Stories from Dead Relatives

This week's #52ancestorsin52weeks is Father's Day - but of course, it's not Father's Day in Australia, so I'm going to do the theme we had a couple of weeks ago when I was away - So Far Away. When you first start doing your family tree, it's exciting to see how "far back" you can go with your branches. Until last weekend, the furthest back on my direct line was Benjamin Broome, my 9th great-grandfather born in 1646 in Kidderminster, Worcestershire, England (grandfather of John Broom in my carpet story ), which I thought was a long way back! Last weekend, I was searching back to see if I could see a link between the Freemans on my Dad's side and the Freemans on my Mum's side (spoiler alert - not yet). Anyway, I was having a search on Joseph Freeman (my 5th great-grandfather born in Gloucestershire, England in 1765) and his wife - Sarah Arkell (my 5th great-grandmother also from Gloucestershire, England, born in 1767). Well, I had her father ...

This week's theme for #52ancestorsin52weeks is Going to the Chapel. Behind every good wedding is (should be?) a good love story. This week we are are close to home in terms of ancestors, but the Chapel certainly wasn't... ...Once upon a time, there was a young woman called Heather Hardwick. She was working at King George V Memorial Hospital at Camperdown, in Sydney, as medical record librarian. Mutual friends from the hospital invited Heather out of drink in a pub down at Circular Quay. It was here that she met Ted. They went out for a couple of dates, but it wasn't Ted that would walk her down the aisle! A 21-year-old Heather Ted was friends with Laurie Butler (or "Butts", as we know him). The boys were very excited because "Stiffy" was coming home on leave from New Guinea. Now I have it on good authority that Terry Sedgwick gained the name Stiffy at school from Butts because of his propensity for drawing skeletons. If you thought any different...