I came across Lost Cousins a while ago, subscribed to their newsletter but didn’t use their website.  I started using their site over the holidays and am already in touch with a new cousin and have new information to add to my tree!!!

It took me a little while to understand the Lost Cousins service and the premise behind what they’re doing.  It is completely different from any other genealogy service I’d used before.  It is definitely best to read their ‘howto’ first.  You input details of your ancestors who appear in the following census’

• England and Wales 1841
• US 1880
• Canada 1881
• Scotland 1881
• England and Wales 1881
• England and Wales 1911
• Ireland 1911

and the Lost Cousins service matches your data with other site users.  As I said I’ve made one useful contact already and I haven’t finished inputting all my data.  It’s easy to use once you get the hang of it.  The newsletter is well worth getting too!

I love this song and this version of it is great!  My previous post is about my great, great grandparents John and Catherine Reid.  They lived for a long time in Galston, Ayr, Scotland.  They were involved in mining iron ore and coal.  I don’t know if John was a blacksmith for the town or the mine however his son Andrew was a Pit Justice Man when he was only fourteen.  From what I’ve read the pit justice man weighed the buckets of iron ore to make sure that the miners were being paid the correct amount for their work.

William and Elizabeth Willison, nee Reid, (my great grandparents) lived with John and Catherine when they married and William worked as a Coal Pit Bottomer in Galston before coming to South Australia.

I hope everyone’s had a good Christmas, mine was lovely, spent with family and friends. 

Using www.ancestry.com.au for my tree each person has a profile page and there are several tree views as well.  I find this great to use for recording all the data for individuals but I also wanted to be able to see a whole family’s details and movements combined.  I’ve been working on a timeline for one particular family in my tree.  It’s helped me place all the members of the family in their correct places throughout time and it’s highlighted what I don’t know about each of the family members too.   The timeline is of my great, great grandparents John and Catherine Reid nee Burnet and their family.  I’ve uploaded it to Google Docs if anyone wants to have a look at it.  Does anyone else use timelines to help them with their research?

While I was working on this family I found both John and Catherine’s death registrations on Scotland’s People.  Catherine’s parents are listed as William Burnet and Christina Sim.  John’s parents are listed as James Reid and Christina Syme.  I’m wondering if this was a mistake or if these are two different people or the same person.  Does anyone have any suggestions on what I can do to clear this up.  I haven’t been able to find birth records for either John or Catherine.

Thanks to Michael for the comment on my previous post, I hadn’t heard of this event.

The National Archives of Australia has a free event, Shake Your Family Tree
on 25 February 2011 in each capital city.  There are programs for each city available for download on their site.

In Adelaide there will be, “Ask The Experts”, access RecordSearch, State Records, State Library, SA Genealogy & Heraldry Society, and a seminar “Unexpected discoveries in the Archives – learn more about family history resources in the National Archives” with Sara King.

I’m looking forward to attending this event!

From the Gould Genealogy blog:

The UK’s first ever Start Your Family Tree Week will be launched on December 26. It’s Britian’s first ever family history awareness campaign, and is supported by Find My Past, Genes Reunited, the Society of Genealogists, the Federation of Family History Societies, Eneclann, My-History, Pen and Sword Books, Your Family Tree Magazine and BBC Who Do You Think You Are Magazine, Family Tree Magazine and Martha Lane Fox.

This follows results of a survey showing that 42% of the population have started researching their ancestors. The week is designed to make the most of the internet to discover family history.

From Boxing Day 2010 right through to New Year’s Day there’ll be special offers and activities available every day, including free getting started guides, printable charts, discounts, competitions, and lots more.

I think this is a great idea and I’d like to see Australia take this up too!  We can all encourage our friends and family to start researching their family history!!

If you’re not researching your family you can start by writing down your personal details – date of birth, marriage, children and then go on to your siblings, parents, grandparents, aunties, uncles.  Just put in as much as you know.  You can download a pedigree chart to start recording, use an online family tree like ancestry.com.au or download a free family tree software program for your computer.  As it says in the above article there will be free getting started guides and printable charts available from various genealogy vendors.  It’s worth reading the whole article and following the links to help you get started with your family tree.  If you do decide to start your own family tree I’d love it if you’d leave me a comment!  Also if you have any questions I’ll try and answer them too!!  🙂  All the best in your research!!!

 
Back row: (left to right) Adolph Heinrich Hermann, Minna Francesca and Ernst August. Middle row: Emil Ernst Paul, Mabel (wife of Hermann), Grandpapa Rudolph with Hermann’s son Franz Maurice on his knee, Lina Louisa Marie and Albert Gustav Adolph. Front row: Antoinette Hermine and Oscar Rudolph. This is copied from the back of the photograph.

Heinrich Franz Rudolph Buring (Grandpa Buring in the photo) with all of his children except Anna Augusta Elisabeth Buring who joined the Sisters of St Joseph (Sister Mary Carolus) in 1897.  This is the only photo which I have of Lieschen, as she was called by the family.  Thanks to Sr Katrina of the Sisters of St Joseph for the photo.

I’m having difficulty tracing Heinrich Franz Rudolph Buring’s forebears, as have other family researchers before me.  He came to South Australia with his parents Friedrich Adolph Buring and Caroline Henriette Auguste nee Jahn, and brothers, on the Princess Louise from Hamburg in 1849.  Friedrich was part of the Berlin Emigration Society, also known as the South Australian Colonisation Society.  His naturalisation papers state that he was a native of Berlin, Prussia. 


There is quite a bit of information, online and in books, about the Burings in Australia because of their contributions to South Australia and Australia as a whole.  Here is a quote from Di Cummings’ website Bound For South Australia which tells a little about the Berlin Emigration Society and the impact these people had on South Australia.

The story of the Princess Louise began in Berlin in the late 1840s, during a period of revolution. At that time, Europe, spurrred by the earlier French Revolution, was facing a period of change, revolt, and uprising. In Berlin, in 1848, Richard Schomburgk, a gardener who had established a reputation as a botantist, and his physician brother, Otto, saw that there was little hope of their dream of democracy being achieved and, by 1849, a period of repression began. … The brothers formed a migration group, calling it the Berlin Emigration Society (other references say: South Australian Colonisation Society), and made plans to leave the Fatherland for a new start in Australia. …
So, in March, 1849, the Society chartered the PRINCESS LOUISE and set sail for Adelaide with a new wave of refugees, arriving in Port Adelaide on 7 August 1849. The Society was largely comprised of professional men, businessmen and skilled artisans, and has been called “the single most important group of German intellectuals to come to Adelaide”.

This is a snippet from the Australian Dictionary of Biography Online regarding Heinrich Franz Rudolph’s brother Theodor Gustav Hermann Buring.

BURING, THEODOR GUSTAV HERMANN (1846?-1919), store-keeper and vigneron, was born in Berlin, son of Friedrich Adolph Buring and his wife Caroline Henriette Auguste. He arrived in South Australia with his parents in the Princess Louise from Hamburg in August 1849. In Adelaide his father set up a brass-founding business with Ernst Fischer but died on 3 December 1856 at 40. Hermann and his brother Heinrich Franz Rudolph, later a well-known Adelaide tobacconist, were educated at R. C. Mitton and J. C. Hansen’s school at Pulteney Street, Adelaide. Hermann, who early showed marked business ability, was then sent to the country where he worked as a store-keeper for nine years and for three in a distillery at Seppeltsfield in the Barossa valley. After his marriage to Lina Dohrenwendt on 22 April 1871 he opened a store in Friedrichswalde (Tarnma) near Kapunda. For nine years he was agent there for Spring Vale wines which from 1869 were managed by his brother-in-law Carl Sobels.

 If you have any ideas on how I might break through this brick wall and find birth records for Heinrich Franz Rudolph Buring and his brothers Paul and Theodor Gustav Hermann Buring as well as their ancestors, please leave me a comment as I am keen to find out more about the fascinating Burings!