Stories from Dead Relatives

 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...

FIRST - a new year and another attempt at recording some of my family history via the 52 Ancestors prompts! This week, the prompt is "First" and I'm delving deeper into my first Ancestor to arrive in Australia - Samuel Freeman. He was my 4th Greatfather and his offspring eventually led to my maternal Grandmother and my Dad. I think he was born about 1799 in Hertfordshire, England, but I have no definitive records of that (more research to do - Freeman is a very common name!). At age 21, he was working as a millwright (a high-precision craftsman or tradesman who installs, dismantles, repairs, reassembles and moves machinery in corn mills). At about 5pm on 10 October 1799, he was caught stealing out of the chamber room of Thomas Bigg of Kimpton Mill. He stole a "scarlet printed Kersymere waistcoat (worth 10 shillings) and one pair of dark-coloured breeches (worth 15 shillings). He also stole from the sleeping room of Joseph Bigg one Bank of England note of 20...

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 ...

The theme this week for #52ancestors in 52 weeks is Mothers, so I am going to show you my maternal direct line as far back as I can. Maternal lines can be a bit difficult to research because they gave up their maiden when they got married and often that isn't recorded on things like birth certificates of children. Anyway, here is what have found so far. This is me, Ingrid Elizabeth Sedgwick, born 7 July 1969 in Camperdown, NSW, Australia. I married Andrew McCarthy in 1995 and we have two children. This is my mum, Heather Jeannine Hardwick, born 1 July 1939, in Manly, NSW. She married Terence (Terry) Sedgwick in Rabaul, Papua New Guinea, in 1963. They had three children. This is her mum, my grandmother, Martha Pearl Martin (known as Pearl), born 7 June 1917, in Tingha, NSW. She married George Hardwick in 1938 when she was 21 and they divorced in 1943. She then married Bill Saunders in 1944, who I always knew as my "poppy". They had a little boy who die...

This week's theme for #52ancestors in 52 Weeks is "Close Up." No-one lived close or lives close to Canberra. So I went with a portrait of an ancestor - mum and dad had a bunch of old photos and I'm slowly going through and scanning them and uploading to my family tree. I did this one this week. John (Johnny) Patrick Callinan was my first cousin, once removed.  (On a side note - do you get confused with all this first, second cousin, once, twice removed? Sounds like an auction! Well, so did/do I - so maybe this diagram will help you and me figure it out): So Johnny was my Great Aunt's firstborn son. Aunty Hazel was the youngest sister of my paternal Grandmother. There is a whole other story to her, but I'm saving that up for later. Johnny was born on 18 April 1927 to Hazel and John Michael Callinan, who of course, was known as "Jack".  When he was 17, he was mobilised for service by proclamation to the Royal Australian Navy Reserve on 28 ...

I'm being a rebel again, in my own very tiny way. This week's theme is "cemetery" but the list is very American and is really just a prompt to get you writing about your ancestors, so instead I've gone with "Anzac Day". First up, on my side, we have David Eric Morton who was my 1st cousin, twice removed (son of my maternal great-grandmother Emma Morton's brother). According to the Australian War Memorial , he was a Private in the Army/Flying Corps. His WWI records show he signed up on 19 March 1917 in Sydney when he was 20 years old and he embarked on 9 May 1917 on the "Port Sydney", arriving in the Suez on the 8th September 1917 as part of the Camel Reserve Corps - 1st Camel Battalion as a Private. The Imperial Camel Corps Brigade was formed in 1916 from British and Commonwealth troops and was attached to the Anzac Mounted Division. There were four regiments: the 1st and 3rd were Australian, the 2nd was British and the 4th was...