Grandma Shadbolt was born Jane Whitton. She was from Lichfield in Staffordshire. In 1848, when she was 19, she was transported to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania) for seven years. In a first offence she had stolen the sum of three pounds. Unfortunately we don’t have a photo
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My father was born on October 4 1917.at North Motton, a small rural community in north-west Tasmania He was christened Arthur Newman Allen. The middle name of Newman was for his father. Arthur was for his maternal uncle, Arthur Singleton. However, Dad was always called Robin ….and
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My husband Rob’s maternal grandparents, Harry and Malinda (Linda) Atkins, are a bit of a mystery to me. They have been in my thoughts a lot recently, as we inherited some lovely old pieces from them. The items were in storage for a long time while we
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I have been ‘decluttering’ as we move into our new house. One item that nearly went into the skip was an old, glass covered wooden tray. Apart from accumulated dust and dirt it had one seemingly unsolvable problem, The gold braid trim under the glass had broken.
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The words in the image below certainly apply to me. I have loved social history since I was very young, Family history is even closer to my heart, especially right now, in relation to my second cousin, Winnie. Visitors to this website will be aware that I
Read more →While researching my Tasmanian family history I discovered that my great-uncle Arthur’s daughter Winifred (Winnie) Singleton died in 1937 at Victoria’s Sunbury Asylum, aged 19. I also came across a sad story that she had been admitted after attacking her mother with a knife. Winnie and her
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Winifred Julia Singleton (Winnie) was born near Ulverstone, Tasmania on November 29 1918, the first child of Arthur and Elizabeth (Lizzie) Singleton. Arthur Singleton was my great uncle. There is only one known photo of Winnie. It was taken in 1924, when she and her little sister
Read more →Sorting through documents while researching our family history I found a section of one of my Uncle Laurie’s school copy books. It had been kept as a treasured memento by his mother after his death in WWII. Each page was dated; from May 3 1932 through to
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Hello, Editor Des here! Well Pauline was going to do some research at the State Library in Sydney so I went along too. I thought I might start trying to find my ancestors. Just hope I don’t turn out to be related to Paddington or Pooh…especially Paddington.
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A STORY ABOUT MY G-G-G-GRANDFATHER When Australian author Kate Grenville was researching her convict ancestor for the novel Secret River, she admitted to feeling slightly anxious about the nature of his crime. Theft was one thing, but what if he had been transported for something really serious;
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