Just a few interesting observations

A three hour commute (90 minutes each way) isn't such a drama in an actual city - it felt like a real barrier back in Victoria.

There don't seem to be Galahs, Cockatoos or Rosellas around here feasting on grasses and seeds,much. [EDIT: two Galahs spotted in the park foraging on the ground on the way home one night this week.] But there are plenty of Lorikeets, although they don't hang around to be friendly. Instead they flash past at warp speed, if you are lucky you see a flash of color. Mostly you just hear them, or catch a glimpse of colour in the gum trees.

There are also Kookaburras in the trees in the park and around the school and neighbourhood ! Millions more Crows too, and Ibis (Bin Chickens). I haven't seen any Ibis scavenging on the ground, but they look very elegant as they fly overhead morning and evening on their way to their hunting grounds.

People's gardens and parklands are a constant explosion of colour. So many trees and plants to learn the names of. Wattle, Bouganvillea, Silk trees, Eucalypts, Jacaranda, Poinciana, Frangipani (in way more colours than I thought there were)...Grass is green.

#52Ancestors, Week 46, Random Fact

I really thought I might struggle with this one, and then 10 days or so ago I had bit of time to kill in Christchurch before meeting friends. I had wanted to try to visit their recently completed central library Turānga which has bought all the pieces and collections of the library back under one roof. The first time since the 22 February 2011 earthquake.

It is truly a lovely building, back in the centre of the regenerating city, close to the Cathedral which still serves as a solemn reminder of the events of that day. But close too to the new convention centre, Old Regent Street and Victoria Square. It was a chilly day with frequent rain showers, so inside the library seemed to be the perfect place to spend some time.

Upstairs on the family history floor, I wandered around, checking where the records I knew about were now placed and peeking at others I had not seen before. Definitely not as easily accessible in their temporary locations as they were here.

I perused book shelves with New Zealand history, predominately Canterbury history, but with a good selection of other histories from throughout the country. Many of these told of social and political events, explorations and discoveries. Some were specific to early pioneer or settler families.

There were a couple that really caught my eye. I photographed pages on my phone from some books; specific text and the publishing details from the front as well as the covers. One, about the Matai Valley near Nelson revealed a paragraph full of information I had never seen or heard in all my years of research.

“John Bartlett

Perhaps the first settler in this area was John Bartlett with his wife Maria and their five children ranging in age from twelve to a baby.”[1]

Random Fact: They were the FIRST ?

It goes on to say that like many settlers who arrived and discovered there was no land available to them, they became squatters on land owned by the absentee Ralph Richardson. It also confirmed what we already knew, that they stayed in the area about ten years before moving to the Marlborough district.

They even had a gully and a range of hills named for them which I have been able to locate on a map from the information within the book. Although those names no longer survive, Bartletts Creek in Marlborough does still exist.

Only one thing has me puzzled, that they called their home (both in Matai Valley and Marlborough) Ranfurly after the village they were from. However, they were from East Chinnock, Somerset, England.

I feel that additional little random “fact” might be a red herring. Now I wish I had read the bibliography !

---

[1]Gwyneth Venner, The Matai, A History of the Valley and it’s People, The Copy Machine, Nelson, New Zealand, 2001.

#52Ancestors, Week 45, Bearded

"A fine looking bunch of gentleman with their beards on the verandah. Looking magnificent."

This photo (very poor quality, I must try to see if I can get a better one) was taken about 1896 or 1897 possibly at the home of my great great grandparents James and Sarah Davys, on Ohaupo Road Hamilton New Zealand. Or maybe at the home of one of their sons.

Standing in the centre is James Davys, seated to his right is his wife Sarah, my great great grandparents. Seated to his left are their third son Francis and his wife Sarah, my great grandparents. Seated in front of them are their three eldest children, Jim, Cis and Francis, the fourth, Janie, is standing between her grandparents. Three more children would complete their family in the next six years; my grandfather was not born for another four years.

Seated on the right of the photo is their second son Henry and his wife Harriett. Here is where it starts to get tricky. Harriett is also Henry's first cousin. Her mother was Sarah's younger sister, Caroline. (even trickier Harriett's father was also a first cousin to her mother and aunt !) Henry and Harriett's children are the young girl, Lena, kneeling between Harriett and her mother-in-law/aunt Sarah and the young man, Ted, standing behind Henry.

At the back are James and Sarah's two daughters Mary and Sarah (I don't know which is which) and another three of their sons. Again I'm not sure which is which, but I think it could be left to right Albert, William and Frederick (I could be wrong though). Two sons are not in the photograph; Thomas was gold mining in the Waihi/Coromandel area and at around this time Walter, who had also been mining in the Coromandel had left to make his fortune on the West Australian goldfields. (Or are they in the photo and two of the others not !)

Most of the men in my family in the current three generations are clean shaven, as were both my grandfathers. A sign of the times perhaps.

#52Ancestors, Week 44, Frightening

What is frightening ? For me, rats and mice are terrifying. Snakes too, but more because they are not something I grew up with. Spiders, meh ! I can deal with them, mostly.

For other people it is the opposite, or heights, or confined spaces...did I ever tell you how much I hate being in a cave or underground ? Long tunnels freak me out just a bit too, if I let myself think about where I am.

For our pioneering ancestors the strange sounds and sight of wildlife in their new home countries must have been pretty scary at first. Machinery and contraptions like cars, must have been incomprehensible although there were likely many of our forebears who feared more simple things, horses, water, fire for whatever reason.

I came across this article from 1899 on Trove. (I have transcribed it below as it is a little tricky to read.) Articles like this seemed to be regularly appearing in papers across Australia, and no doubt in other countries as well. The message is clear about the damage which needless “frightening” can have long term on anyone, but especially for children. 

  

Albury Banner and Wodonga Express Friday 28 April 1899 page 10 www.trove.nla.gov.au,

Accessed 11 November 2018.

Frightening Children

Nothing can be worse for a child than to be frightened.   The effect of the scare it is slow to recover from; it remains sometimes until maturity, as is shown by many instances of morbid sensitiveness and excessive nervous ness.   Not unfrequently fear is employed as a means of discipline.   Children are controlled by being made to believe that something terrible will happen to them, and punished by being shut up in dark rooms, or by being put in places they stand in dread of.   No one without vivid memory of his childhood can comprehend how entirely cruel such things are.   We have often heard grown persons tell of the suffering they have endured, as children, under like circumstances,   and recount the irreparable injury which they are sure they then received. No parent, no nurse, capable of alarming the young is fitted for her position. Children, as near as possible, should be trained not to know the sense of fear, which, above every- thing else, is to be feared in their education, early or late.   Some interesting facts dealing with the fears of children have been collected by a well-known professor.   He has found: that 1701 were afraid of 6456 things.   The leading fears were lightning and thunder,  reptiles, strangers, the dark, death, domestic animals, water, ghosts, insects, rats, and mice  and high words.   Some of the fears were the results of personal experiences ; that is, in a district  where a great wind had wrought a havoc the children were afraid of it. In other cases the analysis showed by what means: parents had worked upon the imagination of their children.   In one district 16 poor little ones were dreading the end of the world.   The most gratifying fact of all was that not one child had been frightened into obedience or good conduct by the fear of the devil.   A century or two ago that fear would have led all the rest.   The pleasing inference is that parents now dwell upon affection and love to insure the goodness of their children, instead of terrorising them with Satan’s wrath.

#52Ancestors, Week 43, Cause of Death

Things have been a little hectic recently. The week that this blog post was scheduled was the week of the milestones and celebrations of my last blog. I had intended to catch up after returning from New Zealand, but a new job and all that entails kind of got in the way.

But here I am.

Cause of death. Apart from getting distracted by some of the terminology found on old death certificates and trying to translate them to terms we use today, I have been wondering where else to focus my writing.

So I looked at my tree and in particular at the deaths occurring in the week which this was scheduled for (October 22-29). There are some names which I don’t know a lot about. Most are people for whom I have not seen a death certificate – so I don’t know the cause of death. (Maybe I should buy some certificates or print-outs to furnish these details.)

Amongst the names though, one direct ancestor and surprisingly, one who I have not written about before.

Sarah Elizabeth Laney was born in Nelson, New Zealand on 10 April 1850, almost eight years after her parents, eldest brother and two step siblings had arrived in the new colony from Andover, Hampshire, England.

In the late 1860’s after the death of her eldest brother, then her mother and a serious fire which damaged or destroyed her father’s bakery business and residence, the family relocated to the Wairau Valley in Marlborough. Perhaps it was here where Sarah met her future husband, or perhaps they had met earlier while both families lived in the Nelson area. Their families had travelled from England on the same ship, so they likely had always had a family connection. Her stepsister Ann had earlier married into the Bartlett family.

She married George Bartlett on 27 December 1870 at Bartletts Creek. Together they raised a family of ELEVEN children as they moved around the country from Marlborough to Horowhenua, Manawatu, Rangitikei and finally Waikato.

In 1893 she and her eldest daughter signed sheet #308 of theSuffrage Petition in Manakau, Horowhenua. This was the successful petition which resulted in the 1893 Electoral Act being passed on 19 September; giving all women over 21 years of age the vote in New Zealand. The first self-governing country in the world to so empower women.

My great-great-grandmother Sarah was one of the 30,853 women who signed. 

A suffragette.

New Zealand has just celebrated the 125^th anniversary of this achievement. On 28 November 2018 it will also be 125 years since all those women first appeared on an electoral roll and exercised their right to vote in the Parliamentary elections for the first time.

There are currently 46 female Members of Parliament including the Prime Minister of New Zealand, who is one of her great-great-great-granddaughters. How proud would she be to learn that, just 124 years since making her mark on the suffrage petition ?

Sarah died on 25 October 1910 just fifteen months after her husband.

Marlborough Express Monday 31 October 1910 page 4, www.paperspast.natlib.govt.nz,

Accessed 10 November 2018

Milestones and Celebrations

There have been a couple of big ones just recently.

We had a whirlwind trip to join in and make sure everyone felt celebrated.

First there was Mum’s 80^th birthday celebration which was requested to be low key. Birthday fuss isn’t a big thing in our family, but there are some milestones that need to be made a fuss about. We arrived the day before, bearing cake.

On the evening of the day itself we went out for dinner and were joined by other family including a couple of cousins who had journeyed further than us to be part of celebration number two. My cousin’s wife had just had her birthday too, so the celebration was shared which spread out the fussing levels nicely.

We tried to recreate a photo taken for Dad's 80th nine years ago, thank goodness the big trees in Pollard Park protected us from much of the rain falling. Someone had repainted the bridge though and not cleaned it.

The day after her birthday, was Mum and Dad’s 60^th wedding anniversary. Yes, they had got married the day after she turned 20, back in 1958. Taking advantage of the long weekend which falls at that time of the year in New Zealand.

Since it fell in the middle of the week this year a celebration was organised for the following weekend, with friends and family travelling from afar to share the fun. We tried to recreate another photo too, with much hilarity and too many people giving orders. My cousin stood where his Dad stood 60 years ago next to the groom - it was a bit like herding cats.