Friday's Family History Through the Alphabet Challenge" - H is for "Homes"

Oh, it is soooo long since I have posted an Alphabet Challenge Story!!!

The Letter "H" is the next in line and today's post is "H is for Homes".  How do we find out about our families "Homes".  I think "Homes" means much more than an address, or the house that our family lived in. " Home" conjures up memories of the people in the house, social customs, social conditions, neighbourhood and neighbours and the events that took place in that house. Our search for our family stories would be so much easier "if only the walls (of their home) could talk". However since the "walls" do not talk, we much look to other means to find out more about how our ancestors lived.

Census- provides a lot of information about a home

1. Accessing the census records of your family will assist with learning a little about their home.  A census record will provide you with details of the address, how many people were living in the home, their occupations, who their neighbours were and their occupations. Once you have located the address, you are able to delve deeper into the history of their "Home".

 2.  A visit to the local court house or Lands Titles Office may provide you with the official records of the house, change of ownership and changes of street names, numbers etc.You may be able to access, Building Permits, that will provide information on additions to the building, Utility Reports will provide information on water, gas and sewerage installation (or if older house if these utilities were not installed).  Insurance records may also provide interesting information,  most notably fire insurance claim forms. These can contain information about the nature of an insured building, its contents, value and  possibly floor plans and details of claims made in the case of a home/house fire.

3. The local Historical Society will be able to assist with background to events, social conditions, employment for the people who lived in and around your ancestor's home.  Check out your local library collection for publications on the historical development of your area. Published histories of the area, often compiled by a local historian or heritage group, will provide valuable background information on building development, social conditions and often include pictures of houses in the area.

My Nanna's Home in Milton, NSW

4. Searching local newspapers can provide records of the home being sold, family events such as births, deaths and marriages. Newspapers can also be good sources for information and town histories. Searching the name of the street that your family lived in can provide stories of events and incidents that would have occured while your family lived there. These stories can add a lot of colour to your understanding of the home life  of your family.

5. Check family letters, scrapbooks, diaries, and photo albums for more possible clues. Photos of the family home can tell us so much, if they were affluent or working class, if they had a garden, laundry, out-house etc.  Did they have a fire place? What kind of building material was used?

6. Family and Neighbours can provide insight and a deeper understanding of the history of a home. Contact your older relatives, their friends and neighbours.  Their memories will be invaluable, take time with them, over a cup of tea to hear their recollections. Show them some old photos/newspaper articles, if you have any, these will help trigger memories and help the stories to flow.

Cassell's New Universal Cookery Book

7.  Finally, another resource which can provide an understanding of life in your ancestors home are recipe books.  If you are lucky enough to have inherited a family recipe book, it will provide information on the foods that were available, how they prepared cooked their food, how resourceful were they when there was a shortage of food and who was responsible for the preparation of the food.

Cook books such as the one seen in this picture (Cassell's New Universal Cookery Book), provide a lot of information on the social background and conditions of the family. This book is aimed at middle class Victorian families, and not only includes recipies, but house hold tips, budgets, descriptions of cooking utensils, and details on the roles of the different members of the house hold domestic staff.  

There are a number of useful resouces that assist you in finding details on your ancesters house, however, in this blog I have attempted to take this search a little further, with resources that will help you to understand more about your ancestors "HOME".

Friday's Family History Through the Alphabet Challenge - E for Employment

It is pouring rain outside today, so what better opportunity than to finish of my next blog in Friday's Family History through the Alphabet Challenge as part of my attempt to complete the Family History Through the Alphabet Challenge.

Today's challenge is "E" and this post was inspired my recent blog on sisters Mary Ann and Emma Jane Weston. As I put their stories together, part of my research involved looking how they, their husbands and other family members were employed.  The "Employment" of our ancestors helps us develop a more colourful picture of the circumstances of their lives.  So my Alphabet Challenge for today is "E for Employment".

There a number of different resources that can assist you with discovering how your family members were employed.  Here is a brief summary of some resources that are useful.

MC for Thomas Lee and Emma Jane Weston

1.  Birth, Death and Marriage Certificates:
Birth certificates generally list the occupation of the child's father, for example on Emma Jane Weston's Birth Certificate , her father is listed as a house painter.  Marriage certificates can give details of how the bride, groom and parents of couple are employed.  On Emma Jane Weston's certificate her husband Thomas Lee is described as a gold digger. (I believe this is literal, and not that Emma Jane was wealthy, he he.)

1851 Census Barnoldswick, George Rushworth and family

2.  Census: Census records provide us with a mine of information on how families were employed often listing the occupations of all family members and their neighbours. The census page from the Barnoldswick, 1851 Census  on the left shows how all of George Rushworth's family is employed.  It is obvious from their occupations that the main industries for this district were related to weaving and the textiles.

Military Record for Malcolm Michael Shepherd

3. Telephone, Post Office and Trade Directories:  These are another useful resource, which provide in alphabetical order, details of where family members lived and sometimes their occupations.  An example of a directory that is very useful for Australian Research is the Greville's Post Office Directory. I was able to find Emma Jane Weston's Uncle, Alfred Weston on the 1871 Greville's Directory abd confirm that he had moved to this district and was employed as a miner in Araluen, a mining community, in the Braidwood district of southern New South Wales.

4. Military Records: My recent blog "D is for Dog tags" outlines some of the wonderful information you can find when you access your ancestors military records. The front page of a soldiers record will give you details of their employment prior to their enlisting. An example of this can be seen from the front page of my grandfather Malcolm Michael Shepherd's military record.  His occupation is listed as a carrier in the Braidwood district.

Immigration: Mary Anne and Emma Jane Weston 1856

5. Immigration Records/Ship Logs: Emigration/Immigration and Shipping Lists are another useful resource.  When researching Mary Anne and Emma Jane Weston I was able to find out that they were employed as housemaids in London prior to travelling Australia on the "Kate".  These details were shown on the New South Wales, Australia, Assisted Immigrant Passenger Lists, 1828-1896 .

6. Letters, Obituaries and Newspaper Articles:  Finally,  the careful examination of the documents related to your family history that you have collected can be rewarding.  Often, when you reread a letter, obituary or newspaper article you are able to find clues to how your forefathers were employed. Old receipts or accounts from a family business will also provide you with clues. If you do not have newspaper clips or obituaries, Trove is a useful site for accessing these.  If you are new to Trove, a post from last year, TROVE, outlines how to register and the wonderful benefits it provides for family tree researchers. By searching the Trove you are able find feature articles, business advertisements, obituaries and death notices etc. These articles provide great clues to how your ancestors were employed.

I hope that you find these few hints helpful when looking for how your ancestors were employed.  Family tree research is more than names and dates, lets find out a little more more about how they felt, who their neighbours were and what was their life like!! 
 

Friday's Family History Through the Alphabet Challenge" - C is for Census

Friday is here again and it is time for my next post in Friday's Family History through the Alphabet Challenge which is my attempt to complete the Family History Through the Alphabet Challenge.

"C" is the letter of the moment, and I am going with something very obvious!  "C" is for Census!  You may say "not very original", however, my justification is that I believe copies of the census play a very important part of family tree research.

As I am based in Australia I will, in this blog, refer mainly to the Australian Census.  However, a lot of this information is relevant for census records in other countries.

What is a Census?  It is the collection and recording of information on the population of a country. It collects information on occupation, number of people living in a dwelling, the type of dwelling and occupations of those living in that dwelling on Census night.  In Australia, the census is conducted every 5 years under the Census and Statistics Act of 1905.

The first national census in Australia was held in 1901, prior to this date the most common way to record information about the population was a muster or state census. Data on the population of Australia was collected from as early as 1788.  Up until the census in 1901 each of the states and colonies held regular musters or census that collected a variety of information, e.g. occupation, age, number of family members, gender and marital status. The state libraries provide access to these records  Victorian State Library, NSW State Library, and the State Library of Western Australia for example.

The collection of information on the Australia population in the early days of settlement wasn't easy, as is pointed out in the article written on the collection of the 1841 census for South Australia by Jaunay (2004). As Jaunay points out, the colony of South Australia was only 5 years old, the distances were vaste, tallies were incorrect, spellings were incorrect and there is a lack of detail. However, these musters if not entirely accurate,  provide us with a snapshot of the times. As the collection of information became more efficient over the years,  these systematic collections of population information have become a great source of information for social researchers, historians and genealogists.

If you are interested in an overall picture or snap shot of what it was like in Australia at a particular census time the Australian Census Web site provides summaries or "snapshots" of the data collected at the time of the census.  An interesting snapshot on the 1901 Census can be found on this site at "A Snap Shot of Australia 1901.

Now you may ask, how does the census help me with my family tree research?  Here is a brief summary of the information that can be gleaned from your ancestors census record:  It will provide some of if not all of the information on: their address, occupation, names of those in the house on census night, ages, where they were born, the relationship and gender of the people living in the dwelling and their neighbours. 

Looking at the census over a number of years will help you trace the movement of your ancestors, when the children left home, if the grandparents have moved in to be looked after in their old age and if they absent it may give you a clue as to when they may have passed away.  If a young child appears on one census report and then not on the next there is a fair chance that they may have died in infancy. 

A census record can also be very useful in locating other members of the family, once you have located one member of the family it is a good idea to go through the pages before and after on the census record as you can often find other members of the family who live near by. 

I would be interested to hear from others on their tips for gathering and analysing information re their family tree from census records!!


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*Jaunay, G. (2004), "1841 South Australian Census, What you will and won't find", http://www.slwa.wa.gov.au/find/guides/family_history/australia/new_south_wales/census, viewed 4 January 2013.