#52Ancestors, Week 8, Heirloom

When I think about heirlooms, I often think we don’t really have any. But actually there are quite a few to choose from, now that I have thought about it a lot more.

Choosing one which I have a photo of, on hand, was the determining fact. So I have gone with this one. It isn’t actually MY heirloom. It is in the possession of my daughter.

This piece of furniture came from my maternal grandmother’s home. I remember it was always in the dining room, but I can’t remember where it was in her earlier home. Maybe the living room ? Although I don’t have many memories of being in that room as children. Before “Hi-Fi” and stereos many homes had a Radiogram. Nana and Grandad’s was a Bell. I’m not sure what year it was made but I would guess somewhere in the 1950s-early 1960s.

We kids only ever listened to one “record” over and over. It was a 45, in a yellow paper dust cover with a picture of a merry old soul on the front. That’s right “Old King Cole” ! and some other nursery rhymes, “Little Boy Blue”…I can’t remember the others; maybe “Mary had a little lamb” ? I still have it, but it is packed in a box with a whole lot of other 45s so I can’t check right now who sang, and who played the instruments, or what the other nursery rhymes were.

You put the record (or Nana did, I don’t remember that we were allowed) at the top of the spindle, then moved the arm across from the left and turned it on. By magic the record would drop from the top of the spindle to the turntable and rotate, the arm with the stylus would move across lower itself and begin to play. Magic.

If you zoomed in you might have noticed the speeds on the turntable – 15, 45, 33 and 78. There used to be a collection of 78s too, but they are long gone now. Some with bagpipe music, I have heard tell. My aunt also had a collection of Elvis records which Grandad used to tease her about, objecting to having THAT played on his radiogram – so I have been told.

Storage is built in; two cupboards to house all the vinyl. It has preset Australian and New Zealand radio stations for shortwave (megacycles) and AM (kilocycles) – long before transistor radios and the switch to kilohertz and way before FM.

Sadly it is not in working order right now, and some of the oak veneer on the exterior is looking a bit worse for the wear. It had been languishing in my uncle’s garage when my daughter discovered it and put in her claim. Always a lover of music and a trendsetter before her time the radiogram was the perfect heirloom for her, from her great grandmother.

The intention has always been to have it repaired, but so far it hasn’t happened. It has moved house with her every time since it came into her possession and sits in pride of place, storing her small but growing collection of vinyl as well as my own. Currently a small portable turntable sits atop the radiogram and plays music on lazy Sunday mornings. Buffalo Springfield, Bob Seger, Three Dog Night, Janis Joplin, Cream, The Eagles, BB King, Fleetwood Mac, Hello Sailor – sometimes I sneak in Linda Ronstadt, Boomtown Rats, John Hanlon.

The good news – I have just found a repairer who has been in business for a good length of time. I just need to get it there.

Weekend Wanderings

We had to go out for a bit yesterday because the estate agent has suddenly decided to market our rental home for sale a little more aggressively than they have over the past months.

Since it was a nice morning, I went for a walk around the lake and then home. It is always so busy there, dog walkers, runners, walkers, families, friends. Great to see the community out enjoying the outdoors.

I took some photos of the birds. So many swallows flitting about but all congregating in the one place. No turtles on that circuit and I didn't see the swans with their growing cygnets. The galahs and rosellas were way too fast for my reflexes, but I did spot one pelican having a great feed out in the middle. First time I have seen one there, but apparently they are regular visitors.

#52Ancestors, Week 7, Valentine

Valentine’s Day as a celebration hasn’t been a big thing in New Zealand and Australia until probably the last 30-40 years. It definitely wasn’t a “thing” when I was growing up, like it appeared to be on US television programmes we saw. A bit like Halloween, it was one of those odd American celebrations that I used to wonder at, in letters from my penfriends. It is definitely a “thing” now though – very commercial and over the top.

So, where to start for this topic? I looked in my tree for events which had occurred on February 14. There were a few, but they were all for very distant relatives, and mostly long ago.

I did come across someone for whom I don’t know a lot, and I have spent most of the day trying to discover more, to no avail.

Valentine Becker was born in Rüdesheim-am-Rhein, Rheingau-Taunus-Kreis, Hesse, Germany in 1846. He was the first child to Friedrich and Elisabetha Becker. I wonder if he was born on February 14? He soon became an older brother to Emelia and Gertrude and possibly to Friedrich who was born in October 1850. I can’t be sure though until I can locate those records as Valentine died aged 4 sometime in 1850. Two short years later his parents and siblings left their home on the banks of the Rhine and emigrated to Sydney Australia. In all my searching there doesn’t appear to be another Valentine in the tree perpetuating his memory or existence.

But here is another Valentine’s story.

My parents became engaged on Valentine’s Day 1957. My Nana, born in England where Valentine’s Day had been celebrated by the exchange of small tokens of affection or handwritten notes between friends or lovers since the mid eighteenth century, thought it was very apt they had chosen that date. Mum and Dad though were completely unaware of the significance – at the time. It is one of those little facts that is stuck in the recesses of my mind, and just happened to pop into the forefront when I was pondering what to write about this week.

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#52Ancestors, Week 6, Favourite Name

So, I have said it before – I’m a bit of a name nerd. This topic “Favourite name” is hard for me. How do I choose?

Names are one of the things that attracted me to genealogy in the beginning.

Why did some families just use the same names over and over again? Why did some families give their children two names, or three names or more? Let’s face it more than three is a bit over the top, but there are some which do sound great, have a pleasing meter.

Why did some families give their children names and then call them something completely different? Why did some children get one name and others two – did the ones with only one name feel gypped? Why did some get much used names, then one sibling a really out there name?

So, which name to choose?

Alianore Mary Christina Cameron-Ramsay-Fairfax-Lucy – love the sound of that one;

Minnie Mildred – there are a bunch of girls with this moniker. But I have mentioned them before.

I am eternally grateful to my forbears that they did give some thought to the “sound” of the names they bestowed on their children and the pairing of names with each other and the surname.

Emma Louisa, my great grandmother and her siblings all had names which sounded great. My grandmother Elsie Lilian did too.

Any name that is a little different gets bonus points for me. Kerenhappuch, Roxillana, Vergetta, Zenobia, Balthasar, Julius, Mowbray, Cornelius. They make research a little easier than just searching for Ann and James. Then there are the ones with clues to the past where a surname has been added as a helpful hint for researchers.

But, the name for today is Peternell, sometimes recorded as Peternall/Peternel/ Petronel or Petronella.

Peternell Eastment was my 5xgreat grandmother. She was born in East Chinnock, Somerset about 1733. Her parents were married there, in Blessed Virgin St Mary, eleven years earlier and there are 3 daughters and 1 son appearing in the baptisms for them in the years before Peternell’s baptism on 5 November 1733.[1]

Peternell lived her whole life in East Chinnock, marrying Richard Bartlett on 7 April 1760 in the same village church.[2] She and Richard had a family of seven, all but one reaching adulthood. Two of her sons included her name in their choices for their own daughters, and at least one grandson followed suit.

Many of her grandchildren left East Chinnock. Some moved to other counties in England, others emigrated to Australia and New Zealand – and quite likely to other colonies; America, Canada and South Africa. Although she did not live to see them leave, dying in March 1816, I wonder how she would have felt.[3] Would she have understood their curiosity to explore new lands and seek new opportunities far away from the only place she had ever called home?

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^[1] FreeReg, 'FreeReg', https://www.freereg.org.uk/search_queries/, Accessed 12 February 2018.

[2] FreeReg, 'FreeReg'.

[3] FreeReg, 'FreeReg'.

#52Ancestors, Week 5, In the Census

Searching for connections and reconnecting

Back in the early 1990’s when the 1881 UK census was the only census available freely to researchers with roots in the United Kingdom, (and only on CD or microfiche) many researchers spent hour upon hour trawling through fiche after fiche in darkened Family History Centre rooms and libraries.

We had only begun piecing together information in my maternal grandmother’s family from the little information she had given away to us over the years. My Dad and I spent hours in the evenings at the Family History Centre reading church records hoping to find something concrete. Sometimes we went alone.

We knew from Nana that her mother’s family was from the “Black Country” and that she had a brother. We also knew that Nana’s grandfather married three times and that she also had two half siblings. Her mother’s brother and a half-brother (although I don’t think that Nana referred to him as such) had emigrated to the US. We knew their names and the names of their wives. We also knew an elderly aunt had emigrated to the US.

Between 1989 and 1991 some certificates were purchased from the GRO and we discovered that my great grandmother had been born in Wolverhampton on 17 July 1878[1], and that her parents were married in Dudley in a Primitive Methodist Chapel on 23 August 1875[2] (a WHAT !!?? – researching Primitive Methodism soon became another obsession). We also learned that her mother died in Wolverhampton on 5 May 1879[3]. What became of the children ?

I remember Dad’s jubilation when he returned home one day from the library with a piece of paper detailing the residents of one household in Dudley.

Residence: Paradise, Dudley (Worcs), Staffordshire, England[4]
Henry James	Head	Male	62	Leintwardine, Herefordshire, England
Elizabeth James	Daughter	Female	34	Leintwardine, Herefordshire, England
Albert Kelsey	Grand Son	Male	4	Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, England
Laura Kelsey	Grand Daughter	Female	2	Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, England
Amnie H Richards	Niece	Female	15	Mold, Flintshire, Wales

So, here she was, living with her grandfather and aunt…and a cousin ? To be fair, we didn’t make much more progress until the arrival of that wonderful phenomenon – the internet. I dabbled, I joined Ancestry in 2002.

One day (5 March 2003) while dabbling, I came across a post on a bulletin board -remember those ? Someone in the US had come across that same census entry. She was looking for more information about the Henry James family, last known living in Dudley with a daughter, niece and two grandchildren. I posted a reply, from work. Could it be ?

On returning to work the next morning there was a reply email. Needless to say, not much work was done that day. I couldn’t wait to get home. I replied, I sent the email to my Mum and Dad, I rang them to make sure they checked and read their email. I was dancing on air. The poster, was the great granddaughter of my great grandmother’s brother Albert who had emigrated to the US. We are 3^rd cousins. We knew they existed somewhere in the US – they had no idea we were down here in New Zealand searching the same tree.

Since then we have filled out the family so much more, broken some brickwalls down and reconnected with other members of the extended Kelsey family all over the planet. There are still some brickwalls to smash, but to think this all began with people on opposite sides of the Pacific, reading microfiche in Family History Centres and libraries.

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[1] Certified Copy of an Entry of Birth, Laura Ellen Kelsey, General Register Office, England.

[2] Certified Copy of an Entry of Marriage, Thomas Kelsey and Mary James, General Register Office, England.

[3] Certified Copy of an Entry of Death, Mary Kelsey nee James, General Register Office, England.

[4] "England and Wales Census, 1881," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q27F-JV6M : 13 December 2017), Henry James in household of Henry James, Dudley (Worcs), Staffordshire, England; from "1881 England, Scotland and Wales Census," database and images, findmypast (http://www.findmypast.com : n.d.); citing p. 2, Piece/Folio 2881/23, The National Archives, Kew, Surrey; FHL microfilm 101,774,821., accessed 4 February 2018.