Frame Update

These kinds of historical illustrated family trees never stay up to date for long. This latest iteration has a bit of expansion space and a number of newly updated photos as well as five new additions.  The layout may still change but the first version and the next are recorded here.

Original

Update - Who are the five additions?

Willaura Connection

Had lunch with cousin Linda today.  We called into their farm at Willaura at least 30 yar ago. Since then it has been fleeting meets at funerals.  I was tempted to call in when the GVBR was cruising within 20km of Willaura some months back.  The lap pool may have been tempting.  Its good that life on the farm can still be successful.  Grandpa has presented another volume of family history this time around the Fergusons.

Willaura farmhouse 1986

Skeletons

One of the aspects of digging into family history is not knowing what you'll find. Things that may have been an issue a hundred yar ago is glossed over these days. Debbie decided she was going to get into the genealogy via the Roberts line. This was cutting edge stuff in 1985. No internet then, no TV ads about getting your documents, no TV shows looking into celebrity trees.

She started with my Grand Mother Alice who promptly said that the past was of no concern, only deal with the future. So that was that. She was not interested in any questions about family history. Debbie handed over all her research to my parents who have been running with it for the last 30 yar. One of the tips for budding genealogists is to get your older relos talking with a recording device in the background. I have spent two weeks sifting through old analog recordings taken in 1992 and have converted them to digital.

The below sound clip describes the scene years earlier where my Uncle Cyril was told of his true birth circumstance. It turns out that Alice had a first born out of wed lock. In those days this was an issue. So much so that the baby was disguised as a relative and given over to the already married older brother Bob Ferguson, who raised him as his own and so never disclosing the true father until an adult.  So Cyril Roberts became Cyril Ferguson and my father had one brother less than he thought until ...

Analog Micro Cassettes

I now have a box of MC-60 cassette tapes. I also have the portable voice recorder that was used to record them.  This is way old technology but I also have a cable that can plug from the Earphone jack to the Microphone jack on the laptop thus converting the analog to digital.  Not quite. The box came with one of those dodgy variable power supplies. I checked the voltage required for the recorder which was 3V. The power supply was already on 3V so I plugged it in and immediately I could tell I had just fried the recorder. Do not ever use this type of power supply! 
Two days later and I have located another antique voice recorder from Cash Converters (thanks to Debbie dearest who suggested they may have something), which I have purchased for $19. This one is intermittent but if you shake it, it will play the tape. My latest laptop does not have a Mic jack input but the docking station does. However after  three hours of  trying it seems there is a configuration issue which results in a file with no sound.  I then tried an old laptop which does have a Mic Jack and voila I now have a wma sound file of Jack Roberts describing his various exploits. This was recorded in 1992.

Power supply not supplied

The Travelling Bookkeepers

Yes its Pure Bookkeeping time again with another tour starting. That means I can get to the scanner without upsetting the office routine as the boss has left the building.  I have spent two hours getting 35 pages scanned but will need to spend at least another day cutting them into individual photos as well as a third day to get the annotations off which have been scribbled on the album page.

Pure Bookkeeping

Who are these Clowns? Note arrow.

Ancestor Note - Jack Welsh

The conversion of old photos to digital continues and this guy Jack Welsh who is Debbie's grandfather is a bit of a character. He had time for a lot of stuff but it seems his family was not part of his interests.  He worked his way through shearing sheep, waterside worker and on up to Secretary of the Milk Distributors Association. He travelled the world studying milk issues but before that had time to become the state light weight boxing champ three years in a row.  As well as a football career where he captain coached Geelong West to four premierships and then played at North Melbourne for 2 years in 12 games kicking 2 goals and wore number 27.

JW boxer on the left

JW sleeping in the shearing shed

Green Dalek

Yes that was the comment that the waiter at Little Creatures made when he saw the Insulator photo. There has obviously been an alignment of glass furnace energy. How else to explain how a PMG Insulator should wind up in Noel's lap only a week after our meeting in Geelong. It seems that bottle collectors study old maps to determine where refuse heaps were located 100 yar ago. But clandestine digging up of treasure is another thing.

A Lake Tyers creation

Are Insulators like Little Creatures?

We rendezvoused at little Creatures Brewery for a chinwag about family history.  Its a long story but it turns out that ELR Roberts has made a batch of glass insulators that are now worth $1000 each if you can find one.  Thanks to Paul and Noel we now have some more information about the insulators. No matter what it is someone will be interested in collecting it and Noel is the No1 collector of insulators in Australia.

Little Creatures

Noel's Insulator Heaven

Gun Alley

If you go back far enough we are probably all related to a convict somewhere in the tree. I just finished checking out this book about a hanged man who should not have been executed. The murdered girl was Alma Tirtschke whose mother was Nell Alger. We have to go back three generations to encounter the same Alger's in our tree.  The science of police work wasn't very good in 1922. Most likely the real killer was a relo who went free. Perhaps it is a good thing that Nauru House has now wiped out the whole grisly site.  My other connection, is with the author, who I went to school with in the secondary years at St Joes. I also notice another classmate named in the credits.  Kevin has done a good job on clearing the Ross family name. I won't be reading some of his other titles like "The Particulars of Executions:1894-1967"  even though I do recall the last one in 1967. not sure why Joe Ragnanese is removed from the Acknowledgements list in the 2nd edition.