married Christiana Boss on the 27th of July 1874 at the Presbyterian Minsters Residence in Scone, NSW. Like all documents related to my family it is pretty unhelpful and full of blanks. John Phillip is however listed as a Widower. Now, by their marriage in 1874 Christiana and John Phillip had three children; Eliza born in 1857, Louisa in 1859 and John William in 1862. Herein lies the first question. Why did John Phillip and Christiana no...

I'm sure you've all heard the axiom "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Setting aside the utter ridiculousness of that statement in general, in genealogy you often do the same thing over and over and get different results. I, for example, have a series of names I run through various search engines every couple of months and today one has borne fruit. Ancestry.com spat out a Gaol Entrance record for John Phillip Gail, for this incident  that I have mentioned before . I now have a country of birth, Germany and an arrival year, 1829 and a ship, the Medway. If only he was actually named on the passenger list .

is not something I am very good at, and given my own atrocious handwriting you think I would be. Yesterday I turned to twitter to help me make out a place name on a board's immigrant list for the Commodore Perry  1855 - it was Heblos for those interested - today I am wondering if anyone can help me decipher the following "complaints" by Johan Winter and John Boss from the same voyage. Source: Commodore Perry, Persons on Bounty ships to Sydney, Newcastle Moreton Bay, 1848-66, NSW Archives Kit, CGS 5317, microfilm 2469, 4/4946 I'm flummoxed.

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 ...