Inhaltsverzeichnis für Edition 6, 2019 in Traces

My Heritage Denmark: • Denmark Census, 1940: more than 3.9 million records, completing the collection of all 20 Denmark Census record collections from 1787–1940 United States: • Pennsylvania, Philadelphia Passenger Lists, 1883–1945: more than two million records containing passenger manifests of ships arriving at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from 1883–1945.• Port of New York, Index to Discharged or Deserted Crew, 1917–1957: more than 1.2 million records containing alien crew members who deserted or were discharged from their vessel in New York City. There are over 100,000 typewritten cards with images, along with information like names of crew members, their ship, gender and age of discharge or desertion Visit www.myheritage.com Family Search United States: • California, County Birth and Death Records, 1800–1994: more than 48,000 added indexed records• California, County Naturalizations, 1831–1985: 66…

Between 1849 and 1850, 15 Irish rebels were exiled to Tasmania on various charges, from sedition to treason, following a failed uprising against British rule in Tipperary on 29 July 1848. The stories of Young Irelanders William Smith O’Brien, Thomas Francis Meagher, John Mitchel, Kevin Izod O’Doherty and Terence Bellew MacManus, who were exiled from their homes as political prisoners on the other side of the planet, are fascinating and hold an important place in Tasmania’s history. To refresh your memory, read part one of this story in Traces Volume 5. In Church Street, the main thoroughfare of the historic Tasmanian town of Ross, stands Fernleigh, a sandstone house dating from the 1840s. Fernleigh was the onetime home of Dr Edward Swarbreck Hall. In February 1850, Hall moved to Ross…

By 1914, more than 300,000 people had emigrated from Ireland to Australia, with an additional 40,000 sent as convicts to her shores. My ancestors, the Clancys, were part of the exodus. In 1841, they left County Clare on the Shannon River as an extended group of siblings with young families, leaving behind a land riddled with poverty, disease and, as I was to find out, deceased parents. We can only imagine they’d fallen victim to the oppression, famine and harsh existence of the period. The Irish had been robbed of crops by the English and denied the right to any education. Yet the Clancys had some learning and farming skills and, as such, there was promise of land, so they uprooted their entire family in hope of a better life…

My wife, Gail, carries the Bishop genes in our family. During our research, there was some confusion around the identity of Mary Bishop, a convict also known as Mary Davis or Davies, who arrived on the First Fleet. Mary had a daughter named Charlotte, who was born on Norfolk Island a couple of years later. Routine tracking of births, deaths and marriages led us to Gail’s most recent convict ancestor, Jacob Chillingworth, a surname well-known in the Tamworth locality, who married a much younger Susannah Pentley, daughter of another convict named John. Encouraged by these discoveries, we found that Susannah’s mother, Charlotte (née Bishop), led something of a tempestuous life, with many children and multiple partners. With the knowledge that Charlotte was buried in St Peter’s Cemetery in Richmond, we…

The Australian National Dictionary defines ‘dinkum’ as referring to work or ‘a due share of the work’. While the word is often thought to be Australian, it is recorded as having an English origin and can be found within the Lincolnshire dialect. ‘Fair dinkum’ first appeared in print in Australia in the Evening News (New South Wales) on 23 August 1879. A mare named Mabel galloped at Randwick and was described as being sent ‘fair dinkum’ over two miles. It continued to be used in connection with the racing industry before it slowly spread to other areas of Australian life. In 1881, H Bedford competed in a regatta at Darling Harbour in his canvas dinghy named Fair Dinkum. A year later, Rolf Boldrewood’s new story Robbery Under Arms was published…

THEN The first station to occupy the corner of Flinders and Swanston streets in Melbourne was the 1854 Melbourne Terminus, a group of weatherboard train sheds. Melbourne Terminus was the first city railway station in Australia, and the first train journey out of the station was to Sandridge (now Port Melbourne). A single 30-metre platform did the job for 20-odd years, after which a second platform was added, along with passenger access bridges. A telegraph station was built in 1879. The grand station building that still stands today was the result of a government-run competition for the design of a new station building that would replace the old ad hoc collection of buildings. Seventeen entries were received in 1899 and the £500 first prize was awarded to James Fawcett and…

The McWhirter building occupies a whole block – more than an acre of land – but it is the building fronting Valley Corner, at the intersection of Wickham and Brunswick streets in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley, that people think of when they think of McWhirters. The terracotta brickwork is distinct, with its rosettes and diamond decals in yellow, blue and ochre, and its pillars that rise to an arch. Spanning the concertinaed entranceway, you’ll see the building’s name: McWhirters – my grandfather’s and great-grandfather’s and great-great-grandfather’s name. The name my mother was born with. When I began researching and writing What Will Be Worn, I used to go to the Valley and stand at the intersection of Wickham and Brunswick streets, looking over at the famous facade. As the trucks, taxis,…

I am a fifth generation descendant of gold miner and ‘man of exemplary character’ Thomas Henry North. This year marks 177 years since Thomas North arrived in Australia. When researching my own family tree, I had very little information to go on other than the date Thomas North arrived, his birth place and year (Warwickshire, United Kingdom, 1821), and that he arrived in Australia as a convict on board the Emily in November 1842. In country towns, it is always worth finding out who has lived there for the longest time as this can often be a great place to start your research. Generally, people are up for a chat over the farm fence or at the petrol pump. I have found this to be a great way to find…

This improvised handcrafted leather ankle cuff was made to protect a convict’s ankle from leg irons, which were extremely painful and caused bruising and skin lesions. The cuff features a serrated edge for comfort, and holes for lacing together. The straps either side attached over the leg iron ring. Because it does not feature the broad arrow stamp of government property, the cuff was probably made illegally by a convict who had leatherworking skills. Made between 1819 and 1848, the guard was found during restoration works at Hyde Park Barracks in 1979. It is the only known leg guard that survives in Australia.…

Maggie O’Donoghue died in 1981 aged 89. She was my maternal grandfather’s sister and I used to see her occasionally in my teenage years, mainly at family gatherings. But I never really knew her, despite the fact that when I was at Roseworthy Agricultural College from 1958 to 1961, she was my widowed aunt living only six kilometres away in Gawler, South Australia. To my eternal regret, I never went out of my way to talk to Maggie. If I had, I would know a lot more about my mother’s family history than I know now. I do know that in 1893, when she was 18 months old, Maggie was taken from her father Matthew Robinson after her mother died in Broken Hill and was sent hundreds of kilometres away…

During the 17th and 18th centuries, numerous Dutch ships were wrecked on Australian coasts. Survivors from some of these shipwrecks became stranded and were forced to live their lives in the most isolated continent in the world. Two ships in particular have attracted my attention: the Vergulde Draeck and the Zuytdorp. A large number of survivors, including women, made it safely ashore from both ships. As a result, early English explorers recorded examples of Aboriginal people with European features or had come across tribes who recounted stories of a ‘white’ tribe. One such encounter was recorded by explorer A C Gregory on his exploration of the Murchison River area: ‘In 1848 I explored the country where the Dutchmen had landed and found a tribe whose characters differed considerably from the…

Rouse Hill House & Farm was home to six generations of the Rouse and Terry families and preserves the evidence of over 150 years of their domestic life. When the house and its significant collection came to the Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales (now Sydney Living Museums) in 1986, we initiated the then new approach of preserving the collection unchanged and in situ. This means objects remain in the same location in which they were placed by the family, among the predominantly 19th-century interiors. Sometimes the buildings require intervention to ensure their stability and longevity. Before Sydney Living Museums embarks on building and conservation work at a property, experts from the organisation meet with external consultants to discuss the project and how the collection will be safeguarded. In…

Rupert, congratulations on your new book Power of the Pedal: the Story of Australian Cycling. What can you tell us about the first bicycles to be used in Australia? It was in the 1870s that the bicycle, then known as a ‘velocipede’ or ‘penny-farthing’ became a common sight, but the first mention of a bicycle in Australia dates back to the 1820s in a Hobart Town Gazette shipping column listing merchandise that arrived on the ship Tiger from London. However, the bicycle’s first boom in Australia came in the 1880s with the ‘safety bike’ from which today’s bicycle originates. These bicycles were faster and cheaper, and were used as a form of transport, recreation and competition. The popularity of the bicycle soared in cities, where they had a big impact…

Traces caught up with Melissa to find out more about her book and her inspiration, and what she discovered in the process of writing. Please tell us what inspired you to write What Will Be Worn? What Will Be Worn started life as a story about my grandparents, Joan and Stirling McWhirter. My grandfather, Stirling, was a department store heir who gambled away his inheritance. My grandmother was a ballsy broad from Gympie, whose beauty was renowned. They married in 1940, on the eve of World War II. They divorced in 1955. In the dying years of their marriage, she had an affair, which led to a very public custody battle – the gritty details of their lives were splashed across the pages of Queensland’s newspapers as a result. I…

In the search for your German ancestry, it’s important to know some basic information about the family member who first immigrated to Australia, such as full name, town or area of origin and year of immigration. If you don’t have this information, try asking family members – a town name scrawled on the back of an old photograph somewhere might end up being the missing piece to your puzzle. Regardless of your family’s origins, you are sure to come across roadblocks such as language barriers or name changes of people and locations. But don’t be dissuaded; you aren’t alone and there are plenty of resources available to assist you in your research. Name changes The 2016 census revealed that 4.5 per cent of Australians have German ancestry, making this the…

In a quiet residential street in the inner-city Sydney suburb of Glebe, on a large grassy block that stretches down towards the harbour, sits the Sze Yup Kwan Ti Temple. Built between 1898 and 1904, the Sze Yup Temple is one of two heritage-listed temples in Sydney. The second, the Yiu Ming Temple in Retreat Street, Alexandria, was opened a few years later, in 1909. In contrast to the Glebe temple, the Yiu Ming Temple is tucked away at the end of a double row of terraces, also owned by the Yiu Ming Society, all of which are now surrounded by busy commercial buildings and apartment blocks. In the early years of the 20th century, when the two temples were built, the Chinese population in Sydney and surrounding suburbs was…

Alice’s formative years were spent in rural Victoria, where she excelled in bush skills such as shooting and breaking in horses. Her reputation, even at an early age, was as one of the most fierce and resourceful girls in the district. Young, boyish and full of charm, Alice became the only woman in Australia to successfully pull off an almost impossible feat: without family or husband to back her financially, she built a garage to her own specifications and established the country’s only motor service run entirely by women. Dressed impeccably in masculine chauffeur uniforms, Alice and her band of ‘garage girls’ epitomised the optimism of the decade as they flirted with the unconventional – often mistaken for men or boys – while servicing the rich and famous in all…

With their giant leering faces, the Luna Parks in Sydney and Melbourne are known across the country as entertainment institutions. But most Australians seem to have forgotten that there once stood a third Luna Park, with its own unique face and fascinating story. The Park was located on Scarborough Beach in Western Australia and was open from 1939 until 1972. The Park’s closure was the final chapter in what was one of the most sordid and scandalised businesses in the country for almost the entire duration of its existence. The Park’s first incarnation begins with its founder Lionel Morris in 1928. As a young man, Lionel Morris immigrated to Melbourne with his family from England. He found his new home to be a place filled with wonder and opportunity. By…

Ghost signs are the remains of painted advertising signs on walls and hoardings. People all over the world are photographing them and writing about them on forums, photo-sharing websites and social media pages. For many, ghost signs are a living link to the past: the products once consumed, forgotten communities (such as the meeting place of the corner milk bar or grocery store), and the businesses that were intertwined with memories of everyday life. For others, ghost signs are handcrafted works of typographic art, created by skilled artisans with deft hands, often in perilous conditions up ladders and on rickety scaffolds. We have a wealth of ghost signs in Australia, and a wealth of interest in them, too. In the early 20th century, the walls of our cities and towns…