The Family Detective

Trove Newspaper articles have lead me to believe that Joseph Ross was sometimes referred to as John Ross. They had a connection with Sarah Bird and John Ross was noted as his brother in law. Could Ellen Ross have been related to Sarah? I have several posts that cover the relationship between Bird and the Rosses and also theories about Ellen Ross. FREE ACCESS: I am happy to share access to my research for those who request via comment below. Unfortunately I have had a large amount of my research from this blog taken without acknowledgment. It is with sadness I am making my research available "by request".  Also, feel free to use the comments as a place to share with others. I have a private  Facebook Group  where files and research will be posted. Feel free to join to join the conversations. _______________________________________________ It is widely believed that John Ross who was a convict and shoemaker was my fourth Great-Grandfather. I started this post with the intention

All researchers know we cannot all rely on what we find on Ancestry.com.  A number of trees have recorded William Littlewood Snr as the step father of William Littlewood Jnr (father of Rose Littlewood). William Littlewood Jnr it seems was the son of Bridget Kelly. To date I have not found the records that connect William Jnr to Bridget Kelly other than her marriage to William Snr.  Oddly none of the trees seem to have picked up the information that William Littlewood Snr was a convict on Charles Sturt's Second Exhibition. Also, many other vitals seem to be missing.  It seems nice to think William Littlewood Snr is indeed connected to our tree, and there are some interesting factors that I will explore (ironic). For the purpose of this I will continue to call them William Snr and Jnr. ... ____________________________________________________ FREE ACCESS: I am happy to share access to my research on William Littlewood Senior & Junior, for those who request via comment below. Unfor

In 2021, I completed a convict case study on Patrick Dodd for my UTAS Family History course. For some reason the word document has disappeared, but I have a PDF with full intext referencing for those who might be interested. My research looks at Patrick from the time of his crime, his time as a convict, and details of his life after that until his death. A full bibliography is included.  FREE ACCESS: I am happy to share access to my full research for those who request via comment below. Unfortunately I have had a large amount of my research from this blog taken without acknowledgment. It is with sadness I am making my research available "by request".  Also, feel free to use the comments as a place to share with others. I have a private Facebook Group  where files and research will be posted. Feel free to join to join the conversations. __________________________________________________________________________ On 30 August 1828, Patrick Dodd sat down to a meal of roast ham. H

I have already written of the Michael Cotter manslaughter of John Carroll, but I often wonder who John Carroll was and how he may have been connected to Michael, other than as a friend. Carroll is my brother-in-law's family so it's often intrigued me if he might be related to John Carroll. Also in delving into Richard Kelly's family trying to make a connection to Mary Ann Kelly, I've noticed his grandmother is noted as Catherine Carroll.  Who was John Carroll and who mourned his loss when he was gone? John's death was not registered (via BDM) and little information is gathered from the coroner's report of his inquest. A search of Trove, 1850, relays accounts of a John Carroll in the Bathurst area who was a trouble maker of sorts. He was described as a "Port Phillip vagabound" having recently arrived in Australia and a number of accounts of trying to get alcohol under false prentences. He claimed to be a thrasher from Dunn's Plains (near Rockley, an

 Do you have titbits of knowledge that you feel must connect somehow but don't know how? I  never know where to place them or keep track of them, but I'm going to try here. I shall try and keep them in family names. PHILLIPS - KELLY - EACRET In 1842 Richard KELLY & his wife Mary (nee EACRET) migrated with two of their children aboard Duke of Roxburgh and had in their care Anne PHILLIPS (20 year old from Leahy, Laois Queens County, Ireland) (Records show an Anne Phillips married Joseph Goodwin and settled at  Tangmangaroo) PHILLIPS - CONNOLLY - DODD Michael PHILIPS wife was Mary CONNOLLY. Ann CONNOLLY married Patrick DODD who was involved in stealing meat with her brother Michael CONNOLLY. Could there be a relationship? KELLY - DODD - COTTER Catherine KELLY married Michael DODD, son of Patrick DODD (she became Catherine DODD), her sister-in-law Catherine DODD married Michael COTTER (becoming Catherine COTTER). A number of Catherine KELLY's relatives are named Mary Ann K

It only struck me today that Michael Dodd's (Son of Patrick Dodd and brother to Catherine Dodd, who married Michael Cotter) was married to Catherine KELLY and in our search for Mary Ann Kelly, perhaps we have missed a cousin line that would connect Mary Ann Kelly to Edward Cotter. Today's venture will be to trace some of Catherine's siblings families for residential locations and to see if there were any Mary Ann Kelly's born.  FIRST - A quick look at Catherine in Ancestry Trees and what sources are there: Birth:  Marriage: Catherine Kelly (spinster, Narrawa) married Michael Dodd (farmer, bachelor, Narrawa) 11 January 1861, St Augustines Catholic Church in Yass. Witness Patrick Dodd & Bridget ? (possibly Kenna, Hanna, Hona, Krina or maybe even Hans). No age was given for either. [source: Marriage Certificate] Death: 26 Dec, 1921 at "McHenrys Creek" Young aged 84 years. (Parents named as Patrick & Catherine on BDM). Children still living Michael, Alfred

This is my convict case study I completed for University of Tasmania in 2021. For some reason the word document has disappeared, but I have a PDF with full intext referencing for those who might be interested. I've included the bibliography at the end of this post.

Evelyn Rose Cotter was my maternal grandmother, a wonderful woman that I still miss twenty-two years later. I remember the day I found out she had passed. I took to my bed and was unconsolable for hours. Those moments of grief are so etched in my mind, I don't know that I have grieved as deeply since. I was still a relatively young woman and it was an unexpected death, unlike the death of my father or in-laws.  Evelyn was born 1 October, 1914. The world was at war and her father Sidney Cotter had secured employment on a property near Condobolin, New South Wales, Australia. [1] She was the third, and eldest daugher of Sidney and Catherine (nee Coffee). Evelyn was named for her Grandmother Rose (Littlewood) and Great Aunt Eveline (Littlewood). With naming patterns in the family, Eveline was possibly Rose's grandmother. My mother was passed down the name Evelyn as her middle name but not liking the name, my mother decided not to give it to me. Grandma Hardy, as she was known to me

LOOK AT RECORDS BEFORE AND AFTER YOUR RECORDS Having already established that James Hardy was a Military Pensioner, I have previously tried to look at his service records and found little on them. A hint that I need to remind myself about is when you find a record on someone, check the records before and after in the set. It can give you insights into people they may be connected with, or give a historical perspective on what was happening in the area around them at the time. In doing this I have found a lot more out about James including his description, service history, health and that he had been in Canada (which might open up some more searches for him). MILITARY RECORDS While we know James was a soldier, it is often good to search surnames and districts of soldiers in the years where your ancestor might have been old enough to enlist. You might find a relative. Something in my "to research" list is John Hardy who's military record comes after James'. He was also

This post will be controversial, but I hope that anyone coming across it will add something to my theory or discussion. To date no one seems to question the validity that John Ross, the convict shoemaker is John Lees Ross' father.  John Lees was christened at the same church John Ross, the convict, was buried at. The time was only a few years apart. But what more do we have to connect the two? Nothing that I can find. John Ross, the convict, was closely connected to another convict Sarah Bird. In one report his brother Joseph was reported as being Sarah's brother-in-law. John and Sarah ran a brothel together in the inner city of Sydney.  I haven't found any connection between them in England, but they had lived in neighbouring towns. Sarah (nee Hill) married Robert Bird at Whitehaven, in 1816 prior to his transportation to Australia. At around the same time John Ross, the convict, was convicted at Wigton to transportation for stealing a watch. It is most likely this time wa

Having been on holidays last week I missed the writing for the 52 Ancestors challenge. Week 3 was to look at a favourite photograph. Week 4's theme is "curious". Instead of trying to catch up I've decided to combine the two weeks. It's hard to pick a favourite photograph. I do love the two that you will see in this post. I only was made aware of their presence when I was around 40 years of age. It upset me to know that they had been hanging around our family farm for years, stacked against the wall in a dusty storeroom. I would have loved to have known more about the photographs from the man who owned them and maybe clarified the information given to me about them from my father. We don't have many family photographs. One of the main reasons is that I mostly come from a long line of poor farming families or low paid working class people and photography was probably outside their usual means. We also have had in the past big families and my ancestors were never

I had no idea when I sat down to write this follow up post about Hessie Lang that it has been EXACTLY 10 years since I first wrote about her. When I was researching Edward Lang I started to think perhaps some of the John Lee Ross family had enlisted as well. To my surprise I stumbled across Frederick Ross a name which I knew as Hessie's husband. When I looked at the papers it gave the next of kin as Frank Seymour of Murrumburrah. After a bit of searching Trove threw up something I wasn't expecting to see, though I know I have read this article many times. John Lang's obituary mentions his daughters and one is Mrs Seymour. I'm not sure I ever looked or wondered about who Mrs Seymour might be as I have not included her on my blog or my tree.  "Mr. John Lang."  Murrumburrah Signal and County of Harden Advocate, 7 July 1927, p. 2, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article214457204 If we compare the names of the children from the obituary to those found on the death cert

Week Two's writing theme challenges us to reflect on our favourite find in relation to our family tree. It is a big task trying to narrow a favourite find down to just one. In honesty I'm always so excited any time I can find additional proof to pinpoint records for family members or to back up family stories. Some of the best finds are ones that you just stumble across.  I've already talked about the chance find of a "Missing Friends" advert that helped me answer a long standing mystery for those trying to locate John Lees Ross' family. Another favourite was a single line in an online book that shows John Laing had gone to Braidwood as a child and was living with Michael Hart. My latest find using DNA to confirm my "unknown" Grandfather and Great-Grandfather were special moments in my genealogical digs. One of my earliest finds that transformed the information the family knew about Sarah Weatherstone from a few lines about her children to pages that

I've now finished my two year University course and felt a bit flat not having the challenge of assignments and peer connections until one of my peers posted about Amy Johnson Crow's  52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge . By accepting the challenge you are sent a series of weekly prompts that help you reflect on ancestors and then share your writing with others. As Amy says the guesswork of "who should I write about" is taken care of . Week 1 challenges us to think about the foundations of our family tree.  By definition a foundation can be the base which everything stands on. In a family tree I'm at the base but I couldn't surely be what the family tree stands on. To think of where we came from as our foundations means we have many, many foundations and the idea of writing about those is my ongoing challenge and something I don't feel I could justify writing about in a week.  I started to brainstorm and came upon the idea of the "founding fathers"

 The following was submitted as part of my Diploma of Family History. I would love to expand on it a little more when I can. We were not to submit photographs and it wasn't a recount of war, but how war may have affected our ancestors. Please consider that some of this was written as theory, but there is a bibliography of items I researched when writing this and my references are found at the end. I encourage you to look at them and make up your own opinion about what has been written in this case study. DL Edward ‘Ted’ George Lang was a boy from the bush. [1] His family dynamics may have been a factor in him enlisting. He spent one-hundred weeks training or in hospital, and thirty-seven weeks in battle. Those weeks of warfare saw him involved in major battles in France, that ultimately led to the retreat and surrender of the German Army. In those thirty-seven weeks he was awarded a Military Medal and was wounded twice. [2] His life after returning was as filled with as many high