The Family Detective

One of the most interesting subjects I did this year was Place, Image and Object. As part of this subject you had to research an object that had meaning for your family. I chose my mother's Pedigree Doll. It was an interesting way of presenting family history in a different way. I have a few other objects I might endeavor to present in this way too.  OBJECT BIOGRAPHY: ‘Kim’ – Hard-Plastic, Pedigree Doll When family objects are passed down from one generation to the next, they bring with them shared histories and memories. A toy train might spark memories of afternoons making model landscapes. Old buttons may recall times spent with a departed grandma. A doll which has been played with though, brings with it a story, a personality and a name. A doll may have had one or many playmates. They have probably had many adventures. With dolls it seems more appropriate to say we adopt them, not inherit them.  A doll is something common to every region, culture and time-period in history...

This year I started a Family History degree at University of Tasmania. My first assignment was to create a research question and discuss how I solved it. I decided to start with John Ross and work out when he left Braidwood and why. Many people have researched John and there are still unsolved questions around his parents and their histories but this part of the puzzle was at least easy enough to solve with a bit of  'serendipity'. The biggest solution to solving this question was a small advert. [Please acknowledge my research if you are using it on any other site including Ancestry.com] Digging Up the Past: When and why John Ross migrated from Araluen to Cope's Creek OBJECTIVE When my father died, I inherited a packet containing unpublished family stories compiled by a distant cousin, Pamela Leach. John Ross and his wife Catherine née Toomey's story shed little in the way of personal anecdotes. The group sheets mostly dealt with their incomplete birth histories, the...

 It's time for a change. I have spent so long trying to trace my Ross, Lang, Weatherstone, Kelly and Cotter families that I realise there are so many others on my tree. I started to make a fan chart and realised so much of it is empty. So many choices and where to start? I feel I know at least some of the stories of the above people. Catherine Coffee was my great grandmother, I knew her. I have a book from her but I know very little of her. I remember visiting her at the hospital with my Grandmother the day before she died. Her mother was Rose which was my Grandmother's middle name. I always liked that name. I might start with her mother. I have her on my tree but I don't even know this information, it just was something I added from another tree. And the name littlewood .. it seems perfect for a family tree project!

I haven't given up the chase for Ellen Ross or Mary Ann Kelly, but they've occupied so much of  my research of late with little success that I thought I might concentrate on a little researched relative. Catherine Tormey married Ellen Ross' son John. Catherine was my 3rd Great Grandmother. I know most of Catherine's life facts and we know from immigration records the name of her brothers Joseph and Frank and her Ann but there are lots of questions whether she was a blood relation to Michael Hart who'd paid her immigration fees and was listed as an uncle. I suspect that there might be a few stories we'll never be sure of. Catherine went to live with Michael Hart after coming to Australia. His daughter married one of the Clark Brother bushrangers and was known to associate with them, and in fact stolen goods were found in his possession. Building Her Story Starting this story I know Catherine's mother is Ann Chance and her father is Michael Tormey but...

When the ship which Ellen and her family boarded set sail from Southampton Hampshire on 17th November 1854 there must have been mixed feelings about the new life ahead. They were at sea for 100 days and fear for baby John Kelly and baby John Dunn must have plagued the families after Scarlet Fever spread through the passengers killing 10 children onboard. They finally arrived in Sydney Cove 25th February 1855 but the ship and those aboard were placed in quarantine for 16 more days with the immigration records showing they embarked on the 13th of March.   For Ellen we find little in the way of interesting news stories. We gain a sense of her though through records pertaining to James and those of her children. John's immigration records show he was a bricklayer and he had arrived at the time railway lines and stations were being built. Stephen Phillips and his sons after him were rail men so in the early days of arriving in the colony perhaps James was involved in buil...

Like our roses to make them grow they need some pruning and maintenance. I've made my tree private for now and I feel I've solved some big mysteries on the tree including Michael Connolly who is an uncle who was sent to Norfolk Island. I read an eye opening account of his "unnatural act" and for now I think I'll just go visit some of my original ancestors and see what the expanding world of the internet throws my way. I've never really printed any of my sources or catalogued them properly so now is the time. I feel comfortable with some of the trees I've been making as well trying to see if cousins etc throw out interesting information. I'll need to graft them onto my family tree once I've pruned my original tree. Now the big question is where to begin. I think with a cup of tea...

Around 1830 a baby girl was born in Tuam, Galway. Her name was Ellen Phillips and one day she would marry James Kelly and set off to a new life away to Australia and away from the turmoil of the Great Potato Famine. Her parents were Michael and Mary Phillips (nee Connolly) and she grew up with at least two other siblings. Stephen who was a railway labourer was the one to sponsor James and their newborn son John on their journey to Australia. The other was her elder sister Catherine who accompanied Ellen and James aboard the immigrant ship Bengal in 1854. Times were tough in Ireland in the late 1840s. More than a million people died in Ireland and around another million emigrated to other lands. The English were building their underground railway and took advantage of the plight of many desperate Irishmen employing them as cheap, almost slave labour. Stephen found employment as a railway labourer in London and as with many desperate people needing to live close to their place of...

Tracing Mary Ann Kelly has taking many years of my own research and many more of some of the other researchers including Dafydd. With happiness he agrees with me that we have found Mary Ann's parents in James & Ellen Kelly (I've realised John & Mary as names are only on Mary Ann's death certificate and there's been little other information about them except their residences). I think with 2 of our researchers we might also be able to get a DNA match so I shall hold off myself getting one!! Anyway for me I like the old fashioned chase...a bit like grabbing pen & paper for working out a sum before I grab a calculator! Mary Ann Cotter (nee Kelly) So... until I am proven any different Ellen Kelly is my newest branch on the tree and after a few days I have many stories to tell but she is still elusive! Part of the issue is she has so many names in the documents I've discovered. Eleanor, Ellen, Mary...even her surnames Kearasen on Mary Ann's death ...