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and why John Ross migrated from Araluen to Cope's Creek OBJECTIVE When my father died, I inherited a packet containing unpublished family stories compiled by a distant cousin, Pamela Leach.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 literally stumbled across this document while looking for something else. S ource: State Records Authority of New South Wales; Kingswood, New South Wales, Australia; Benches of Magistrates: monthly returns of trials of convicts 1832–6 ; Series Number: NRS 12214; Reel: 662 This record (dated 29 December 1836) is for Ellen Ross a convict from the ship Pyramus. A search of the records show that this woman is Elizabeth Ross. One of the thing that interests me is that R Lee is the person who has accused her. This "Ellen" Ross lives in the Parramatta area and is around the age of our Ellen Ross. This Ellen Ross has a lot of interesting stories to tell. We have a few colourful articles about Eliza Ross. The Pyramus arrived in March 1832 and in the Sydney Gazette just a week later it was reported Eliza Ross, who was landed a week back from the Pyramus made her debut at the Police Office, for taking a cruise to see the Sydney lions, but, at the intercession of her m...