This is my response to Pauleen’s Australia Day Challenge;

CLIMBING YOUR FAMILY’S GUM TREE

My first ancestor to arrive in Australia was: George James Hayward who arrived in South Australia in 1843.  He’s probably also the person I know least about.

I have Australian Royalty (tell us who, how many and which Fleet they arrived with): I don’t have any Australian Royalty in my family.

I’m an Aussie mongrel, my ancestors came to Oz from: Scotland, Ireland, Cornwall, England, Prussia

Did any of your ancestors arrive under their own financial steam? Yes some did but I haven’t recorded how many.

How many ancestors came as singles? Three ancestors came to Australia single, George James Hayward, Captain James Welsh, and Thomas William Tyrrell.

How many came as couples? I don’t think there are any couples who came to Australia on their own.

How many came as family groups? There were eight family groups who came to Australia.

Did one person lead the way and others follow? I haven’t found anywhere where this happened with my ancestors.

Did anyone make a two-step emigration via another place? No there weren’t any two step emigrations.

In which state or colony did your ancestors arrive? South Australia

Did they settle and remain in one state/colony? All but two families stayed in South Australia.

Did they stay in one town or move around? Some stayed put and some moved around to find more work in mining.

Do you have any First Australians in your tree? No

Were any self-employed? Yes

What occupations or industries did your earliest ancestors work in? Agriculture, Postal Service, Brass Founding, Ship’s Captain, Copper and Gold Mining.

Does anyone in the family still follow that occupation? Yes there are still farmers in my family.

Did any of your ancestors leave Australia and go “home”? Yes only one family returned to England but their daughter remained here.

NOW IT’S ALL ABOUT YOU

What’s your State of Origin? South Australia

Do you still live there? Yes

Where was your favourite Aussie holiday place as a child? Yankalilla, South Australia

Any special place you like to holiday now? Bendigo, Victoria for the history and all the research opportunities.

Share your favourite spot in Oz: It’s hard to pick one favourite, along the Murray River in South Australia, the Darling River in New South Wales and the River Torrens near where I live now in Adelaide and yes I do love rivers.

Any great Aussie adventure you’ve had? When I left high school at 17 I worked as a Governess on sheep and cattle stations in outback South Australia and New South Wales for a year and a half.

What’s on your Australian holiday bucket list? All the states I haven’t been to yet – Queensland, Northern Territory and Western Australia.

How do you celebrate Australia Day? When my children were younger we would go to the Australia Day BBQ Brekky (barbecue breakfast) which also had races and other activities for the children and then the official ceremonies.  Now I’m more likely to have a quiet day at home.

On her Geniaus blog Jill has challenged her readers to Accentuate The Positives of their genealogical research for this year. Here is my response to Jill’s meme.

An elusive ancestor I found was my 2x great grandfather William Scadden.  The trail petered out after the 1871 UK census.  Up to this point he had resided since birth in Camborne, Cornwall but in 1881 I found him living in Liverton, Yorkshire with his daughter as his wife had died in 1875.

A precious family photo I found was a photo of my Grandma from 1938 courtesy of Trove.

An important vital record I found was the marriage of my 3x great grandparents James Wigley and Jane Carousa.  I wrote to the Nottinghamshire Family History Society and they went out of their way to not only provide information from their database they also went to the Nottinghamshire Archives and sent me a copy of the original marriage register page!!  This means I now have a definite surname for Jane and can continue the search for her.

A geneasurprise I received was a gentleman contacted me via my blog about a Bible he had which he thought may have belonged to my 4x great grandfather Joseph Greenway.  Here is the blog post I wrote about it. https://blog.kyliesgenes.com/2013/05/joseph-greenways-bible/

In 2013, in amongst life, I managed to post 28 blog posts.  I was pleasantly surprised when I counted them up as I didn’t think there were that many!  🙂

My 2013 blog post that received a large number of hits or comments was about my blog being listed in Jill’s Inside History list of Top 50 Blogs. https://blog.kyliesgenes.com/2013/07/inside-history-magazines-top-50-blogs-of-2013/

A social media tool I enjoy using for genealogy is still Google Plus the same as last year.  I’ve greatly enjoyed the Google Hangouts On Air which I’ve watched live too.  When I get my new headset I hope to participate too.

A genealogy conference/seminar/webinar from which I learnt something new was put on by the State and National Archives Adelaide office.

I am proud of the beginners genealogy course I taught at Teen Challenge SA.  The participants learnt some basic research skills and how to use www.ancestry.com.au for building their family trees.

I taught a friend how to (see above)

A great repository/archive/library I visited was the National Library in Canberra.  My sister and I had a week in Canberra for researching and we had an absolute ball!!!  

It was exciting to finally meet my cousin Joanne who I have corresponded with for several years and who has helped me enormously in my research and is always happy to share her findings!!

Another positive I would like to share is my sister and I made family history folders for our Mum, Brother, Stepfather and Auntie and Uncle for Christmas presents which included some never before seen photos, stories and newspaper articles.  Our grandfather had died when Mum, Auntie and Uncle were young and my sister and I were able to trace part of his life via his work with the Royal Life Saving Society which was copiously documented in newspapers and when I inquired of the RLSS they gave me a complimentary copy of their book on the history of the society which we also gave to Mum for Christmas.  I have been dying to share some of these revelations however I had to wait until after Christmas.  The photo of my Grandma (above) is one such photo we found.

Yesterday I posted a request for help in finding a book with details on a friend’s ancestor.  Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

I shared the blog post on Google Plus and Jill and Julie shared it with their circles for me too

and today I have the answer from Judy on how to access said book!!!

I hadn’t previously heard of Family Search’s Free Book Lookup Service so I checked out the link Judy sent me https://familysearch.org/blog/en/google-books-free-copies-pages-family-history-library-books/ and followed their instructions.

Basically if they have the book you’re after in their library they will scan the page or pages you need and will email them to you free of charge!!  I am eagerly awaiting the book pages now!