Just a little obsessed with ancestors

This beautiful woman was my 2nd great grand aunt Alice Frances Brown, the daughter of a convict, born in NSW in 1857 and died in 1940. That's her in the last blog, on the right in the back row (with dark hair). This photo must have been taken when her hair had turned grey, as I don't think she would have been a bottle blonde! A surprising thing is so many of my ancestors lived till they were in their 80s and 90s, yet that is supposed to be a modern occurrence! Hard physical work and no rubbishy food must have been the reason. She was one of 14 children (including my 2nd great-grandmother).

I have put a large print of the photo on my fridge and her eyes seem to follow me wherever I go.

As I slip into my gym gear I wonder how these women survived in these clothes!

Judith, a newly-discovered relative (through Ancestry.com), who lives in Queensland, sent me this photo of the Brown sisters, including my second great grandmother on my mother's side. She is Eliza, on the right in the front row. The others were Elizabeth, Alice, Priscilla, Harriet and Rose. All lovely names. The photo was taken circa 1893.

Eliza's father, Robert Brown, was the only convict I've discovered so far in the family. She was born in Australia, but her parents were both born in London and married in NSW. Judith has made several visits to the area, right near the Tower. I tell you, this search for ancestors certainly gets you in once you start. And it can cost a fortune!

Apparently, 14 years for stealing some tobacco didn't make
Robert Brown behave well. Grant, yet another relative (matched by Ancestry.com through our DNA) came across this in a Maitland NSW paper:

3rd March 1852

A Boisterous Relative;-

On Monday Robert Brown [married to Thomas Cooper’s daughter Alice] was brought before the bench, charged with disturbing the peace. It appeared that on Saturday night, about midnight, Brown, who was drunk, went into the yard of Mr. Thomas Cooper, his father in law, and commenced a rattoo on the door with his feet, swearing he would break it down if he was  not  let  in,  as  his  wife was  there: Mrs.  Brown having gone to her father’s for protection. Brown continued his vagaries in the yard, till Constable Kedwell, attracted by the noise, found him there, and on hearing from Mr. Cooper how the case stood, and Brown refusing to leave the premises, Kendwell lodged him in the lockup. Brown was ordered to enter into recognizance of £20 with two sureties in £10 each, to keep the peace.

I have to admit my head is swimming with ancestors and I'm in a huge muddle. When the average number of children was about 15, and they married and had 15 or so children, there must be hundreds of thousands of present-day relatives out there. 

Trip to visit the ancestors

Last weekend I set out with friend Pixie to visit areas in the Hunter Valley once inhabited by ancestors. Our first port of call was the Maitland Genealogical Society, where I learnt just what a beginner I am in this field, and how much information is out there to be researched.

This is a sketch of the old Mounted Police Headquarters, which now serves as the office.

We could have spent days and days there, but had to keep going on our roughly-planned itinerary. I got some more information on the Dodds ancestors (on my mother's side) and visited an old cemetery where I took this photo of one of the headstones.

Alexander Dodds (a brother of one of my direct ancestors, John, and father to some of those buried here) born 1814 in Kelso, Scotland, immigrated in 1830s, died 1892 in Sydney, had been quite a prominent figure: auctioneer, justice of the peace, returning officer, mayor, member of both NSW Legislative Assembly and Council.

Further up the Valley, we drove near Maison Dieu, an area just out of Singleton, which still carries the name of the property John (mentioned above) named in the 1830s, as well as Glenridding, named by John Earl, who came out from the Lake District, having married my ancestor Ann Mounsey (daughter of the last owner of Patterdale Hall, picture back in this blog).

The weather couldn't have been worse - wind and rain, with snow threatened - so we didn't quite make it to Quirindi but turned around at Murrurundi after finding this house once owned by ancestors:

Winifred, you should get back into your Irish ancestors. It is soooooo interesting, but of course, very time-consuming. As well as delving into online stuff, I've starting buying books on our first settlers and there's no way I'll have time to read everything before I die!

Good to hear from you, Olga. Do you know your ancestry??

Those very tough ancestors...

This morning Philip brought down a big monitor so I can see all the ancestry documents more clearly. This is a letter written by John Earl in 1822, organising his move from Patterdale beside Ullswater in the Lake District to New South Wales. He married Ann Mounsey, from Patterdale Hall, who had been married before and had several children. Once here, he took up several land grants and became quite prosperous. After some time he left his wife here and went back to England with his housekeeper and they had many children together. Ann Earl is buried in Murrurundi, a town where I used to live, without knowing a thing about her. I will visit the headstone next week on my little trip.

I certainly take my hat off to these early settlers. Imagine arriving in Sydney just 40 years after invasion and heading hundreds of miles north to establish a farm! No roads, no McDonalds on the corner. They first had to find their way to their allocated property, clear the land, build a house and fences. How they got the cattle or sheep there I cannot imagine, nor how they managed to grow crops. And the women had 14 or so children...No electricity or running water. At least they were allocated convicts as workers, which would have been better than being locked up. 

Can you imagine doing all that, dressed like this, in 40 degree heat?

Moving on...

Spent a few days with my sister Kay recently. She's downsizing - selling her 4-bedroom house and moving into this wonderful retirement village in Canberra.

Apart from that little interlude, I've been spending hours and hours every day on ancestors. Am making the most exciting discoveries. I got my DNA results back and now I want the man I think is descended from my father's father (well, his sister, as the man himself had no children other than my father, so far as I can work out) to have the test, too. That way my 99% suspicion will be proved either right or wrong.

No surprises with the DNA: 35% Great Britain, 27% Ireland, Europe West 26%, European Jewish 4% (my father's father), Iberian Peninsula 3%, Italy/Greece 2%, the rest not worth a mention.

I've got back as far as 1400 on the Mounsey line, the wealthy family from Patterdale Hall. Winifred, it's on the shores of Ullswater.

It seems another line of the family, the Dodds, were wealthy landowners, too, here in NSW. One of them married a Mounsey daugher. There were several properties established by them which nowadays have become the names of suburbs or country areas.

I plan to take a little trip soon to take photos of headstones and track down the original properties.

Ancestors' former home in the Lake District

I'm just about dropping on my feet, after spending hours and hours every day researching ancestors. Compare this to the houses I put a few blogs back! I couldn't have been more wrong!

Ralph Dodds, the great grandfather I mentioned then is descended from the Mounsey family, who owned this estate, Patterdale Hall. It doesn't look as though they were too poor, does it!

Some of the original occupiers immigrated to NSW and took up land grants here, establishing farming properties, with convicts for servants. Some of them are buried in towns - Singleton and Murrurundi - where I haved lived, totally unaware of my ancestral ghosts wafting about there! My next project is a trip to the cemeteries to take some photos.

Some illustrious in-laws found on Ancestry.com...

(Albert Cherbury) David Rivett was the brother-in-law 
of my father's first cousin, Lorna.

He married Stella, daughter of Alfred Deakin, 

Australia's second Prime Minister (above). 

This portrait of the PM is in our National Gallery.

Dr Christina was one of his sisters.

Rohan Rivett was a son of David 
and a playmate of THE Rupert Murdoch.

In Melbourne, the city where Gaelic football was turned into a religion, Rohan Deakin Rivett was the bluest of the blue bloods. Born in 1917, the grandson of Australia's second prime minister, the son of of the founder of the CSIRO and the builder of Australia’s first atomic bomb was given the middle name Deakin at his christening.

His father was Sir Albert Cherbury David Rivett and his mother Stella Deakin, daughter of Alfred Deakin, who followed Edmund Barton. It was inevitable that the Rivetts and Murdochs would socialise.

Rohan was 14 when Rupert was born. His three sisters played with him and coddled him and dressed him when he was little. Rohan Rivett introduced Rupert to more boyish games and tennis and swimming. Elisabeth Murdoch described Rohan as "the brother that Rupert never had."

This reminds me that when we used to visit Auntie Lorna, she would pretend to want to adopt me, as she had only two sons. Because they were wealthy and lived in a huge mansion, I wanted her to!!!!
I googled the house at 148 Edinburgh Road, Castlecrag and it is still there! I remember a huge fishpond surrounded by colannades. The architect mentioned in this article (below) was the very famous Walter Burley Griffin.

Rivett House: 148 Edinburgh Road 1928
Built for Dr E.W. Rivett on the opposite corner to his hospital, the house was the subject of a court case between Griffin’s development company and Rivett (Rivett won) over the building’s design which was completed contrary to the covenant and the original plans submitted to and approved by Griffin. Its interior walls were rendered brick instead of stone and the flat roof of the original design was scrapped for a pitched roof with Marseilles tiles. The rest of the house including its original layout which had been created by Griffin remained unchanged.

Picking mandarins

Well, she won't get run over by a bus in that outfit, I hear you say! Last Monday, Queen's Birthday holiday for us, we went to a local orchard we had seen advertised, to pick mandarins. So did at least 236,421 other carloads of people, which meant the first few hours were spent in a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam. We eventually managed to get into an orchard and it was fun picking bucketsful of fruit. One week on, we are all a slight mandarin colour.

Have been very busy practising the piano and tracking down ancestors these past weeks, and am very pleased with success in the latter department. I am concentrating on my paternal grandmother's siblings, and have found a great uncle - son of her youngest sister - his daughter, granddaughter and grandchildren. They are spread from Hawaii to NZ, and used to live in Alaska. I have also come across relatives from further back, one in Scotland and the other in an as yet unnamed foreign place but with a daughter living in Sydney.

I need to work out a way of organising all the papers I've printed from Ancestry.com, and get the hundreds of ancestors into some form I can handle.

I sent off a sample to have my DNA tested. So far, almost all ancestors are from England. What I'm hoping is that there will be some evidence of my Jewish grandfather, whose ancestors came from Poland (that's if I've got the right bloke).

I am not exaggerating when I say I find playing the piano EXTREMELY difficult, so am doing an online uni course on improving my ability to learn. Hope it works!

Interesting what you say about British and American Englishes, Winifred. I'm not surprised they are difficult to understand. When I went to Scotland I could barely understand a word, and had to keep on asking the locals to repeat what they'd just said. One thing I notice about listening to the BBC every night is that almost all the announcers speak very, very fast and I have great difficulty understanding them.

Sunset

Just glanced up and saw this wonderful sunset, so dashed outside and took some pics. The tall flower is on one of our

xanthorrheas. It came out white because I used the flash.

It's been cloudy all day, so this evening effect is completely unexpected. Winter tomorrow. I think in the northern hemisphere you wait till the solstice, but here we start winter on the first day of June.

My problem with music is that I can't sing a note, have no sense of rhythm, and can barely tell one tune from another!
Playing the piano is like climbing Mt Everest - extremely difficult.

It's so hard it makes me want to cry

I find understanding different keys in music almost impossible.  I've tried and tried to read about it, but nobody seems to get down to my low level of understanding - not understanding.

When I listen to a piece of music I can't tell what key it's in.
All pieces sound the same to me.

And when I'm told that A minor is relative to C major, I don't have a clue what that means. To make it worse, there are two minor keys to each major. With the harmonic A minor scale, for instance, there are two sharps on the way up but none on the way down. How, I ask myself, can you compose a piece of music in this key with sometimes sharps and sometimes not??? 

Not only do I not understand the theory, my fingers get all muddled up when I try to play the scales. It certainly doesn't come naturally to me.

Oh, I just found a whole book online and free that might help: http://www.monarchknights.com/teacherwebpages/halladay/documents/BasicMusicTheory1ed_000.pdf

Yes, Winifred, I'm with you on 'the good old days'. My heading on that blog was highly ironic.