Y is for Yesterday (#AtoZChallenge)

Y is for Yesterday (#AtoZChallenge)

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they're here to stay
oh, I believe in yesterday.

Written by Paul McCartney in 1965, Yesterday holds the record as the most covered song in history, according to the Guinness Book of Records. As a child of the sixties, it takes me back to yesterdays - and I did love Paul McCartney in the sixties.

For a family historian, yesterday has many meanings. The obvious one of the day before today, but perhaps it means more. Perhaps it means all the yesterdays, all the days gone before. Maybe it takes us back to the times before we were born, back in the time of our great-grandparents or further still to our 4th great-grandparents. We can imagine what their lives were like back then, dream about the yesterdays - so that is Y is for Yesterday.

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This post is part of the 2015 Blogging from A to Z Challenge. My theme is Names: First Names from My Family File. Stay tuned for the rest of the alphabet, and if you'd like to check out the other A to Z participants, simply click here.

X is for his or her mark (#AtoZChallenge)

X is for his or her mark (#AtoZChallenge)

Do you have early documents where an X is placed for a signature denoting his or her mark?  I have many of these, mostly by women, as reading and writing was uncommon among the 'ordinary' folk.

William Connor & Mary Cameron marriage 1853 New South Wales

The above Marriage Registration is of my great grandparents William Connor and Mary Cameron at Bartie's Farm near Hinton New South Wales in 1853. As you can see on the right-hand side Mary Cameron made her mark of an X, so signifying her agreement to the marriage.

I have often thought of Mary and her inability to read and write, she had a very hard life after William died in 1875 and it must have been incredibly difficult to understand what was going on around her at times.

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This post is part of the 2015 Blogging from A to Z Challenge. My theme is Names: First Names from My Family File. Stay tuned for the rest of the alphabet, and if you'd like to check out the other A to Z participants, simply click here.

W is for Wilderness (#AtoZChallenge)

W is for Wilderness (#AtoZChallenge)

Perhaps W should be for William, after all, there are 209 males with that name in my family file but thinking of genealogy, it can be charting your way through a wilderness, so this post is ... W is for Wilderness.

When I first started family history back in the late 1980s, everything was on paper, records, books, plans, etc. It took time and effort to go to repositories and libraries to seek out the material. I then got distracted with family and work and didn't come back to family history until 2001. What a difference, the emergence of digital records made.

But, it raised a lot of questions, hence the wilderness analogy. Finding the gold among the millions of records online is like a trek through the wilderness to find your way home. It's a fascinating trek though, twists and turns on every path, false starts, wrong turns and misplaced records. 

I still use repositories and libraries to find records and view original documents, but the digital age has certainly helped me find my through the genealogical wilderness.

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This post is part of the 2015 Blogging from A to Z Challenge. My theme is Names: First Names from My Family File. Stay tuned for the rest of the alphabet, and if you'd like to check out the other A to Z participants, simply click here.

V is for Vincent (#AtoZChallenge)

V is for Vincent (#AtoZChallenge)

V is for Vincent, Vincent Joseph (Vince) Connor, my father. Vincent was born on the 18th June 1915 in Newcastle, New South Wales, the sixth child of Arthur Connor & Dorothy Vero. His mother, Dorothy, died in 1923 of breast cancer and exhaustion when he was only eight and his eldest sister Kath, aged fourteen,  took over the responsibility of caring for the family of seven.

Vincent worked as a fitter at the steelworks and joined the Australian Army in 1940. He was drafted into the Service Corps and served in Queensland, Victoria and New Guinea. He met my mother in the Brisbane Botanic Gardens one Sunday in 1946, and they married on the 14th October 1946 at the Holy Trinity Church of England, Fortitude Valley.


Unfortunately, things did not go well for the marriage and Vincent deserted my mother early in February 1947. I did not know my father but have managed to piece together through family history a sketch of his life. He did not marry again and died in November 2001 in Glenroy, Victoria. From  his death certificate, Vincent died of bowel cancer and schizophrenia. Tracing his life it became evident the he had suffered from schizophrenia while in the army and afterwards with quite strange notations in his service record. He was in and out of Royal Park Hospital in Melbourne for a number of years and lived in a nearby hostel where he cooked for the residents and helped with the garden.

I think Vincent lived a solitary life and I wish I had had the opportunity to know him. He did not appear in any public records after his marriage in 1946 and I traced him only when the State Trustees in Victoria put a private tree on Ancestry. So you see, Ancestry can be useful.


Vincent is buried in the Yan Yean Lawn Cemetery, Victoria.
Rest in Peace Dad ...

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This post is part of the 2015 Blogging from A to Z Challenge. My theme is Names: First Names from My Family File. Stay tuned for the rest of the alphabet, and if you'd like to check out the other A to Z participants, simply click here

U is for Unnamed (#AtoZChallenge)

U is for Unnamed (#AtoZChallenge) 

U is for unnamed. It is sad when you  find unnamed male or female in your family line. You usually find this in the BDM registers when searching for births of a couple. Sometimes you find it in a family bible. One of my Connor families has three unnamed males between 1862 and 1870. I cannot begin to comprehend the sadness that must have accompanied these births. Other families have named children who died soon after birth.

So to all the unnamed angels in my family file I hope you are looking down on me and smiling over my genie research.

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This post is part of the 2015 Blogging from A to Z Challenge. My theme is Names: First Names from My Family File. Stay tuned for the rest of the alphabet, and if you'd like to check out the other A to Z participants, simply click here

T is for Travel (#AtoZChallenge)

T is for Travel (#AtoZChallenge)

T could be for Tamsen, Terence, Tessa, Thelma, Theodore or Theodorus, Theresa or Teresa, Theron, Thomas, Thora, Thurza, Tiarna, Timothy, Tom, Toni, Tony, Toree, Tracey, Tressa, Trevor,  Tristan, Trixie, Troy or Trudy. But it is not, it is for TRAVEL.

Yesterday I mused about my Barbados family and this has inspired me to plan some travel. I have never ventured to the Eastern United States or the Carribean and have often thought about travelling there, especially in the Autumn (or Fall) and seeing the beautiful foliage.

Well, next year is the year to travel, definitely next year.  This year will be taken up with some health issues, getting them right with some surgery etc. Then ... next year it is on. The plan is to travel to the UK and Ireland then the Carribean and Eastern United States - then home to Brisbane.  Planning it will be such fun. Some geat opportunities for some genie travel, will have to see when some genie events are on next year ... advice welcome.

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This post is part of the 2015 Blogging from A to Z Challenge. My theme is Names: First Names from My Family File. Stay tuned for the rest of the alphabet, and if you'd like to check out the other A to Z participants, simply click here