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23.01.2022 With thanks to cousin Noiffy! The maternal grandparents! I love how so many of these older photos were taken out doors. I know there was obviously better light outside, but it seems to celebrate nature in every family occasion as well. :)

21.01.2022 Ortona Ortona was built in 1899 by Mr and Mrs Adams. Frederick Adams (1865-1940) had been a railway fettler, retired after an accident; his wife, Margaret (1866...-1955) was the gatekeeper at the level-crossing beside Hazelbrook railway station and was also postmistress. Post Office business at Hazelbrook had been conducted since 1891 by storekeepers or residents near the railway. In 1899 Mrs Adams initially used part of the east front room in her new family home as the post office but later, in 1914, added a separate timber office on the east end of the house. (Hazelbrook Heritage, 57, 92; Our Past Blue Mountaineers IV, 43) The name of the house, as shown on a 1913 sub-division plan (Hazelbrook Heritage, 46), was originally Altona but is said to have been changed to Ortona when the Adams' eldest son went off to serve in World War I on the S.S. Ortona. (Curry) Mrs Adams and her daughters Lena and Violet successively ran the post office in Ortona until 1930, when the facility moved to Miss Morrow's shop at 35 Railway Parade. (Hazelbrook Heritage, 73, 93). The erroneous belief that Ortona was originally the station-master's residence (Hazelbrook Heritage, 57) is based on the fact that Violet Adams was in charge of opening the railway ticket-office when a train was anticipated. There was no station-master at Hazelbrook until 1920. (Hazelbrook Heritage, 42) The house remained in possession of the Adams family for over eighty years and is now owned by Mr and Mrs Curry. (Curry) http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au//ViewHeritageItemDetails

21.01.2022 My lovely Mum - at it again: Me: Mum, do you remember when I was in primary school and was just learning about convicts in school, and you told me we had a bigamist convict in the family? Mum: Yes? Me: After 20 years of searching, I've finally found him!... Mum: Oh? Me: Yes, he's on your father's side, . Mum: Yes, that's right. Me: What? Mum: Yes, that's who it was. Me: You knew? Mum: Yes... Me: You knew and you didn't tell me? Mum: Well, how am I supposed to remember all those details?! Argh! I do love her. <3

20.01.2022 "Miss Violet Adams, Hazelbrook's obliging postmistress, has received an interesting letter from her brother Fred, who is busily engaged subduing the Hun "over there". Herewith some choice selections:- "So far I've come through safely. Only got a scratch in the cheek, with a bayonet, which was purely accidental. We had lined up to go over the 'top' and had only gone 50 yards when I got caught in the barbed wire, and was pulled up with a jerk, and the man next to me lowered his... bayonet on to my dial, fortunately, or unfortunately, it was only a scratch, and not nearly bad enough for a 'Blighty', and has left a lovely dimple in my right cheek. We did real well in that particular stunt, advancing almost 700 yards, capturing 3## [obscured] prisoners, about 30 machine guns, over 30 French mortars and a field gun, with very few casualties. The barrage was grand and had a lot to do with the success. Can you imagine nearly perfect silence, only an odd shell or two, and then all in a second a gigantic noise, resembling about 100 terrific thunder storms in one, and the ground going up in the air everywhere, mingled of course with many bodies. Such is the opening barrage of a stunt."" Blue Mountain Echo, Friday 6th September, 1918, page 1. Violet and Fred were my great great aunt and uncle. I'm amazed at how in the middle of a horrific war, Fred was able to almost make light of the situation over there, and to write with such clarity. (And I assume that a "Blighty" is an injury that was bad enough to send a soldier back to England to recover?) Lest we forget.

20.01.2022 The dangers of trusting Ancestry's "hints". Just found this. Very scary.

20.01.2022 The universe is helping me. I'm most of the way through a little online Family History course teaching research and reporting techniques, and for my major Assessment Task I've become firmly stuck trying to find relevant records. Last night before bed I wrote myself a big note reminding me to look at findmypast.com.au before giving up altogether. And this morning when I checked my emails there was one from findmypast.com.au with a special on - 1 month for $1! I hope it's a sign that I can find some new records!! :D Happy Australia Day!

20.01.2022 Yay! (More) Reliable information! http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/102640186

19.01.2022 I just saw the most astounding thing! As many of you know, I have ancestors with the family name of Beer, and I've gone back six generations and it's been Beer (from Germany) the whole time... I've just discovered on a Beer cousin's family tree that another cousin of ours, (closer to her than to me), has taken the liberty of naming his children "de Beer". As in the diamond company set up by Cecil Rhodes on former farmland in South Africa owned by two Boers (Dutch) with the surname "de Beers". (Note the plural!) Which has nothing to do with our Beer ancestors! How pretentious!! I'm incredibly indignant!! I might just change my name to Cartier - after all, I've got another ancestor with the family name of Carter and that's close enough, isn't it?!

16.01.2022 William Glover - first lighthouse keeper of Nelson Bay. And one of my maternal great-great-great-grandfathers. Looks like a good excuse for a weekend away to me! :) http://www.nelsonbaygetaway.com.au//nelson-head-lighthouse

15.01.2022 Found this on a register of deaths for Tasmania. That first fellow must have been *really* bad at cleaning! ;)

15.01.2022 Happiness is discovering that you still have credit left on a pay-per-view newspaper archive site that you last needed to use months ago! Woo hoo!

14.01.2022 My great-great-great-grandfather. Either very sad or very spooky.

11.01.2022 With all my recently discovered Irish heritage I guess I really should have posted for St Patrick's Day. Oh, well. So a belated Happy St Patrick's day, from my O'Brien, Murray, Noonan, Doyle, Manning, White, Maloney, Heggarty, and Mulholland (so far) blood. Have two glasses of Guinness / Bailey's / Jameson / insert favourite Irish tipple here to make up for the delay!

11.01.2022 Our very own Anzac: my great uncle Horace Morris (don't ask). First photo - 1917. He enlisted in the AIF in 1916 at the Gunnedah Police Station, at the age of 19, and during the following years his battalion fought in Messines, Passchendaele, and Villers Bretonneux. He was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal. Second photo - 1941. In 1941 he then signed up to serve in WWII - lying about his year of birth by two years so that he was under the 40 age limit! During this war he served in Palestine, Syria and Borneo, and was awarded the Pacific Star, the Defence Medal, the War Medal and the Australian Service Medal. He was one of the lucky ones, returning home after both wars, fighting with three of his sons in the Second World War and going on live until the age of 71.

11.01.2022 I couldn't figure out why I couldn't find records of one of my ancestors arriving, nor being born, in Australia! Very frustrating! However, thanks to the NSW State Archives <3 I've just found that she, her mother and her sibling/s were one of those families who chose to come to NSW on the same ship as their convict father / husband and wait out his sentence with him!! The majority of these families were never recorded on the convict registers. That's why there's no birth record for her in NSW, and why she suddenly appeared on a muster in 1822 as "came free" to the colony.

09.01.2022 So close and yet so far - another famous "almost ancestor". One great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, whose third wife was my ancestor, took as his first wife Sarah Nelson, daughter of George Nelson, former Lord Mayer of London in 1765! http://nelsonfamilies.com//george-nelson-lord-mayor-of-lon

07.01.2022 Thanks to modern technology (Facebook) I have now linked up with a distant half-cousin who posted on an Australian genealogy group that she was looking for information on William John Speed. And coincidentally, just last week I confirmed he's an ancestor of mine too! I've not posted anything on here about him yet, because the more I find out about him, the more mortified I become that I have some of his DNA! When I get my head around it I might summarise his horrid deeds here, but be warned, it won't be pretty!

06.01.2022 Hell hath no fury...! A great-great-great aunt!

05.01.2022 Happy St Valentine's Day! Great-grandparents' wedding day, 1912. Maurice Noonan & Fanny May Adams, in the middle.

02.01.2022 The latest family gem from my mother - about her great-grandmother - story set in the 1920s: "I never met her, but Grandma Noonan used to go on holidays for two weeks to the house at Tuggerah Lakes wearing all her clothes and taking a little suitcase. She had two sets of clothing for the two weeks - one for wearing and one to be washed out - and she'd wear them both under her coat, Summer or Winter, on the train and the horse & buggy on the way to the house, and carry this little suitcase. And the reason she wore all her clothes was because the little suitcase was always full of lollies for the kids." Bless!