Souvenir of Bendigo

As a follow-on from my Postcards from Australia series of posts, this is another treasure that was sent from Australia by the BATEMANs back to England.

The envelope above probably (I can’t be 100% certain) contained the three photographs below, which are views from the town of Bendigo, Victoria, Australia.

From left to right they are:

• Soldiers’ Memorial Hall, Bendigo.
• St. Paul’s Cathedral, Bendigo.
• The Boathouse, Lake Weerona, Bendigo.

I know this because someone has helpfully written the locations on the back. The handwriting looks the same as that on the envelope so I guess it was either Annie or William BATEMAN.

These were sent quite a bit later than the postcards I have previously featured, the postmark on the envelope looks like 25 FEB 29, and I believe the monarch on the stamp is George V, so this would fit in with a date of 1929.

The other difference is the recipient, these were sent to my grandmother Dorothy Annie TROWER who would have been 16 years old at the time. Dorothy Annie was the daughter of Henry John and Dorothy May TROWER, making her William Joseph Henry BATEMAN’s neice.

Three seems an odd number of photos to include, so I wonder if there were originally more. If anyone knows then please get in touch.

Trying to stop the memories fading away

Over the last few months I have been thinking about writing my own personal history. Not that I think my life has been particularly interesting and I am sure it will not be of interest to anyone other than myself. I would be writing it for purely personal and selfish reasons, to enable me to remember things that have happened in my life.

I am becoming aware that things are changing in the world around me and I am not getting any younger. My memories of my childhood and schooldays, my early working life are starting to fade or have already gone. It was really brought home to me last weekend when I was thinking about my walk along the South Downs Way, although it was only a few months ago the details are starting to fade.

I know I wrote about it on my blog, but that was only a very basic outline. Perhaps it will be enough to jog my memory in the future, but I am sure there will be things that I have missed out which will fade from memory. I also have lots of photos, and these will help jog my memories, but will I be able to remember all of the place names and why I took that particular photo?

I suppose this blog is the closest I have ever got to keeping a diary, despite previous attempts I have never lasted more than a few weeks keeping a daily diary. Going forward I probably need to try again, but not recording every day, just important or interesting days, most weekdays are not that memorable the following day, but every now and then something more interesting happens that I might want to remember at a later date. Even if nothing interesting happens it will probably be worth recording what a typical day was like every once in a while.

Then I can go back and record as many of my memories as I can before it is too late. Many of them will not be for a specific date, more for a period in my life, such as childhood or schooldays. Some entries may be very brief, perhaps even just place holders for things I need to try and remember (or ask others about) such as when we visited a particular place, a book that I read or a film that was special in some way.

I have been wondering just how I was going to record all these memories and I think I will probably use a blog like this one, except that it will be private, not that there are any shocking or scandalous secrets, just that it will probably not be of any interest to anyone other than me. Occasional memories might slip over into this blog (hopefully not accidentally) if I think they might be of interest or relate to my ancestors.

I think a blog is going to be the perfect medium, because of the simplicity of adding photos and other media and because I know may way around it. I have always been one for hanging on to things like train tickets and buying postcards when we visit places. Then there are things like the covers of books and CDs that have some special significance. The good thing is that because it is for my own personal use I don’t need to worry too much about copyright on images.

The other thing I like about using a blog is the ability to tag things, so I can put things in a rough chronological order, buy tagging with a specific date, a year or even just a time period such as schooldays or 1980s. The only problem will be finding the time to actually do the writing and adding in images, although once it is set up it shouldn’t take too long to just write a piece. For starters I think I shall try adding just one memory or event from the past each day along with anything interesting that happens on a day to day basis.

Six reasons why postcard collecting is like family history research

As I sat on the train making my way to the postcard fair at Woking last Saturday I started considering the similarities between postcard collecting and family history research. I came to the conclusion that there is some common ground between them which probably explains why I love doing them both.

1. The thrill of the chase is as important as the end result – If someone handed you a neatly bound, fully sourced copy of your complete family history you would probably be interested, but not as interested as if you had put in all the effort and done the research yourself. In the same respect if someone handed you an album of postcards you would be pleased, but you would be lacking the experiences and feelings that go with the whole process of searching and discovering.

2. It can take a long time to find what you want – Patience is a virtue they say, and never more so than when it comes to family history research and postcard collecting. There may be some short cuts (and the internet has made things easier), but in both cases it might take a long time to find what you are looking for, that is if you find it at all.

3. The thrill of discovery is a huge part of the experience – Nothing beats the feeling of finding the answer to a particularly difficult question, or locating a missing ancestor who has been hiding for years. Well, the same feeling of euphoria is experienced when you discover a particularly unusual, unexpected or long sought after postcard.

4. Each discovery leads to more questions – Every record you discover seems to lead to more questions, finding a missing individual is just the start of a longer process of find out more about the individual. Discovering a new postcard can also be the start of a longer research process, so many more questions are raised such as who is on the postcard? What does it look like now? Who published it? When was it published? Who was it sent to? What does the message tell you?

5. You never know quite what you are going find – A good example is the WW1 British Army Service Records, you may not be certain that someone served with the army during WW1, and until you actually look you don’t know whether the record survived. With postcards there is very rarely any way of knowing what postcards were actually published and how many examples (if any) have survived.

6. The internet has made both of them a lot easier – It may not be the complete solution and of course not everything is on the internet, but it has become a lot easier to find you ancestors and postcards online these days. The postcard collecting community hasn’t embraced the internet as whole-heartedly as the family history community (but it is getting there) and sites like eBay make adding postcards to your collection far too easy!

Do you share my passion for postcards? Do you think there are other similarities between family history research and postcard collecting? What do you think makes them different? Let me know in the comments below…

It is amazing what you can find with Google Street View

I was lying in bed yesterday morning reading the latest edition of Picture Postcard Monthly pondering their Picture Postcard Puzzles section, which features postcards with views whose location is unknown. I was thinking that it must be a lot easier to identify postcards now with the advent of Google Street View.

It was then that I cast my mind back to one family postcard in particular (shown below) which has been a bit of a mystery. The postcard shows a woman standing outside a quite distinctive small building. The quality of the postcard is not good enough to see any facial features, but I felt that if I could identify the building that would be a good start.

Although this came from the TROWER side of my family tree the location didn’t look like anywhere in Sussex, certainly not one of the two main TROWER homes of Henfield or Sayers Common.

It is not clear what the building is, it looks a bit like a chapel perhaps, or some sort of community building like a village hall. It seems to be a little small for a house, but it is not easy to see how far back the building goes. One important feature is the material that the building is made of, it is almost certainly stone, rather than the more traditional Sussex building materials of flint or brick.

As I lay in bed pondering the image it struck me that there was one branch that I hadn’t previously considered, not actually a TROWER family but the family of Fanny FAIRS the sister of my 2x great-grandmother Annie TROWER (née FAIRS). She married Thomas Arthur BARRY in Henfield, Sussex in November 1894, but they lived in Northumberland at The Lodge, Ord House, Ord (Thomas was a coachman, presumably for whoever was living at Ord House).

I didn’t actually leap out of bed, but when I fired up my computer later in the morning I headed to Google Maps and searched for Ord House. Once the little orange Street View man hit the street I was convinced that this was the right place, because there was a nice long stone wall and stone buildings all over the place.

It took a couple of minutes exploring to find the building, unfortunately the Google Street View car didn’t drive right past the building, but close enough for me positively identify it.

View Larger Map

I had a quick check on old-maps.co.uk and this building was identified as “Lodge”, confirming that this was the house of Thomas and Fanny BARRY, and that the woman is probably my 3x great-aunt.

It is a great feeling when you can put a name to a photo or postcard (I can’t be definite about the person, but I can about the place) and a really great way to start a Sunday morning!

Personal Genealogy Update: Week 39

Oh dear… the weeks seem to be flying by quite quickly now, I really must go back to my New Year’s Resolutions and have a laugh at what I thought I was going to achieve this year and see if there is any chance that I might complete some of them.

It has been quite a good week, with a good mix of family history activities. I deliberately sat down and added some more people to my database, and it felt really good. There were two distinct families, the KINGHORNs in Carlisle, Cumberland and the HEMSLEYs in Sussex. I seem to be getting drawn towards Carlisle again, at the back of my mind I still have the idea of visiting Carlisle and doing some research (once their new archive centre is open).

I managed to get quite a bit of organising, not of my family history (which I like to think is quite well organised already) but of all the other stuff in my life and in particular the stuff perched on my computer desk. It is a great weight off my mind, it gives me a bit more space and a bit less to worry about, plus a bit more money (I discovered a cheque that I had forgotten all about).

I have also spent some time looking at my to-do list. It is quite interesting to see how my focus has shifted over the months, and there are several things on the list that I could probably spend some time on now, and some that need to be more focused, but that is generally how it works. I think I will be doing a bit more of a thorough overhaul in the coming week, I am sure there will be a few things that I have forgotten to knock off.

I have a couple of other projects that seem to be nearing the stage where I actually need to start doing things rather than just scribbling notes and thinking about. Now is the time for action, or it should be but I will probably find some way to procrastinate for a few more weeks.