The Week 6 prompt for #52Ancestors is Earning a Living. Like many people, most of my ancestors had very predictable and ordinary professions. However, one individual stands out with a bit of a different occupation. Daniel Child was my 4x … Continue reading
The prompt for Week 5 was ‘Influencer’ and for this prompt I’ve decided to write about my Great-Uncle Ted who was a strong influence on my family history journey. As my mother grew up without a Father, Uncles were very important to her and she was very close with her mother’s family. Although Ted lived in Adelaide, South Australia and my mum grew up in Western Sydney the strong connection was still there and he was the person who gave my mum away at her wedding.
The photo of Ted and Jean (my grandmother) that sparked my interest)
I can remember visiting Ted for the first time as a young teenager, and I was fascinated by all his knowledge of the family. I had seen photos of my grandmother as a young child aged around 3 years old in Penrith, New South Wales (which in the 1920s was still a very country area) as well as a photo of my great grandparents wedding day and they had sparked my interest enough to ask my grandmother about them. So you can imagine I was even more fascinated to see the many other photos that Ted had in his possession, including one of himself and my grandmother, when he was a small boy and she a toddler. This visit was to be the start of years of back and forth correspondence about the family history.
Ted (standing) and Jean
Ted had started doing family history research during the 1980s, when Australia experienced a surge of popularity in family history research in line with the Bicentenary of the landing of the First Fleet in 1788. Unlike the rest of his family, who worked in more traditional ‘working class’ professions, Ted had trained as a journalist and ended up working in Sports Journalism. As a boy, Ted had suffered from polio and as a result spent much more time on academic pursuits. Through the charity organisation The House With No Steps Ted was taught typing which was a great help to him eventually getting a cadetship in journalism and eventually working as a sports journalist. During his career, Ted had opportunities to travel overseas and I have not doubt that the research skills he learnt in his journalism career came in handy for tracing his family history. Once retired, Ted continued to travel with his wife Ruth and he visited many of the areas out ancestors came form including Norway.
Many of the family photos that I have copies of came from Ted’s family album which he was happy to share with me. And not only did he have photos of ancestors, they were all meticulously labelled. Ted had also painstakingly typed up on his typewriter everything he knew about the family from what he had been told by his mother and other relatives as well as what he had gleaned form his research. I remember quite well a conversation about our Norwegian ancestor Charles John Thompson who had come from the Norwegian city of Bergen out to Australia. I can remember him telling me about when he visited Norway and attempted to find some information about Charles to no avail. Everyone they spoke to said that there would be no Norwegian with that kind of name! Ted was very interested years later once I had started my family history journey in earnest to hear that I had found Charles in Norway!! Turns out, he had Anglicized his name to Charles John Thompson from Karl Johan Thomassen.
Ted during his time at Canonbury hospital
Continuing the 52 Ancestors challenge with Week 4. The prompt for this week is ‘Witness to History’. This could be interpreted in so many different ways, after all most people have been witness to a variety of events that could be classed as historically significant. But who to write about? I decided on my paternal great grandmother Jean, who lived to the age of 93 and witnessed a lot during her life.
Jean was born 20 March 1917 in Lismore, NSW to parents Thomas William Thompson and Hannah Maria Darch Mallett. At the time, the world was in the midst of World War I but as a baby this isn’t something Jean would have been aware of. Her father did not go away to fight, instead remaining to work on the home front.
Over her life, Jean would have witnessed any number of changes. Lismore itself was quite a small
town at the time of Jean’s birth and throughout her growing up years. I have in my possession a photo of the Lismore house that Jean was born in and grew up in. Looking at the photos below, you can see how the house was originally surrounded by land. The photo on the right is the house as it appears today. Accounting for different camera angels, you can see how the house has changed very little over the decades. Descendants of Jean’s siblings reside next door, but the original house has long passed out of family hands. The area surrounding the house is now the built up suburb of South Lismore.
The house when Jean was a child
The same house today
Jean’s older sister penned an article for The Australian Women’s Weekly in 1972, which provides some insight into how rural the Lismore area was during the time Jean was growing up. Over the time that she lived there, Jean would have witnessed the slow and steady transformation of the Lismore area into the bustling city it is today.
As a young mother, Jean was a witness to everyday life at home in Australia during World War II. I can remember interviewing her for a school assignment about Australia during that period, and I recall how she spoke of the struggles under rationing to feed her small family. She also spoke of the fear she had as a mother of the war coming to Australian shores and the relief she felt at the end of the war.
Jean (seated with bow) and some of her siblings
Jean as a young mother in the early 1940s
Jean later in life