Week 2 (Jan 8-14): Origins

Genealogists often get the question, "Where is your family from?" With this week's theme, you could explore an immigrant ancestor, but you could also think about the origin of other aspects of your family. Who was the first person in your family to settle in a particular town? If you have a long line of people with the same occupation, talent, etc, who was the first person you know who did it?

It was a question such as this that really set the ball rolling for genealogical research in my family. A social studies homework question at primary school. 

“How many generations has your family been in New Zealand?”

Well, they didn’t all come at once and they didn’t all come from the same places either. How do you calculate that? Are you meant to count just from the first ancestor BORN in New Zealand (or wherever) or do you count their parents who were the immigrants?

Family	Emigration Year	From Where	Arrival Port
Cooper	1841	Somerset, England	Wellington
Barratt	1842	Surrey, England	Wellington
Bartlett	1842	Somerset, England	Nelson
Laney	1842	Hampshire, England	Nelson
Fuller	1860	Surrey, England	Lyttelton
Davys	1862	Somerset, England	Auckland
Hall	1876	Cavan, Ireland	Auckland
Vose	1879	Kent, England	Lyttelton
Timms	1929	Warwickshire, England	Auckland

So, pretty much England and depending on which line 4-5 generations since the first NZ born ancestor in most families – but only 2 generations in another.

Most branches of my family emigrating to New Zealand came as a family, bringing their children with them. Only one branch was a newly married couple who would start their family in Canterbury and the most recent branch to emigrate brought a single woman travelling alone.

Week 1 (Jan. 1-7): Family Lore

Lore: /lɔː/

noun

a body of traditions and knowledge on a subject or held by a particular group, typically passed from person to person by word of mouth.

"the jinns of Arabian lore"

Family folklore is the study and use of folklore and traditional culture transmitted within an individual family group. This includes craft goods produced by family members or memorabilia that have been saved as reminders of family events. It includes family photos, photo albums, along with bundles of other pages held for posterity such as certificates, letters, journals, notes, and shopping lists. Family sayings and stories which recount true events are retold as a means of maintaining a common family identity. Family customs are performed, modified, sometimes forgotten, created or resurrected with great frequency. Each time the result is to define and solidify the perception of the family as unique.

The study of family folklore is distinct from genealogy or family history. Instead of focusing on historical dates, locations and verifiable events, this area of study looks at the unique stories, customs, and handicrafts that define the family as a distinct social group.

With thanks to the Oxford Dictionary and Wikipedia for helping to define but not really clarifying the topic for me. The prompt for this week is:

Many of us have heard stories from our grandparents about incredible feats our ancestors did or a famous person we're related to. What's a tale that has been passed down in your family? Did it end up being true or did it turn out to just be a good story? 

So, there have been a few stories passed down, and as in many families some are true, some are fabricated and some are based on a truth but have been embellished over time – although not quite tall tales.

• “Davys is a Welsh name.”
• “Somebody changed their name after the Monmouth rebellion.”
• “One of great grandad’s brothers was the first soft drink manufacturer in Wellington, another brother founded Cooper’s Seeds.”
• “Great great grandfather Laney was the first baker in Nelson.”
• “My mother’s people came from the Black Country.”
• “Timms are ten a penny.”
• “Rosina Buckman the opera singer is a cousin.”
• Great grandma died when the children were young and he needed to find a wet nurse.”
• “My grandad’s mother left and took 2 children to Australia. He always said he was about nine years old. Many years later a man came to visit and said he was a nephew.”
• “Grandad built the Post Office in Levin.”
• “A cousin of Granny Davys was the founder of the company which became AVON.”
• “Five times great grandfather was the Lord of the Manor.”
• Great great grandfather spent time in Ireland carrying out the ordinance survey.”
• “Great uncle Walter was a gold miner in Western Australia.”
• “Grandad’s 2^nd cousin founded the YMCA.”
• “One day, we had been to Ninety Mile Beach and I was in the car – a Ford Beauty – with Grandma and Grandad when we realised my Mum and Dad were not behind us. We had to go back, and they were stuck in the sand.”
• “Grandma had a pet magpie which was a bit vicious and sometimes you would get stuck at the outhouse and have to use the wooden lid as a shield to return to the house.”
• “One night when we were staying at Grandma’s the bed that Mum and my sister were sleeping in collapsed and they landed on the floor.”
• “We played in wide open fields unsupervised, although there was a fenced off area we called “the Keep Out” (because there was a sign). It was in this expanse that we found tiny black rabbit near the railway embankment and took him home to keep.”
• “The bus couldn’t go down the hill so we would get dropped at the top and then throw our school bags ahead of us and slide to the bottom on cabbage tree leaves. Our mothers used to wonder at the state of our clothes.”

Have you heard any of these ones before? Do you want to know more? Do you know any others?

I am sure there are many more.

More than just the 3 R's

A few years ago I made a small photobook about the members of Dad’s maternal grandfather’s family who emigrated to New Zealand in 1841. It’s been in the back of my mind to do something similar for other emigrant/settler families too. I thought I might make a start by jotting down some notes as a Christmas present for him – partly because it’s so hard to know just what to buy a 94 year old.

But in building out the story for the children in this family (his paternal grandfather's line) I came up against the same old dearth of information about education and where they might have gone to school. It’s not even that long ago (in the scheme of things), which makes it more frustrating that there doesn’t appear to be surviving records.

I suspect that they may have attended a church school in either the parish where they lived or a neighbouring parish. They are noted as scholars on the census prior to leaving the country. Then where did they go to school after they arrived in New Zealand in 1862?

I found some clues for the previous generation though.

In the 1841 census, Sarah Norman (12) and her younger sister Caroline (8) are enumerated in the “household” of the schoolmaster at Cutcombe, Somerset. This was likely to be a church school. Great to see girls, the daughter’s of farmers, getting an education. Their elder sisters were above school age on this first census available readily for family historians, but it seems likely they too would have had the opportunity to attend school.

In 1841 schools and schoolmasters were asked to record the names of the children who had attended in the last week as the census was taken very close to the summer holidays beginning (6 June). There were all sorts of rules about who could be recorded and who couldn’t – those with a governess weren’t “at” school so different rules applied. However, if you are lucky you might find the governess enumerated with a family and can then speculate as to which children she taught.

James Davys (15) was enumerated in Barnstaple, Devon at a school led by Elias Bray. It has taken a lot of pondering and searching outside the box, but I have found that this school which I originally thought I had identified as a Free Grammar School was actual Mount View Academy. A boarding school for boys. As the census indicated it was located at 66 High Street, whether this was also the address where the boys lived is unclear. Since finding James there, I have presumed that his elder brother may also have attended there previously and I have often wondered what subjects were taught. Sometimes you can get clues about that in the occupations recorded for some of the teachers, but many of them are just “teacher”, “schoolmaster/mistress” or “assistant schoolmaster”.

Anyway, having recently had some better luck with the search in FindMyPast for British Newspapers since they recently changed it I though I would have another try. And lo and behold!

Mount View Academy was established in 1828 by Elias Bray. He remained the principal until 1856 when he retired and Hugh Gawthrop became principal. But what did they teach? And what did it cost?

North_Devon_Journal_15_July_1841_0002

North_Devon_Journal_23_July_1857_0001

According to in2013dollars a guinea was slightly more value than a pound, but more or less became a pound as we remember it in the pre-decimal world (although people still talked of guineas even in the 1980s! I remember my grandmother mentioning them). One hundred guineas in 1841 would be the equivalent now of almost £13,000, so 25 guineas for a years tuition including board would be around £3000. Interestingly in2013dollars also says that since 1841 the British pound has LOST 99.218% of it’s value, meaning that todays prices are 127.93 times higher than they were in 1841 and that today’s pound can only purchase .078% of what it could then.

That makes the cost of living crisis were are all in currently bite just a little more.

North_Devon_Journal_11_June_1857_0005

North_Devon_Journal_16_December_1858_0005

Examinations at the Academy were held at the end of each term and were public, this makes me think they weren’t written exams, but more like recitals or spelling bees style. Parents and families were invited to attend and prizes were given. Often at the end of year events the boarders presented a gift of thanks (an inkstand, bowl, lamp) to Mr Bray.

I wonder, did James’ family take up the invitation to attend the examinations and celebrations? How did James travel back and forth at the beginning and end of each term. I don’t believe there was a railway that early, so a carriage or coach must have been the only option. Something to explore another time.

So, this was an interesting little foray into education. What an educated young man my great great grandfather was, and so pleased to see that my great great grandmother also had some formal education a long time before education became compulsory. It hasn’t helped me learn where or how the following generation was educated, but even if they were home schooled they should have all received a broad education from their parents knowledge.

Back to what I had started now, having been pleasantly distracted, and rewarded.

Best Dressed Doll 1930 at the 4th Annual Winter Show and Exhibition at the King Edward Barracks, Christchurch

My Mum has a tiny doll in a tiny antique pram which weighs not much more than a feather. Even as a child it felt fragile to me. A not to be played with toy.

There were other dolls from Mum’s childhood that became part of the doll family I had as a child. Darrell (who I renamed Carol) and Josephine, who had been her younger sister’s doll. These two were composition dolls manufactured by a mixture of glue with sawdust which was heavier and denser than papier mâché and easily molded. They had hollow bodies and moveable limbs and head thanks to some contraption inside the body which seemed like rubber or elastic bands and hooks. Their facial features and hair were painted, and they both had eyes that opened and closed if you laid them down to sleep. Josephine was a taller doll and could stand up – if you balanced her feet correctly. Being wood based they were susceptible to damage from moisture though.

This other even smaller and more fragile doll was made of celluloid and first belonged to Auntie Hilda, the youngest sister of Mum’s father.

Celluloid was first created in 1863 and is one of the first synthetic plastics created from wood products that included camphor and cellulose nitrate. Doll makers began experimenting as early as the 1870s. By the early 1900s celluloid dolls were plentiful. Earlier dolls were breakable and fragile made from china and bisque. Celluloid although inexpensive is flammable, so not perfect, and one would imagine there could have been tears with open fires and coal range stoves. Dolls continued to be molded with celluloid as late as the 1950s though the majority were made between 1900-1940.

Hilda, my great aunt, was born in Christchurch, New Zealand in the summer of 1914. She was the youngest child with four older siblings. They lived in Middleton Road on a 3 acre block which was part of the original Wharenui settlement. Her father worked for the railways and her mother, most likely assisted by the children, tended the land and home. They had an orchard with fruit trees and rows upon rows of raspberries as well as other vegetables and a cow which supplied milk and butter. I am sure they probably had chooks too.

In my quest to build knowledge of the lives of our forebears, to keep their memories alive, I often search digitised newspapers for snippets about them and clues about their day-to-day life. Recently, while searching to see what I might be able to glean about school life and other social activities of my grandfather and his siblings I came across a couple of pieces of information that seemed connected to the little doll as well.

I had not ever really thought about her doll and the history attached to it, other than that it had belonged to her in a bygone era. I don’t know if it had a name and it is so fragile, I can’t imagine it was ever played with as we, or our children play with dolls in more recent times. Hilda like most young girls in her generation and earlier generations was a knitter and a seamstress. Like her contemporaries she will have learned these skills from her mother from a very young age. 

Prize List, Needlework, Winter Show and Exhibition 1930 from Press, Monday 11 August 1930, page 17.

Hilda would have been about 16 at this time, was the doll bought just to be a model for her handiwork? Or was it a treasured childhood toy? I knew that when given to Mum the doll was dressed in clothes which may have been made by Hilda or perhaps her sister or mother. But I hadn’t given it much more thought than that. Now though? Was she wearing those items that had won Hilda the prize? Is that why she had been kept all these years?

Two entries from secondary school students for Hand-knitted baby's jacket; first prize to Hilda (perhaps made for her nephew). Three entries for Most useful article; Very Highly Commended to Hilda (I wonder what it was) and three entries for Best dressed doll; first prize to Hilda.

Can you imagine sewing or knitting these tiny items in a room unlit by electricity? The detail is incredible, smocking, stitched lace, embroidery. The knitting (feather and fan on the cape) must have been at least 2 ply on needles the size of toothpicks!

These days, although she still wears her original undergarments and booties, she has a new cape and bonnet knitted by Mum and a dress knitted in feather and fan found at a craft market or fair. Her original dress, cape and bonnet are showing a little wear and have been carefully packed away to save further damage. Some of the ribbon ties have not survived the close to 100 years. Recently she made a trip back to her hometown of Christchurch and spent a few days being tenderly restored so that her limbs were no longer loose. Maybe with a little luck she will be cherished for another hundred or so years perhaps within the family, perhaps in a museum collection.

Week 3: Out of Place #Ancestors2023

Does this mean putting something important in a safe place and then losing it because you don’t remember where that safe place was? Or is it more finding something unexpected.

I did have one of those occasions when searching the 1921 census for my great grandmother’s stepmother and her half-sister. This particular half-sister we weren’t even aware of until the 1901 census became available in 2003.

My grandmother told us that both of her grandfathers were married more than once. One twice and the other thrice. She told us the names of the children in the second marriage of her maternal grandfather, when one had died, how the other emigrated with his elder half-brother to the US, who they both had worked for and who they had married. Nana wasn’t aware of a 3^rd child in marriage number 2 who had died in infancy. I also can’t remember now if she knew the name of wife number 3, but I know we were not aware of a child being part of that marriage until we found the census. Nana didn’t meet any of these people though, they had all died or emigrated to the US before she was born – all except the surprise half aunt and the stepmother.

So after discovering her in 1901, we waited patiently for the 1911 census, looked for her on the 1939 register, found her death in 1991 and ordered the certificate. We discovered a photo of her as a child in an album taken to the US by her eldest half-brother. Then this time last year the 1921 census was released.

In 1901 and 1911 she was living with her widowed mother, who was taking in boarders and working as a housekeeper. When her mother died in 1936, they were still living together at the same address where they had lived since at least 1901. By 1939 she was a housekeeper herself. When she died in 1991 she was described as a retired housekeeper and (discovered just this minute) the undertaker was the son of the gentleman she was housekeeping for in 1939, still living at the same address!

But back to the 1921 census. I had expected to find her still living with her mother. But no. She was quite a distance away from home. In a different county. In a hospital. A homeopathic hospital. What type of conditions would they have treated? Could it have been Spanish Flu? Could it have anything to do with having had a child three years earlier? There is form for me to speculate about this – and maybe that would explain why she hadn’t been remembered by later generations.

There is something else going on here as well – a DNA match I can’t resolve. A close one who should be connected through the child of one of my great grandmother’s half siblings…like this lady. The father of our mystery match was born near the end of WW1, named for an uncle who had died 9 months earlier to parents who had been married barely 9 months before his birth. He had no other siblings for seven years. His documented father had fought in WW1, his mother lived down the street from my family. His parents while born in the same geographic location as my family, do not jump out as potential extra marital children – although they could be. But then where are the other matches with their families? The match’s mother was born in a completely different part of the country so doesn’t seem likely either. It has me completely lost.

Maybe there is another surprise that will unlock it. Great-great-grandfather had plenty of opportunity to have fathered other children – perhaps there are others yet to be found.

Maybe one day the DNA match will reply to a message and we will be able to work it out together.

But for now, I just can’t make it fit into place.

Green Fingers

The other morning, I checked facebook before I got out of bed to start my day, like I do most mornings. A post appeared in my feed packed with questions,

“Do you have an indoor houseplant that is a family heirloom? Or a memory of such a houseplant? Maybe a story about an ancestor and houseplants?” asked Blaine Bettinger, family historian and genetic genealogist.

Well, yes, I thought. I can answer yes to all those questions. As I was replying to the facebook post, my mind was working overtime – here was a great blog prompt.

My initial answer was to share that my mother and I have cared for my grandmother’s maidenhair fern between us since 1988. I don’t know how long Nana had had it before then, but I remember there being one at her home, on the bench or sulking in the laundry tub with a bit of water if it dared to look like it was going to give up the ghost, for most of my life.

As well as the maidenhair fern, there is an orchid.

Nana had bought it at an orchid show when it was in flower because she liked the colour. After it had finished flowering, it was banished outside, behind the trellis where it was a little protected from frosts. She never saw it flower again, but I rescued it from its spot behind the trellis before her house was sold. It has been repotted a few times in the ensuing 34 years and divided up and shared with my mother, sister-in-law and a cousin. Most years, particularly the most recent, it/they have flowered profusely.

But these early morning questions stirred up lots of other memories about plants and gardening.

Vegetable gardens have always heavily featured through the generations, most likely because that is just what you did to feed your family. My attempts to have a thriving vegetable garden have been half hearted and often fallen foul of location, soil and prevailing weather. At least one of my cousins though has a pretty spectacular vege garden. I think I just didn’t get that bit of DNA.

Nana, though loved gardening. She spent a lot of her time outside tending to it, and visiting local nurseries acquiring new seedlings, trees and shrubs to try. She loved roses and often ordered from the growers when she spotted one in a catalogue or at a public garden which took her fancy. Crimson Glory, Josephine Bruce, Queen Elizabeth, Peace…There was “Love in a Mist” (Nigella) in the front garden; violets, beautifully scented dark purple ones, covered a patch beneath some trees in the back corner of the garden. She loved to share her love of gardening, and the plants with us all. I remember seedlings arriving overnight on a Road Service bus from Hamilton, rolled up with a bit of soil in damp newspaper and packed into a box for Mum to plant in our garden after we had moved. She also gave me seedlings from her garden to start my own. I did have her Debutante Camellia for some years transplanting it from her garden to mine and then to Mum and Dad’s when I moved. But when they moved house, it didn’t move again as it had become too big to transplant easily.

Mum and Dad have also been avid gardeners, often starting with bare blocks, visiting nurseries, investing in plants suited to the climate and environment, natives and those which will attract the local wildlife. Within a few short years the bare blocks are transformed, and it is hard to remember how it all started. Mum, Dad and Nana often “took cuttings” from plants they saw overhanging footpaths in the street, or nurtured seedlings to cultivate and share with friends and family.

Lots of research in garden books and many visits to local nurseries to find new varieties of trees, shrubs and ground covers. I remember Dad planting a Gunnera in a shady spot once which became huge quite quickly. It looked like giant Rhubarb – but was much pricklier and definitely not a dessert option. There was a Pepper tree as well, not great for climbing but it did host brightly coloured fat as your finger Gum Emperor caterpillars most years.

Another tree brought after it was much admired in the garden at our Dr’s surgery was always known as the Dr Broad plant. (Stachyurus Praecox). It is deciduous and has hanging catkins in the early spring. You can see it's stunning autumn display in another photo below.

Nana had a cutting of a plant from her sister which liked the shade and Mum took a cutting from that plant as well and it has been moved to a couple of other gardens over time. Always referred to as the Auntie Laura plant, turns out it is a Chatham Island Forget me Not (Myosotidium hortensia)

I have mixed success with my own plants. Often it is because of poor choices – buying something that I like but isn’t suited to the climate or the situation. Currently though, I have a healthy looking bunch of indoor plants and I am nurturing some outdoors in the hope they will attract butterflies to the garden. I don’t have anything that is a family hand me down or seedling though – the downside of living in a different country I guess.

 

My daughter had two small trees growing in pots in Wellington before we moved. They too moved – to Mum and Dad’s new home where they were liberated from the confines of their pots. “Lemmy” her lemon tree has grown and fruited year after year – so much fruit it is hard to keep up, and her Fairy Magnolia has quadrupled in size and taken charge of its space covered in petite pink flowers every year. 

Nowadays she has a thriving garden on her balcony. She knows all their latin names and takes great care of them. The neighbourhood possums have a penchant for the flower buds though so there is a constant battle there. She also has some indoor plants doing well too. Her paternal grandmother had the magic touch with African Violets. She could grow them from a leaf and had them in an assortment of pots and containers growing and flowering profusely. Seems like she has that DNA too. 

 

                                               Not mine                                                      Mine

So, do you have any plants in your garden that have come from an ancestors or family members garden? What about a houseplant that is either the original or has been propagated from an earlier heirloom plant?

Do you have green fingers? Or are they like mine, bordering on a murky khaki colour?

Week 2: Favourite Photo #52Ancestors2023

I have been deliberating about photos for two weeks now, trying to pick one.

There aren’t truckloads of photos in our family. Not “old” ones. There are plenty of more recent holidays and adventures as a family as my parents took lots of photos and slides when were kids and to a certain extent that love of photography has been passed on - at least to some. A lot of digital images though, stored in the cloud somewhere or on phones and other devices. Not as easy to pick up and reminisce about.

This one, then, made the cut.

It is taken at Sumner Beach near Christchurch, New Zealand about 1908-1909, I am guessing, based on the ages of the children. Only one person looking at the camera, or at least in the general direction, and the others with faces turned or obscured by hats. Cave Rock and the pier are in the background.

The gentleman standing is my great grandfather, John Fuller. Every photo we have of this man, he is wearing a hat that shades his face. EVERY one! John was born in Christchurch in 1866, the second son of Julius Fuller and Maria, nee Horskins. He worked for the railways and for most of his employment was based at Middleton Station.

The children are his three eldest. Edith (Edie) the eldest born 1902, at the back looking at her father or toward Cave Rock, Frank (facing the camera) born 1904 and Albert (Bert) my grandfather born 1906, bending over studying the sand perhaps.

Who took the photo? Maybe my great grandmother?

The family lived in Upper Riccarton, in the Wharenui Hamlet. To travel from there to Sumner would have been a relatively long, bumpy, probably cramped tram ride. Possibly requiring a change of tram in central Christchurch to continue on the way.

Its hard to tell which season it is from their attire. No bare feet on the sand for those kids! But there is someone in the water down the beach a bit further.

Climbing Cave Rock was a popular pastime for those who made the journey to Sumner. There had been a Yard and Mast Arm on the rock since 1865 alerting ship’s captains to the conditions when crossing the bar to dock at Ferrymead or sailing around the heads to dock at Lyttelton. I imagine climbing the rock dressed in petticoats and long dresses, carrying a parasol might not have been easy.

The pier in the background is crowded with people strolling along its length, taking in the sea air. Toward the end of the pier you can see the roof of the Sumner Lifeboat Institution, along with a slipway. The building was built in 1898, but there had been life savers and lifeboats stationed there since the 1870s.

There would most likely have been tea rooms serving refreshments, a band rotunda and possibly swings and roundabouts near to the tram stop or in the small seaside village. There were definitely donkey rides. You can read more about them here.  I had never thought about them as being an Edwardian family until reading this, but they were, and I think from now on I will try to remind myself of that.

cropped and enlarged from original photo