A Mystery Solved

Back when I was in my last year of school, I remember asking my grandmother, Annie Walmsley, about her family and writing what she told me on a scrap of paper from a notepad she kept near her phone. My grandmother passed away a couple of years later. Today, 46 years later, I still have that scrap of paper, which has proved invaluable, with most of the information having been proved correct. I didn't do anything with it for quite a few years, but when I did, Henrietta Rodgers, Annie's mother was my stumbling block until recently.

When I think back to that day in my Grandma's lounge room, she was happy to talk about her grandmother and she knew a lot about her, especially her three marriages which intrigued me, so I probably didn't realize she had said very little about her mother, Henrietta. A few years back, I asked my Uncle Neil, my grandmother's only surviving child at the time about Henrietta and he had said his mother never spoke of her, so he assumed she had died before his mother married.  He too said she talked about her grandmother a lot when he was growing up but not her mother. I wanted to know more about Henrietta.

Henrietta was born on 18 January 1877 in Nairne, South Australia to Edward John Rodgers and Ellen Tanner. It was Ellen's second marriage, her first husband had died in July 1875 leaving her with five young children aged between seven and eleven years. She married Edward in the February of 1876. This was also a short marriage! Less than a year after Henrietta was born, the  South Australian Police Gazette in December 1877, showed an unexecuted warrant for Edward John Rodgers for deserting his wife. Edward was arrested in January 1878 at Caltowie, South Australia, but died in 1879, again leaving Ellen on her own. Ellen went on to have two more children, Ethel Rodgers and Ernest Gallagher, but there is no record of a third marriage. Eight children in total.

Henrietta grew up with lots of siblings, in what I can only imagine was tough circumstances. At the age of seventeen and a half, in July 1894, Henrietta married William Joseph Walmsley, a man twelve years her senior, at the Adelaide Registry Office.  Her marriage certificate said she was eighteen. There was no occupation, no address, just Adelaide as the place of residence and she had misspelt her name as Heneritta when she signed it. Her older half sister and husband were witnesses. Within seven months, and only eleven days after she turned eighteen, she gave birth to my grandmother, Annie. Four years later, Annie's brother, John, arrived. Everything seemed normal, but that was where the information dried up!

So then I started searching newspapers for any snippet of information and came up with this notice in several South Australian newspapers:-

from the South Australian Register

Henrietta was 24 years old and it was only a couple of weeks before Christmas. Annie was nearly six and John just 20 months old. Henrietta hadn’t died young, she had left her family, but where had she gone? I could find no trace of her in South Australia. A few years ago I found a Queensland Funeral Record for a Henrietta Walmsley, alias Stokes born 1876 who had died in 1944. Maybe this was my great grandmother, but after searching for a death certificate under both Stokes and Walmsley, I found nothing. I then checked the Queensland newspapers and found a probate notice in The Telegraph (Brisbane) as follows:-

After some more searching I found that Wills in Queensland available online stopped in 1942. If I wanted to see Henrietta's Will I would have to visit Queensland in person or pay an exorbitant amount to have it copied. Last month while looking for something else, I noticed the Queensland Government had updated their site and you could now download historical records directly. It was worth checking again to see if I could find Henrietta's death certificate and bingo. There it was!

Henrietta's Queensland Death Certificate

There is enough on this certificate for me to conclude this is my great, grandmother Henrietta. It says she was born and married in South Australia. She married a Walmsley and she had a male and female child. It does, however, leave a lot of questions about the missing 43 years from the time she left Adelaide. Another interesting detail of this story is Ellen's death certificate in 1909 is in the name of Ellen Adams and only mentions her first marriage to Thomas Adams and the children from that marriage!

The Challenge of Welsh Ancestry

Trying to trace my Welsh ancestors has been a challenge. It required a lot of detective work and taught me a lot about Wales, a country I knew little about. My great, great grandparents were Harriet Jones and Thomas Powell, who were both born in Ruabon in the North of Wales. I have had little success with Harriet's family, but the Powell's have proved a little easier.

Jones is the most common surname in Wales and Powell is in the top twenty. Why are there so few different surnames in Wales? The Welsh traditionally used a system of patronymic naming, that is  derived from the name of the father. Thus Jones came from John the first name of the father.  In Celtic times "ab" or "ap" meaning "son of" was put in front of names. Eventually the "a" was dropped and lots of welsh names began with "P" or "B", so the original welsh name "ap Howell", son of Howell became shortened to Phowell and finally the welsh name we know today - Powell.

The next obstacle to overcome was place names, sometimes an ancestor would have different places of birth on different records. It would vary between Ruabon, Rhosymedre, Cefn Mawr and sometimes Wrexham.  Ruabon is both a town and a parish. The parish of Ruabon included the smaller villages of Rhosymedre and Cefn Mawr until 1844. In that year Rhosymedre became a parish itself and included Cefn Mawr within its boundaries. With compulsory registration in 1837, Wrexham was the town for registration in this area. I must admit it took a while to get this clear in my head.

In 1841, the Ruabon parish had a population of 11,292 and owed its prosperity to the abundance of iron and coal in the area. About 1,500 men and boys were employed in associated industries, my ancestors amongst them. Thomas Powell was one of 8 boys and a girl born to John Powell and Sarah Rudge.  Sarah unfortunately died when her youngest child, Harriet was only 5 years old, leaving John to raise the family. John was a forgeman.  The 1871 census showed he was still working at that job at the age of 67. He died 4 years later. Being one of the main sources of employment in Ruabon, all 8 sons had little choice but to follow in their father's footsteps, working in the industry either as forgemen, puddlers, forge rollers or furnace heaters. Even Harriet, the only daughter married an iron moulder. However, they didn't all remain in Ruabon.

Four of the brothers, Thomas, Arthur, Henry and Isaac went to Thornaby-on-Tees in North Yorkshire and continued as iron workers. Only Isaac returned to Ruabon in his later years. John, Frederick and Harriett all remained in Ruabon and connected to the iron works. Peter, a mill furnace man, moved to Hanley in Staffordshire and William, as yet, I have been unable to track.

I was lucky in being able to track my Powell ancestors. Harriet, the youngest  and only girl proved the most difficult until I obtained her father's death certificate. It had been filled in by his son-in-law, Benjamin Butterton. As he only had one son-in-law, I knew who Harriet had married. Not only that, it opened up a bit of a can of worms, with many more people to add to the family tree. Harriet like her mother had 8 sons, but she also had 5 daughters, a total of 13 children in 21 years. Not a bad effort! Thomas Powell, my great, great grandfather had only one child, a daughter Emily, but he had 41 nieces and nephews that I have found so far, which shows how quickly a family can grow. There was also one adopted nephew, William Brillingford which might make a good story another time!

Helen Frances Edmonds (1934-2018)

It is with a sad heart, but with lots of wonderful memories that I write this post today. My Aunt, Helen, my Mum Val's sister passed away on Wednesday evening, leaving many family and friends to mourn her passing. Happy memories, however will live on forever.

Val & Helen

Helen Frances McAuliffe was born on 18 April 1934 in Balaclava, the second daughter to Thaddeus (Ted) McAuliffe and Catherine Myers. She grew up in what had previously been the old Balaclava Police Station in Blenheim Street. It had ceased being a Police Station in 1929, but still consisted of many outbuildings, so not only her immediate family, but extended family lived there as well. Many stories have been told over the years of the SP bookie operations her uncles ran and her grandmother throwing betting slips in the fire when she thought the police were coming. Helen also recounted the story of one uncle keeping eggs in a strange solution, which as an adult she realized he must've been selling the eggs on the black market. As well as her older sister, Val, Helen had a younger sister, Bev and a younger brother, Ted. Helen and Bev were both bridesmaids at my Mum and Dad's wedding in 1952 as can be seen below.

Bev, Helen & Val

On the 11 June 1960, Helen married Frank David Edmonds and that is where my recollections begin, as I was the flower girl at their wedding, as the picture below shows. After their marriage, Helen and Frank, lived with Frank's parents in a big old house in Tooronga Road Malvern. I remember it well with a passageway down the centre and all the rooms coming off it. I later learned it had been built in the late 1880's. I recall many visits to this house, the Dachshund or 'sausage' dog they had, as well as  my first trip on a tram. That tram trip, now I think about it, was probably to visit Mum at Francis Cabrini Hospital when my brother, Tony, was born exactly a year to the day after Frank and Helen's wedding.

Bev, Helen & myself

Helen and Frank lived in many houses over the years. As a child, their home at Warburton was one of the places I stayed, where they ran a pig and dairy farm on the banks of the Yarra opposite where Oscar's is today. It was my first real experience of farm life, milking cows, open space and even riding a horse. Although that last experience was laughed about for years, as I didn't loosen my foot in the stirrup when I dismounted and ended up on my back, foot in the air, in the mud. On one visit to their home in Kallista, I can remember us kids all going blackberrying in the paddocks around the house or on another occasion I was educated in how to kill a chicken! As a kid it was always fun to visit Helen and Frank's place.

Helen was also interested in family history like myself and we spent many hours together comparing notes and identifying photos. When my Mum died in 1986 I had lots of photos that had belonged to both my Nan and my Mum. Helen and I spent many hours writing on the back of those photos, the people she knew, so the memories wouldn't be lost. Recently sorting papers, I found a sheet Helen had typed up after a trip to Shepparton to chase up information on our McAuliffe ancestors. It was a list of all the relevant graves we had found in Shepparton Cemetery with the information she had copied down. What amused me most was the date, it was 1988 when we had made that trip. It just seemed like yesterday! Not only had we visited the cemetery, we had spent time in the library scrolling through newspapers on microfilm to find obituaries and went to the council to find out exactly where Jeremiah McAuliffe had selected his land and then drove out to the spot. We were kindred spirits as far a family history goes and only a few weeks ago she was worrying how she could share all her research to her three children equally after her death.

Bev, Helen & myself

Helen, in April 2017, decided it would be a special treat to return to The Gables in Malvern, where her wedding reception was held to enjoy high tea which is now run there. It was a memorable girls' day out for her, with her sister Bev (her bridesmaid) and her daughter, Catherine, myself (her flower girl) and daughter Kerri and granddaughter, Cassie. The photo above shows the three of  us standing in front of the same fireplace as the earlier wedding photo, with only the mirror having changed.

Very sad you are gone Helen, but you are now with your husband Frank and wonderful memories live on. Rest in Peace.

Helen (2014) in her favourite colour, red.

Moomba - Not just a Holiday

Recently I spent the day scanning old photos, writing names on and information about each photo before it would be too late. One particular photo, shown below, took my interest. Although not in great condition, it does give the feel of a special event. It was a photographer's photo mounted on card and written on the top was "Frank Scammell in 8 hour Procession". Frank is the taller man on the front cart. Because of who it is and the banners, I believe this procession took place in Oakleigh, Victoria where Frank lived and was possibly in the 1920's, although I cant be sure. However, I did discover other details on my search to find out more.

It never ceases to amaze me what gems of information you find when you start searching. The first 8 hour Procession was held on 12 May 1856 to celebrate the Stonemasons achieving a 48 hour week with Saturday afternoons off. This led to other workers pressing to gain the same rights. The three main arguments for an 8 hour day were that the Australian climate necessitated shorter hours, men needed time to develop their mind through education and tradesmen would be better husbands, fathers and citizens if they had leisure time. Workers wanted better working conditions as well as reduced hours. At this time workers worked up to 14 hours a day, six days a week, had no holiday or sick pay and could be sacked at any time without being given a reason.

The Procession was a major event in Melbourne for the next 95 years, with it becoming a paid holiday in 1879. The holiday at some stage was renamed Labour Day. However after WWII, the public lost interest in the Procession and the last one was held in 1951. For four years, Melbourne had no procession, until in 1955 the Melbourne Moomba Parade began on the Monday, Labour Day holiday. Moomba is not just a holiday as I have now learnt, a lot of history is represented by this day.

Exploring the stories behind old photos helps to bring the lives of our ancestors to life! An interesting article I came across while researching, was in The Age, about the Procession on its 30th Anniversary. It had a very detailed description of what Melbourne was like at the time, which if you are interested you can find here:- The Age, 22 April 1886 - The Procession