#52 Ancestors 2020 Week 1 Fresh Start

#52 Ancestors 2020


Week 1 Fresh Start

All of my immigrant ancestors came to Australia for a fresh start.  For all of them it was a huge undertaking which meant a permanent severing of ties with their homes in England and Ireland – of sixteen of my direct ancestors who were born overseas, none was ever to leave Australia.  

The enormity of these decisions was compounded by the difficulty of communication between the new and the old worlds.  We take for granted now our ability to Skype and Facetime and send emails – some of my forebears couldn’t read or write at all.  Those who did would have to wait several months for a letter from “home” to travel by ship – and then several more for the reply to reach its destination.

But all of them were convinced that they had come to a better place for their futures, and they were right.

Perhaps none had better timing than the Power family – Peter and Mary and their children Patrick, Ann, Bridget (my 2x great grandmother), Anthony and Charles.  They lived in a village called Elphin In Roscommon, Ireland and they left in 1839.

A few years later, this part of Ireland was one of the first to record the appearance of the potato blight which was to devastate the country and decimate the population. 

On 12 October 1846, the local constabulary stated that 7,500 people were existing on boiled cabbage leaves only once in 48 hours.

The second failure of the potato crop in 1846 also brought a number of voluntary relief workers to the country. A young Quaker from Liverpool, Joseph Crosfield, passed through Boyle in December and reported:

“In this place, the condition of the poor previously to their obtaining admission into the work-house is one of great distress; many of them declare that they have not tasted food of any kind for forty-eight hours; and numbers of them have eaten nothing but cabbage or turnips for days and weeks.”

As was the case elsewhere, the potato failure put pressure on the local workhouses. To cope with the increase in disease, a 40-bed fever hospital was erected near to the Roscommon workhouse and an addition house was rented to accommodate fever patients, while local stables were fitted up for the reception of patients. However, at the beginning of 1847 the Roscommon workhouse was full and, under the terms of the 1838 Poor Law, had to refuse relief to other applicants regardless of their need. The suffering of the local poor was captured in the Dublin-based newspaper The Nation in March 1847: “In Roscommon, deaths by famine are so prevalent that whole families who retire at night are corpses in the morning.”*1

The Irish Famine Museum is now housed at Strokestown, near Elphin

Equally fortunate were Richard and Jane Mason, parents of my Australian - born great grandmother, Charlotte.  They too escaped the famine by leaving the village of Ballingarry in Tipperary in 1841.  Their first four children were born in Ireland and made the perilous journey with them – sadly the baby, Eliza, died shortly after their arrival In January 1842.

Mason family arrival documents

The Powers and Masons were able to travel to Australia because of the Bounty Immigration Scheme.

The Bounty Immigration Scheme was first suggested by Edward Gibbon Wakefield and the first set of Bounty Regulations was gazetted by Governor Bourke in October 1835.

Bounty immigrants were free immigrants whose passage was paid by the colonial government under the “bounty scheme” whereby an incentive was paid to recruiting agents in Britain to find suitable skilled labour and tradespeople, then ship them out to the new colony which urgently need them.

Newly married couples or single men and women were given preference – large families were rarely accepted*2. Selected immigrants were generally shepherds, ploughmen and agricultural labourers*3 with some tradespeople such as brickmakers, carpenters, blacksmiths, tailors and needlewomen.

Bounties were paid to the ships’ masters for the safe delivery of their passengers under the scheme,  Typical costs were:

·         30 pounds for a man and wife under 30 years on embarkation;

·         15 pounds for each single female 15y to 30y with the approval of the settler or the agent, and under the protection of a married couple or to stay with the family till otherwise provided for;

·         10 pounds for each unmarried male 18y to 30y (equal number of males and females, mechanics or agricultural labourers were to be encouraged by the settlers);

5     5  pounds for each child over 1year.

The Bounty Scheme was replaced by the Assisted Immigration Scheme of the 1840s and 1850s.  My English ancestors Charles and Eliza White, with their four children, and James and Eliza Golding (and 4 children) took advantage of this.  While there was nothing so dramatic as a famine to escape, they were certainly living in poor circumstances as agricultural labourers at a time of low wages, poor diet, insecure employment and unsanitary housing.

Eliza White 1827 - 1895

Like migrants everywhere, the first generation had hard lives as they worked to establish themselves in a new country.  But the next generation all had at least a basic education, and many of them owned property - advantages which were unthinkable for their counterparts back “home”.

*1 The Great Hunger in County Roscommon by Dr Christine Kinealy

*2 Four children would not have been considered a “large” family.

*3 All four of the men of these families were agricultural labourers.  So too were the four Whitten brothers who came in the 1860s. Although we only know that Joseph came as an Assisted Immigrant it is reasonable to assume that the others did also.

#52 Ancestors Week 52 You

#52 Ancestors Week 52 You

Here’s what I know about me from my research.

 My parents and grandparents were all born in Australia

 Of my 8 great grandparents, all but 2 were born in Australia.  Those two, on different sides of the family, were both Irish.  One was Catholic, one Protestant.

 Of my 16 great great grandparents, only 2 were born in Australia.  They were both on my father’s side of the family. Charles Stanford, born on the Macleay River (Kempsey) in 1843  and Mary Barry, born at Bathurst in 1842. 

 Of my 32 great great grandparents, I know that 15 were born in Ireland, 8 in England, 1 in Scotland and 1 in New Zealand. 

That leaves 7 great great grandparents unaccounted for.  Some are almost certainly Irish – the wives of Michael Gleeson, William Crummy, and Robert Lucas.  The ancestry of William Barry and his unknown wife is a mystery, but he is our only possible convict and was probably Irish too. 

·       The two real enigmas are John Wilson (whose wife Ann was Scottish) and the mother of New Zealand born Edward George Morgan

Here’s what my DNA tells me:

·         59% of my DNA is Irish or Scottish

·         31% is from England, Wales and north western Europe

·       The other 10% is a mixture of Swedish, Germanic and Polynesian.

What I glean from this is at least the answer to one mystery – the mother of my 2 x great grandfather William George Morgan, born in NZ in 1831 to John Morgan, sailor and an unknown woman.  I now know that she was almost certainly Maori.

I can probably also continue to believe that some of my forebears were Huguenot, as family myth has it.  I have no proof yet.

Here’s what else there is to know about me.

I was born in the middle of the 20^th century in Australia, which is to have been born lucky.  I missed the Great Depression and WW11, and while I knew boys and men who served in Vietnam it was not a major upheaval in my life.   My father always had a job and my mother always stayed home. They were loving parents who cared about their community and made sure we did too.  They valued education and encouraged us to do well in school and sport.

I was well educated in the public school system at a time of good funding and good teachers.  In the country towns where we lived, almost all the children of school age went to the same school, so it was a fairly egalitarian experience.

I had a free tertiary education because of Government scholarships.

I have never been seriously ill, but I have been cared for in hospital a few times at almost no cost because of Australia’s universal health care system.

As a woman I have occasionally been discriminated against, but I have never suffered because of my race or culture or religion.

I have never gone hungry or unsheltered. 

All of this privilege is an accident of birth.

#52Ancestors Week 51 Future

#52 Ancestors Week 51  Future

I’m sure none of my ancestors ever gave a thought to the fact that one day one of their descendants would spend hours of time piecing the facts of their lives together and speculating about the way they lived.

They would never have guessed that the wonder of the internet would one day allow me to correspond with relatives all over the world.

One of the pleasures of the #52 Ancestors Challenge this year was the number of cousins – both mine and Paul’s – who we have connected with.  We now know more about my great-grandmother Mary Crummy, through meeting some of the family of her brother Thomas.  I have spent a morning with Lyn McLean, who shares Robert White with me as our great grandfather.  Descendants of Robert’s brother John have also been in touch via email.  We have connected with Dennis and Lorna Johnson – Dennis is Paul’s second cousin and his wife Lorna is a serious family historian who has written a great deal about the Johnsons.  I found Brian, another cousin of Paul’s when I recognised one of the stories in the Challenge as being about a common ancestor.  From Ireland, Laura Price of Shannonbridge has provided hitherto unknown information about the Kilroe family.

In 2020 I hope for more happy surprises like these.

And none of those ancestors would never have guessed that I could take a DNA test to find out more about my place in the world and who I am.  I am eagerly awaiting the results.  I expect lots of Celtic and English in my background and I hope it leads me to conversations with other distant relatives researching the same heritage.

And perhaps it might also reveal the mysterious 2% Polynesian that a distant cousin has found in his DNA, which could solidify our belief that Edward George Morgan, my New Zealand – born 2 x great grandfather was the child of the seafarer John Morgan and an unknown Maori woman.

#52 Ancestors Week 50 Tradition

#52 Ancestors Week 50 Tradition

In December 1964 my mother was (unexpectedly) pregnant with my youngest brother, Michael.  There was a heatwave in Dubbo, where we lived.

These were the reasons my parents gave for the creation of their first “Christmas Letter”, a family bulletin that became a tradition which lasted until my mother’s death last year.

The first copies were typed on my father’s Olivetti and roneod on the school gestetner.  It went to the huge number of people on their Christmas Card list – probably about 150.  In the days before the widespread use of the telephone – and no social media – Christmas cards were the way people maintained connections, so they went not only to close friends and family but to distant relations and business associates and old neighbours and colleagues.

In that first letter, Dad wrote about each of us children – how we were getting on at school, our sporting prowess or other achievements, and also gave a picture of life in Dubbo as they approached the birth of their sixth child.  My elder sister Jenny had already left home and was working in Canberra.  He wrote that her love life “continued to amuse and confuse us all”.  And he made the announcement that he was to take up the Principal’s position at Dubbo High School in 1965.

The pattern was established.  Circular Christmas bulletins were not widespread in 1964 – people thought it a novel approach and many of their friends began to emulate it.  They wrote that they looked forward every year to receiving their annual update.  Typically, Mum would personalise each letter – Dad used to say that he wondered why he bothered when Mum felt the need to write lengthy postscripts to each one.

Mum took control of the letter when Dad began to develop dementia, in about 1990, and I was her scribe.  In the ensuing years we embraced computers, then photographic inclusions, then colour.   As we all grew up and established families of our own, it became customary for everyone to create a couple of paragraphs and send some photos to Mum and me, and I would piece it all together on my computer. In time, some of us began the tradition ourselves, but we were always part of Mum’s letter.

 

In the early 2000s, the NSW State Library put out a call for family Christmas letters as part of an acquisition project, and in about 2014 Mum featured in a Sydney Morning Herald story about the 50 years of her correspondence.  The journalist was interested in the changing way in which the letters had been prepared, and also in the long family saga that had unfolded over the years.  

To read the 54 years of Christmas letters is to read the history of our family, albeit a little sanitised.   There were never any serious attempts at censoring our lives but family dramas such as break – ups and divorces were downplayed.  New relationships were cautiously embraced and if they didn't survive then they simply disappeared the following year.  Academic failures were deflected.  Babies were always welcomed. 

When Mum died, just before Christmas 2018, I wrote one last letter.  At 93, her mailing list had dwindled over the years, but there were a few people on the list who had been recipients of that first letter in 1964, and who had tracked the story of our family through children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.  This year, I sent them my family letter.

Bill and Gwynne Gleeson - October 1987

#52 Ancestors Week 49 Craft

#52 Ancestors Week 49 Craft

My father, Bill Gleeson (1913-1994) became a woodworker partly out of necessity but it became a life long interest and provided his family with all kinds of material reminders – quirky, practical and sometimes beautiful.

I think it began when he was a young teacher at Young, NSW with a growing number of small children who needed beds to sleep in.  He had become friends with an older teacher called Os Davis, who loved to make things out of wood and together they set about making a bed for my elder sister, Jenny.

Eventually there were three of these beds and I wish I had a photo of them – three narrow single beds with pink chenille spreads, lined up dormitory style in the bedroom that Jenny, Libby and I shared, until Jen reached her teens and got her own space.

The beds were practical, but Os and Dad soon began to branch out.  They discovered that the timber being removed from Young Courthouse as it was being adapted to house the new Young High School, was going to be destroyed.  It was beautiful red cedar – the “red gold” of the Australian rainforest.

One of the largest trees of the Australian rainforests, Australian Red Cedar (Toona ciliata) is reported to reach a height of about 60 m and a trunk diameter of 3 m. Trees of this size would be exceptional. It is one of Australia's few deciduous trees.

The bark is prominently cracked giving a tesselated appearance. New leaves are pinkish so that early timber cutters were able to spot trees in the rain forest. Has long sprays of small white flowers followed by dry fruits up to 2.5cm long. Rapid growing trees heavily buttressed. 

The heartwood is a handsome dark red. Some specimens are pink or even yellowish. Darkens with age. Growth rings are very prominent on back sawn boards. Buttress and crutch timber can be very heavily figured. A very distinctive pleasant smell.

It is highly regarded for top quality cabinet and furniture work, interior panelling, veneers, turning and carving, boat building and cigar boxes. Was used in railway carriages in early days of affluence…it is extremely light in weight.

Australian Red Cedar bears many similarities with Spanish Cedar (Cedrela odorata). It is sometimes referred to as Indian Mahogany*(1).

Dad and Os set about “rescuing” the doomed timber from the rubbish heap and took it home.  Two projects gradually emerged – a small coffee table and this handsome cabinet, which lived in all my parents’ houses and is now with my sister, Libby.

Woodworking was, I think, a perfect way for Dad to unwind.  His  working life as a senior teacher, and then as the Principal of a large High School, could be quite stressful.  At home, “in the shed” with his timber and his tools, he was relaxed.  He gradually came to acquire a circular saw and a lathe (another school discard) and began to turn his hand to more complicated pieces of furniture.

But first, he built a house!

The family moved from Young to Glen Innes at the beginning of 1954.  There was a serious housing shortage in Australia immediately after the War, and the only place that could be found for this family of two adults and four small children was a two bedroom flat with a shared kitchen and bathroom.  I don’t know how they stood it for as long as they did, but they set about rectifying the situation as quickly as they could by buying a block of land and having plans for a house drawn up.

 Dad kept teaching, of course, but after school and on weekends he was a builder.  This was long before pre-fabrication.  He learnt to lay bricks so he could make the foundations.  All the timber framework had to be cut and raised.  He laid all the timber floors, made the timber window frames, and the doors.  He laid tiles in the bathroom.  Some of his mates helped him with the heavy stuff and Mum (who was pregnant again by the later stages of the work) was always there to hand him tools or hold the end of something.  It was a heroic effort and we moved in just before Margie’s birth in March 1956. 

The house that Bill built - photo taken some years later

After we moved to Dubbo (1960) there were other projects.  He built an extra bedroom and a garage on our first house there, and then, when the family moved to the last house, he realised we didn’t own a dining table big enough to accommodate everyone who might sit down to dinner, so he made one.  And some chairs too.

Michael, who was still living at home at the time,  says that the chairs actually incorporate bits of school chairs that were being discarded (coachwood *(2) and that the table top, chair seats and rungs were meranti*(3).  He used the above mentioned lathe to turn the legs.  This dining room furniture has a new home at Margie’s place.

This was practical, so for fun and creativity, he made a few other chairs including this one which now lives with John.

And some lamp bases, and another, more delicate, table.

None of Dad’s forebears would have had the time to indulge themselves in a craft like woodworking.  Nor, probably, could they have afforded the materials.  It was only because Dad had a regular job which paid relatively well that he could do this.  It gave him hours of pleasure, allowed him to be creative as well as provide useful objects for his family, and has given all of his children and grandchildren tangible reminders of him in their daily lives.

*(1)from “Bovalino – Fine Timber”

*(2)(Ceratopetalum apetalum, the coachwood, scented satinwood or tarwood, is a medium-sized hardwood tree, straight-growing with smooth, fragrant, greyish bark. It is native to eastern Australia in the central and northern coastal rainforests of New South Wales and southern Queensland, where is often found on poorer quality soils in gullies and creeks and often occurs in almost pure stands. C. apetalum is one of 8 species of Ceratopetalum occurring in eastern Australia, New Guinea, New Britain and various islands in the same region.

*(3)Meranti is a soft to firm hardwood timber commonly used for decorative purposes such as mouldings, furniture, panelling, joinery and window frames. It is a very versatile and durable timber for indoor applications and can be painted and stained. 

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