Stories from Dead Relatives

On my paternal grandmother's side of the family, my grand-aunt Olive has "Lumsden" as her middle name, as does her grandmother (my great-great-grandmother), Elizabeth Lumsden Archibald, who was born in 1856 in Goulburn in the NSW southern highlands before moving up to the Tamworth area and married at 16! Anyway, I always thought it was a bit weird and that it must have been a family name. So, I went searching through records, mostly to be sure fathers and mothers are who they are supposed to be, and hit a few dead ends. Her father was John Duncan Archibald (alas, not of the famous Archibald art prizes fame), who was born around 1836 in Aberdeen, Scotland, and came to Australia from Scotland in 1854 on the "London" - he was listed as a saloon waiter, and gave his occupation as ship steward on Elizabeth's birth certificate. His name combines his dad's surname of Archibald (or Archie) and his mother Catherine's surname Duncan. Catherine was born in 1797...

I'm using the theme from 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks of "Water" to inspire this post - I'm going to interpret this as "ancestors who travelled over water to get to Australia" to trace my direct lineage and how they got here. All four of my grandparents were born in Australia, but once we get to great grandparent level, we start to have immigrants: Gaspar Sedgwick/Sigovich - Gaspar (or Jaspar, as some records have him listed), my great-grandfather on my father's father's side, born in 1855 in Cherso/Cres, Austria/modern-day Croatia. It took us a while to figure out his history - we thought he may have changed his name from something like Segvich. We found naturalisation papers from 1900, which indicated he came to Australia in 1874   from "Austria" on the Lady Belmore. Well, I've searched the records of the Lady Belmore and can't find any record of a Sedgwick/Segvich/Legwich or anything similar coming over. But there may be records...

This is my great grandmother, Cecelia Sedgwick (nee Morley) (animated by AI from My Heritage!). She was born in Red Hill, near Ballindine, County Mayo in Ireland in 1864. Her family (father Thomas, mother Bridget) lived on a farm on Lot 7b (land and house) at Redhill, owned by John Nolan Ferrall. There is an 1856 map of the region, which clearly shows Redhill, approximately between Ballyhaunis and Ballandine (which explains why both are found on various documentation) which was entirely owned by John Ferrall, and he also owned several nearby farms. If we zoom in a bit, we can clearly see Lot 7, but it's not clear where a and b might be and which house they would have lived in. You can go onto Google maps now, and actually travel around virtually, via Google Streetview! This house is the northern bit near the current road, looking south over Lot 7. It's hard to know if this was their house, but you can imagine where Thomas and Bridget lived, with their 7 children, including Cece...

 A  " 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks " theme caught me eye this week - "Labor" (or as we prefer to spell it in Australia - labour). How did my ancestors make a living? Have I found an unusual occupation in my family tree? What about the often unsung labour of females ancestors? One of the things I enjoy about researching my family tree is seeing how our lives have changed so dramatically within a few generations. From the advent of gas and electricity in houses, the number of kids we have, and our occupations. And I was watching Further Back in Time for Dinner on the ABC , where a modern-day family lives through the early 1900s - and I was again struck by how different our very recent ancestors lived to us. And the women, in particular, seemed to just have lots of kids, cook (often very different meat and food), clean (with no appliances), wash (the hard way) - and there was no prospect of anything else. That's all there was to look forward to. Cecelia, Celie, Susanna...

Long time no blog about dead people! With this lockdown-living because of COVID-19, I've had more time to sit on the laptop and keep researching. So, I decided to tackle another " 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks " challenge and this week's theme is Water. I've decided to interpret this theme with some amazing photos I found, whilst double-checking my Dad's records for my tree! My grandmother was Cora Parsons (who married Joseph Sedgwick). Her generation is the first one with lots of photographs. They lived in southern Sydney (Jannali), but I have a few amazing photos of her and her siblings enjoying seaside vacations in Middle Harbour and the Central Coast. This is Cora in January 1926, aged 25, at Middle Harbour. Cora, in the same outfit with umbrella, so presumably, somewhere also near Middle Harbour. I can't tell from Google Maps where this might be - so if you recognise that spot, let me know! This is Cora in March 1926, aged 26, at the E...