James Cooper

James Cooper was Samuel and Elizabeth’s 8^th child and 5^th son. If you’ve been keeping track you will be thinking I can’t count. There were however two other sons born in the 6 years between Elizabeth and James.

William born in early August 1833, baptised 11 August and buried aged 5 weeks on 17 September. Nine months later in June 1834 they welcomed another son who they also named William. He was baptised 3 August 1834 but also sadly died and was buried on 8 February 1837 aged 2 years 8 months.

James was baptised on 10 April 1837. It is possible he was born before William died and so avoided becoming the 3^rd William or maybe his parents decided that two Williams was enough. James' birth was just 5 months before civil registration began in England. 

James was 5 when the family emigrated to New Zealand. Not a lot is known of his early life in Wellington. Even his adult life has been a bit of a mystery, but a DNA match has changed some of that.

I was sceptical at first since he seems to have acquired an additional christian name in adulthood. But there are too many coincidences, and DNA in the right range to be a 3^rd cousin to Dad sharing the same great grandparent couple.

I have done a lot of investigating, building trees, chopping off wrong branches over the last year or so and I’m pretty confident now. I found James’ obituary in the Southland Times. This mentioned that he had arrived in Wellington with his brothers from Somerset in 1840. No mention of his parents who we know also came, and the year was out by one. It also mentioned he and one of his brothers had gone to the Australian goldfields in the 1850s which seemed to tie in with the suggestion that Thomas had gone to Australia too.

The obituary suggests that James returned to Wellington in 1861 and a year later moved south to Invercargill. He set about establishing a horticultural business there, importing seeds and plants. On 18 June 1864 he married Harriet Ware in Hobart, Tasmania. Harriet was born in Hobart and was 22 when they married. James (with his additional name Wade) was described as a merchant and a fruiterer & seedsman of Tay Street in Invercargill.

At the time of his marriage James’ business in Invercargill was situated in Lowther Arcade facing on to Tay Street. The arcade ran through to Esk Street. In 1869 his shop had moved to Dee Street adjacent to the Prince of Wales Hotel and later to the Athenaeum Building on Dee Street which also housed the library and eventually the museum. In addition to his store front he established Waikiwi Nursery on land he had acquired soon after his arrival in the area. It comprised thirteen acres and was situated on either side of the North Road at Waikiwi. James’ obituary describes how he transformed the land planting flowers, shrubs and trees. Numerous business advertisements appear in newspapers available at PapersPast.

Kete Invercargill, Accessed 31/10/2020 

James and Harriett had 10 children in the next 18 years and evidently travelled back and forth to Tasmania as one daughter was born in Hobart in 1877. By the time of James’ death in 1911 they had 27 grandchildren. Eight of their children were girls so that gets a bit tricky to follow when names change at marriage.

In 1888 he sold the nursery and his store to James Lennie. James was a Scot who had trained in the nursery business after leaving school and had been employed at Arden Capell Castle (the seat of the Duchess of Argyll) and at the Edinburgh Botanical Gardens among other appointments before travelling to Ireland. He had arrived in New Zealand at Bluff in 1862, At first he was employed by local gentlemen seemingly offering landscaping advice and had three sons who were also involved in his business. I imagine our James sold with a heavy heart; his two sons possibly not being prepared to take over the business. After tracking them on electoral rolls it seems they both became butchers instead.

James along with James Morton were instrumental in the establishment of the Southland Horticultural Society and James was the first President.

I recently purchased his death certificate which confirmed that his father was Samuel, a tailor. So it certainly does seem that James Wade Cooper is our James Cooper.

#52Ancestors, Favourite Discovery

There have been a few finds which have taken some digging, putting to one size, reinvestigating and lateral thinking.

There was Annie H Richards born in Mold, listed on the 1881 census for Dudley as “niece” in the household headed by my three times great grandfather Henry James. Who was she and how did she fit in ? Richards was a surname we hadn’t come across at all in our research. The others in the household were Henry’s unmarried daughter Elizabeth and his grandchildren Albert and Laura. Some late night puzzling to determine how she could be a niece of Henry uncovered Henry’s mother’s marriage to a Mr Richards after Henry’s birth and several half siblings – and that how Annie fitted in. Like he did for his grandchildren, Henry had taken in Annie after her father (his half brother) had died.

Then there was unravelling the story my mother-in-law had told us about her grandmother being a twin. The twin had died young and the mother remarried. Confusion as to which was her birth name and which the surname of her stepfather made it tricky to know where to start. It took over 30 years – but I got there in the end.

But probably the one that still makes me smile is finding Aunt Lizzie. I wrote about her in Week 14, Maiden Aunt; #52Ancestors 2018.

We had her birth certificate, and had found her on census’ from 1851-1901 (1861 excepted) as Elizabeth. She lived with her parents and then father and sister, and later stayed and cared for her father until his death in 1905.

We had a family story about her emigrating to the US when she was in her 70’s. I searched and searched for her in Ellis Island records and in immigration records on Ancestry. Nothing.

We had a note written by my grandmother’s cousin detailing some of what he remembered of life in England and who they had stayed with on arrival in Boston, en route to Seattle.

They stayed with a family in Boston who initially we thought were simply 2^nd cousins – part of the family that Elizabeth and her parents had been staying with on the night of the 1851 census. Elizabeth’s mother and the wife in the Duffill household were sisters. We had no other apparent connection to that family.

Until I broadened my search (Elizabeth and James are such common names to be searching for) and found (in the wee small hours) Bessie. Not Elizabeth, not Lizzie, but Bessie; arriving in Boston in 1906. The information about where her intended destination was and who she was meeting was a revelation. Her address was to be care of her brother in law Albert Duffill. The same family, but to be a brother in law their must be a sister – surely.

Lizzie wasn’t Lizzie at all - she was Bessie ! and she wasn't 70 either.

Turns out she and Mary (my 2xgreat grandmother) had an older half sister who had married one of the half siblings of their Duffill cousins. (Mr Duffill senior had at last 4 wives and children from every marriage). A descendant of Ellen (the half sister) sent this photo to my third cousin and myself not long after we made this connection.

 Is it a 1908 Model T Ford ? I’m not a car person but I have been comparing old photos and it seems about right. We don’t know just who is who, but we all believe that two of them are Ellen and Bessie.  I colourised the photo on a free site recently to see if colour would help pick out any features. Not really, but I am inclined to think Bessie is the lady facing towards the camera 2^nd from the left – just because her face shape is similar to that of her father in a (labelled) photo found in a family album.

Making this discovery certainly filled out our tree and tidied up some loose ends 10 or so years ago. While we haven’t found much more or been able to jump back to earlier generations than those we already knew, I have spotted some DNA matches amongst the matches of my mother, brother third cousin and myself who connect back through this family to the Thomas family of Ellen and Bessie’s mother.

Just wish they would reply to messages though.

#52Ancestors, Favourite Photo

When this topic has come up in the past I have chosen a family group photo to discuss.  

This time though I have chosen a landscape - actually three. 

I have hundreds, thousands of photos; landscapes, sunsets, flowers, trees, people, buildings, holiday memories, instagram gold.

I love these though because they are timeless. 

It is the view I savoured (and photographed) just six years ago. It is exactly the same view that my great great grandparents and their children saw, and will have remembered, every day in the years leading up to their departure from England for their fresh start in New Zealand. Although there were probably more apple trees planted in the orchard in the foreground then.

It is the same view that the original inhabitants of the house and farm would have seen hundreds of years before them.

And this, from the gate at the top of Churchill looking down to St Michael's Raddington. 

Unchanged. 

The Manor House, Kingston, at the foot of the hill where my great great grandfather lived with his elder brother, their mother, stepfather and half siblings. Where their father and grandfather had likely lived before them. St Michael's where his grandfather's brother had been the minister until 1783 and his grandmother's great grandfather or his brother was church warden in 1675.

It is where I feel at home, although I never lived there. Being there feels grounding, walking in the footprints of my ancestors. It’s in my DNA.

#52Stories, Week 4, What goals am I actively working toward right now ?

More goals !!

I've gone back to my list of goals from my first story to look more closely at them, and decide which ones I am actively working on right now.

#1 - write a story each week, seems to be going okay so far. Not always a week apart, but I'm keeping up.

Most of the others are all sort of linked and I hope will all suddenly progress at once.

#7 - Get fitter - because there are some legendary walks I would like to do. I've not been working on the fitness so much just yet. I thought though, that if I wrote down some of the walks I had in mind that it might make it more real. So here they are -

Queen Charlotte
Abel Tasman
Milford Track
The West Highland Way (Glasgow to Fort William)
The Great Glen Way (Fort William to Inverness)

#9 - Finally had some time to sit down and begin to study those DNA results. Is science proving that all the paper research carried out over the past 40 or so years is correct ? So far, so good. No surprises yet, like others I know have found - or not in direct lines anyway.

It still confuses me a bit - how do you actually know for sure ? A third cousin match has the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) relationship as 2 x great grandparents, does that mean they are both correct according to DNA ? (2x great grandpa and 2x great granny ?) Or do I need to have confirmed the next generation back, by finding 4th cousins in each line ?

Based on all of this here is what I know for sure from DNA & paper evidence so far -

Lauren:
both parents, 4 grandparents, 6 out of 8 great grandparents and 8 out of 16 great great grandparents

Me:
both parents, 4 grandparents, 7 out of 8 great grandparents and 9 out of 16 great great grandparents.

So, just looking at this evidence it must mean that Lauren has at least 9 of her 32 great great great grandparents confirmed. I just haven't counted them all up. I'm still trying to work out the best way to record that I have confirmed them all.

Some lines have been confirmed back even further where there are 5th-7th cousins involved. 

But for now, this is enough about goals. I'm looking forward to a different focus in writing topics for next month.

Lost and Found

This is a genealogy post - instead of a commentary on where I have been or what I have been eating. When I started blogging family history was going to be the focus of all my posts ! Best laid plans, hey ?

Anyway, this year I have been studying our cousin matches at Ancestry, from our DNA tests taken in 2015 and have attended a few workshops and seminars to try to get my head around the science of it. Some of it is sinking in - a lot of it is still mumbo-jumbo. At the end of last year I had uploaded two kits to GEDMatch but still haven't really got the hang of that either. On there, as on Ancestry my closest matches (aside from Mum, Dad and Lauren) are 3rd-4th cousins - most are more distant. It all makes the searching to find the common link a little more time consuming. 3rd cousins share great-great grandparents. But if those great great grandparents (and we all have 8 sets of them) had even just two children, and those two children had two children each, and those four children had two children each, of their own - do we KNOW all of these people ? Remember then, that most of our great great grandparents had at least six children (not two) - and some just kept on going and had like FOURTEEN !

This year I uploaded two kits to FamilyTreeDNA - which has different tools to Ancestry, and a smaller database of testers. But again, I've not really got my head around all that it offers. 

I have actually met two 3rd cousins this year, while on holiday in the States, and spoken to another on the phone. Two of these were new discoveries thanks to the DNA test and the other confirmed our paper trail (YAY). But I have also corresponded - a little sporadically - with several others. For the majority who have responded to messages, we have, between us been able to determine our common ancestors. All that paper research starting way back before the internet has been right - so far. Thanks Dad, Chris, Bessie Peggy and Grev for all that painstaking research.

I've also been trying to fill out our tree - the more we know about siblings in each generation the more likely we are to be able to identify a common ancestor (eventually). So I have been searching people's trees on Ancestry for common families and contacting them to offer to collaborate - or to elicit assistance. I've been making fairly good progress there too.

In November I got caught up in the GRO pdf trial (Births, Deaths and Marriages in the UK) £6 for a certificate to be emailed, rather than wait for the snail mail ! Thanks twitter for alerting me to this ! The GRO had also launched a search facility on their site. Previously this needed to be carried out on a 3rd party site, and then the actual order for a certificate was made on the GRO site. The new search function had a bonus not found on other sites, in that the mother's maiden name was included in the results - even as far back as the beginning of registration in 1837. Yuss !! This meant that even if you didn't order a certificate to be doubly sure you had the right person, in a lot of cases you could confirm the children you had included with your family did all have a mother with the maiden name you suspected they should have. You could also discover children previously unknown. Those who may have been born, and died between census'. In England the only helpful census in this regard is the 1911, where wives were asked to note how long they had been married and how many children they had had - and how many were still living. Thanks to that helpfulness many families in my tree have

"Child Xxxx b. ? d. before 1911". 

But that only works if the parent was still alive in 1911. This new search enabled many people participating in the trial to find children between all of the census'.

I ordered copious numbers of certificates. I now know the birth dates of all of my grandmothers paternal aunts and uncles - and where the family was living at the time of each birth and what job their father had at the time. For most of these I already had their baptism dates from previous research. I also attempted to find the birth certificates for as many of her mother's paternal aunts and uncles (we already have the maternal ones). But I am still missing two. One was born just prior to registration beginning - I do have his baptism date though, sadly with our the birth date noted in the church register. The other is a complete mystery - she seems to have not been registered at all. I thought at first she might have been registered under a slightly different name or spelling. Her sister Emily as registered as Emma, but no. I have just in the last couple of days found her baptism though - with the surname spelt a little weirdly. I have a great great grandmother like this too ! Grrr. 

Also this year I joined the NZSG and took advantage of that membership to change my subscription at Find My Past from pay-as-you-go to annual. The things I have found !! I've searched on here before looking at shipping and church records some of which are not available at Ancestry, and exploring the 1939 register (taken at the beginning of WW2). But now, since I don't have to be too exacting about what I use my credits for, it is like Pandora's box. I have read the baptism books for each parish I could, to find the baptism dates for most children in one branch of the family. I also read the marriage and burial registers if they were available. 

What did I find that I wasn't expecting ? 

That my great grandmothers Uncle Henry had 14 children not 13, that one his children died as a result of an accident when he was a baby. How grief stricken they must have been, but yet they went on to have 9 more babies. Baby George was 13 months old and being carried by his mother when one of her other children called out to her from the top of the stairs and as she turned to reach out to the child she lost her balance, falling to the floor below. Their eldest child at this point was just 7 years old. What a thing for her, and her three younger siblings to witness. How did it affect them ? Their mother was pregnant at the time with her sixth baby, how guilt-ridden and anxious she must have felt. 

I had known about George though from census records and searching freebmd. I just didn't know the circumstances of his death or the actual date until Find My Past gave me that information in burial records and in a newspaper that reported the inquest in to his death which was held on the day of his burial. What I didn't know until I read the entire baptism register for the parish was that they had had one more child than I had been aware of. She was to be their last child. Her baptism is recorded in the register as "PB"- private, and a note was added in the margin that she had died the next day and been buried 2 days after that. In the burial register her age is given as 1 month. Once her parents and siblings had left this earth did anyone remember wee Lucy Kate ? Possibly only some of her older siblings would have remembered her in any case, perhaps only her parents remembered since these matters were not spoken of in times gone by.

I also had a penny dropping moment about one of the same great grandmothers Aunts. Why this thought did not occur to me while the GRO trial was still running I do not know. So I am patiently waiting for their next trial, or the introduction of the pdf service as a normal service. This Aunt had married and had 3 sons. They have been hard to trace into adulthood appearing on some census' and not others. She lived the majority of her life in an Asylum suffering from what I am not sure. Anyway, it suddenly occurred to me that I knew when she was admitted and I knew when her youngest son was born. There was space of a few years there - plenty of time for more children to have been born from her marriage. Being able to search on the GRO and cross reference her maiden name made looking for any so much easier. 

Bingo ! Two daughters !! I read the baptism register for the parish where they lived, and there were one son and one daughters, baptised on the same day, with another son having been baptised just days before. Sadly the other daughter died aged just 9 months and does not appear to have been baptised. I have been able to follow the surviving daughter who grew up with an aunt and uncle and cousins through to adulthood and possibly her own children. Exciting - there may be more living cousins to connect with yet !

So, here are my goals for Genealogy in 2017:

• Save money and buy AncestryDNA kits for my cousins, brother, nephews, nieces - possibly even ex-in-laws (is that a thing ?)
• Save more money and buy FTDNA kits for a couple of strategic people to possibly follow Y-DNA lines and mtDNA
• Keep stalking researchers with trees on Ancestry that merge with mine on single or many branches
• Buy more certificates when I can
• Hope that some other rellies in NZ and UK get tested - USA matches are all very well and fine, but finding the common ancestor 6-9 generations back is pretty difficult

Happy researching people !

Ruminating, in an orderly fashion...

Well, it has been two months since I updated this. My holiday seems like a million years ago now, and the routine of work and stuff has just taken over again.

But, I have been doing things, and ruminating about blog topics or content. I just haven’t managed to devote any specific time to it.

I’ve been to a couple of genealogy workshops, and I have completed an online course in genealogy as well which was great fun. All of these things have refreshed my mind, honed techniques I was familiar with and given me new strategies to use in my search. It was enjoyable to spend time with like-minded people, even if the housework and other things suffered at that expense.

Even better, at one workshop I bumped into a 4th cousin who I have only met once a few years ago.  We had corresponded with each other extensively about our respective family connections, but even that had ceased over the last few years. Since moving to Auckland though, I have often wondered how she was but not actually done too much more than that. Our chance meeting has rekindled interest and the topic of one workshop session motivated me to look at new records – where I found something about our elusive relative. An extra bonus for a weekend away from housework and tv.

The workshops and the study course both reinforced the need to be organised in your research, and to make a plan, so that you covered all options, and didn’t research the same things over and over, and to be better at recording sources. By using a technique (which I had always used but hadn’t really thought of as a technique before) since my studies and the Family History Expo workshops, I have found whole new families which I had completely missed before.

What was the technique ? Revisiting sources that you have already used to check if there have been new additions in their databases, or whether other people are searching the same families so that there is potential to collaborate.

I knew I did this, I just thought it was part of my haphazard plan. My approach probably has been haphazard in the past. Now though I am consciously using this approach. In the past month or so I have discovered two whole families I had overlooked previously.

One by not properly looking at the information in front of me, and the other by being able to search new records which weren’t available on previous occasions when I had been searching.

I could be forgiven then for completely missing one family, until the baptisms and marriages became available. The spelling of the surname on other records will have led me to overlooking them in the past on census documents – but church records have definitely linked them on the tree. Interestingly we already had the parents names in our tree, but no information going forward to show any children or other life events.

The other family I found, and members of which I am sure there may be more to find, came to light when I was looking at a census record. It suddenly struck me that there was a member of the household who I didn’t know, and who wasn’t recorded on my tree. Who was this mystery girl ? Of course it had to be the 1841 UK census, which doesn’t show relationships. Everyone else matched with my tree; head of the household, his wife, their children…and then this older girl. On studying my tree more closely I noticed that the head of the household had been married twice, and that I had no children attached to his first marriage. This mystery girl fitted age wise as a possible child of that marriage. How many siblings did she have ? Anyway, I have her now, and for a few generations going forward from there as well. Cousins everywhere.

Speaking of cousins everywhere, isn’t Genealogical Genetics a fascinating science ?

Maybe that can be the topic of my next post.

Changing horizons

It would seem that constantly changing living locations has become as much a part of my life lately as it was when I first left home back in the late 70's and went to live in Australia.

It is happening again this weekend - still in the same country, and the same city - just moving from one side of the bridge to the other. We're quite looking forward to it, though the actual packing and doing it is a bit of a drag. We've broken our lease where we are and the agent has been able to find new tenants relatively quickly. The new place - which only I have seen from the inside - is closer to work for both of us now.

As well as changing residences, there has been a change of roles for one of us. Exciting times.

Once we are there and the boxes have been dealt with I promise this blog will be getting more attention.

In the meantime, there are a few things I'll miss from this side of town. The sunsets - and just lately the sunrises too. (I'm sure we'll still get to experience them post move though) The singing on Sunday mornings at the Tongan church at the end of the road, and the proximity to lots of shopping. Won't miss the neighbours who set off fireworks at all hours of the night, the cars with stereos so loud they set off people's car alarms as they drive past and the hours spent sitting in traffic each day to get to and from work.

We have a whole new suburb or three to discover and from the little I have seen there are a multitude of cafes and stores to browse and try.

I've been busy with a few other researchers helping people on social media with family tree brick walls - very rewarding - and hopefully one day a money-making pastime. I've also been updating my family tree with new babies arriving over the last couple of months and contacting cousins who have been matched through that DNA spit test we did last year.

I saw a post today along the lines of my last one - 5 generation migration and location -  but this one is 5 generations causes of death. Watch out for that popping up here when I have more time on my hand.

Plus, accommodation has been booked and days partially planned for our holiday which is rapidly approaching. Just rental cars, visas and spending money to sort out now.

So while you wait in anticipation for my next post enjoy these pics of some of those sunsets with Maungakiekie (One Tree Hill) on the horizon which we are leaving behind.

DNA Soup - the difference between ethnicity and nationality

I've just been sitting here, enjoying a little lull in my job hunting chaos. Taking time for me. Anyway, I just realised I've not shared much about our DNA results. In fact I haven't shared anything.

Some of you will not be interested at all, so read no further - I wont mind.

The study of genetics is a science. The DNA testing companies have programs and databases and data-sets and scientists and are making this knowledge available to genealogists and family historians around the globe. They are bringing this science and it's discoveries to us, ordinary folk, in an effort to help us understand or learn where we came from. It also should enable us to make contact and potentially meet relatives we never considered we had before. 3rd cousins, 4th, 5th, 6th and beyond where the connection to a common ancestor goes back many generations. It doesn't matter how simplified the DNA testing people make their results, it is quite baffling. I'm a big picture person and I like to understand the whole thing. But I don't, and it frustrates me.

I'm a bit of a detective, but there are some things I can't unravel and solve and I sometimes I wonder why I didn't study genetics when I was young - maybe that would have helped now. BUT, the whole process of trying to unravel connections and find common ground, and understand our results is making my brain keep working - and that has to be a good thing, Right ?

Anyways, I know my family tree. Hours and hours, and years and years of research by both my Dad and myself has led to us having a pretty comprehensive tree, back to the 1600's on some branches. In more recent years I have collaborated with cousins I have "met" online - and now mostly in person - as well. So here is what I know:

1. Both of my parents were born in New Zealand
2. Three of my grandparents were born in New Zealand, one was born in England
3. Four of my great grandparents were born in New Zealand, three were born in England, one in Ireland
4. Two of my great great grandparents were born in New Zealand, eleven were born in England, three in Ireland
5. At least 30 of my 32 great great great grandparents were born in England, Ireland or Wales.

So ethnicity-wise what would you expect ?

I'm not going to be identified ethnically as a New Zealander. I know THAT. We are all immigrants - all of us with European heritage are populating remote former colonies because our ancestors were travelers. Emigrating by choice or by force from their homelands. Some of us may have acquired other more local ethnicity markers post migration. But not me. I KNOW that.

So knowing that I am a New Zealander by nationality because my forebears chose to sail to the opposite end of the planet for a new, better life is one thing. Were they travelers before that too ? Where did they come from before they settled in England (or Wales or Ireland). I can trace one line back to the France/Belgium border. They probably emigrated to England with other Huguenot families as they were silk weavers in Spitalfields for some generations after their arrival in London. I have one other branch which is just a big brick wall right now - where did they come from ?

Some of these places maybe ?

...not quite what I expected either, I can tell you ! We each get our DNA from our parents, 50% from each, but in a unique mixture. Each sibling will have a different mix to the other.  

I figure my brother must have quite a different match. Where did all those Great Britain markers which I can see in my tree for generations go for example ?

Ethnicity aside, Ancestry and other providers also "find" for you among their other tested account holders, potential matches who share the same markers as you. They did ! And they keep adding to the list frequently as more people are tested. They correctly matched me with my daughter, my parents and one 4th cousin who I already had been in contact with for almost 15 years. They do match you as well with positive/negatives - people who match by chance, rather than by descent. So it is tricky to establish who is who.

However, I have been able to identify and contact other 3rd, 4th and beyond cousins who I had no idea about before. Of course I knew they would be "somewhere" because I knew that my direct ancestors were not the only ones in their families to have had children, grandchildren and  great grandchildren. I just had no idea how to start trying to find them. 

If you suppose that one great great grandcouple had say 5 children, and they in turn each had 5 children and so on, that would mean the starting couple could have 25 grandchildren and 125 great grandchildren and 625 great great grandchildren. (Did I work that out right ?) Anyways, 600 or so 4th cousins !! in just one branch of the tree ? That's a lot of people out there around the world sharing parts of my DNA.

I've also been able to determine that I have more matches with my Dad's side of the family than with my Mum's. All the more reason to get my brother spitting in a vial.

My cousin in the States told me about Gedmatch.com where you can upload your raw data from the initial testing provider and find matches in a much bigger pool. I've uploaded ours now and found her (my cousin in the States) as well as some others who I think are the same as people I matched with on Ancestry, and a 4th cousin in New Zealand who had tested with a different provider. They have an amazing number of tools to study the matches and I am still trying to understand them all and how they might help solve the puzzle.

I was relieved though to confirm through one of their tools that my parents are not related - except legally by marriage.

That's it for now. More next time, when I have unraveled some more. But if you are a keen genealogist, or you are just interested in where you came from, get like Nike and Just Do It.

Searching and Planning

I have a plan.

But, I'm not whispering a word just yet in case I jinx it, and anyway I cant put it into action until I find a blinking source of steady income.

I seem to spend my days trawling through listings on seek, applying for jobs, fielding calls from recruitment agencies, giving phone interviews and thinking that maybe this one will lead to the end goal.

There have been a few interviews, and to be honest to have got that far has been great for confidence - but brutal when of two candidates in a holding pattern at the point of final decision, I am not THE one.

Everything happens for a reason I believe (even when I might sound grumpy and despondent to my friends) so it will all fall into place when the RIGHT opportunity is offered. I just wish it would happen soon - this side of Christmas would be beneficial :o)

I've also been making a nuisance of myself highlighting "issues" with our rental property to the property manager, with mixed results. So we still have an oven that has two temperatures; stone cold and searingly fiery (is that too much superlative ?) and now we appear to have little bugs which live in timber. Oh yay. But we do have clear drains and smoke alarms fitted - although with the state of the oven, I'm always anxious I will set them off while cooking dinner each night. 

For a couple of baking fanatics like us, the unsatisfactory kitchen facilities have been a real gripe. We feel grumpy that we felt slightly pressured to take this place when offered as we had seen others (better) but people kept telling us how terrible the rental market was, and how competitive etc. Then the property manager wasn't as upfront as she could have been either. Grrr. And to top it off we have a stupid fixed term tenancy...at the moment.

Never mind though, I've become quite adept with "managing" the stove and haven't killed us yet with uncooked dinners, or set the place on fire. I even baked yesterday - and was quite successful.

I've started planning and making for Christmas too, since it is my favourite time of year.

And I have been spending an untoward amount of time contacting potential DNA matches since receiving our test results and updating and expanding my family tree database.

Aside from all this, I'm finding my way around - sometimes without the help of my TomTom, the traffic is just traffic, I'm enjoying the rain - such a novelty after 12 months in Christchurch !

Are we who we think we are ?

These arrived in the mail.

We spat in them and sent them back.

Wonder what matches will be found - and what surprises too ?

Waiting, waiting, waiting...