Family History

 I've carefully avoided going down the rabbit hole of family history for many years. I was fairly sure that once I started I'd be hooked. I might have been right.

Since going through my mother's memorabilia I've spent most of the last few days trying to organise what I found there ready to hand on to any family member who might be interested. I already had a box with photos and other information that my mother had collected which is sitting in my living room but it isn't in any real order and it's been one of those things I've been intending to work on at some time. Now I'm in the process of some serious decluttering it's probably that time.

Some years ago a relative arranged a family reunion of the descendants on one side of my maternal great great grandparents so I do know something about that side of the family - at least back as far as my great great great grandfather who was born in 1774 - that's the only fact I know about him so it's just begging for future research - and for now I'm not heading there.

I knew that his son, his wife and oldest son, were among the earliest British settlers in what was then known as the Swan River Colony - theirs is one of the family bibles I found in the boxes. I decided  - while trying to not get trapped into historical research too much - hey, I have a degree in history so this was always going to be risky - that I should at least make out a direct line of descent from my ancestors to my children and grandchildren as well as what items each box now contains - and because I couldn't help myself I also thought I should check out a few dates on offical documents. It'd only take a little bit of time, wouldn't it.

Four days later and the line of descent is finished and - let's be honest here - I've had a lovely time trawling through passenger lists, censuses and other documents about the early days of what is now Western Australia, many of which were really not relevant but fascinating distractions. Given how carefully records were kept I was surprised - well, maybe not - at how many errors there were in the official documents. I was following the paper trail of both my ancestors and my great great grandfather's younger sister and her family who came here a month or so later - they nearly died as the ship they were on was wrecked just as it reached the colony (but that's another story) - and the discrepancies amazed me. Names are wrong - Hannah is Anna in an early census document for example, sometimes a name is spelled multiple different ways - in different places there was Harriet, Haryet and Harriett all referring to the same person - while dates of birth and even places of birth are at times wildly incorrect. The family bible was my saviour in this because there everything is listed clearly and I was able to put together the information I needed.

The trouble is - and I was afraid this would happen -  that I'm now itching to get into the box of documents in my living room and put them in order, too. I'd like to think I could do a little of this every day but, honestly, it wouldn't go that way, would it. I'd just keep finding things that are interesting and follow them and I simply have too much that really must be done at the moment. So, for now, they will just have to stay where they are and I'll have to resist the temptation to lift the lid and have a poke around. Sigh. At least I know where everything is now.

Family

These ladies are my grandmother, great grandmother, and great aunt in a photo taken in 1915 for their son and brother to take with him to war in one of the few surviving family photos I have of them.

They're here because last night I was watching a promo for the SBS program of 'Who Do You Think You Are'. The next person to be featured is actor Marta Dusseldorp and she was saying how important family is to her. It is to me as well and with all the memorabilia I've been finding in the decluttering process and a reunion for one side of my family coming up later in the year it's something I've been thinking about a lot.

It has always seemed sad to me that once a person passes away their life experiences also fade. I know I'm not the only one who regrets the fact that there was so much more to know about people who have been important in my life or my family's history and wishes they'd asked more questions when they had the chance. It's one of the reasons why I am making the effort to sort and scan what photos I have because these folk deserve to be remembered. I'm not sure who it will all pass on to when I'm gone but perhaps someone in the current generations will take up the task.

Not everyone feels this way, though. We have a dearth of family photos from my maternal grandmother's side of the family largely due to the fact that my grandmother and her sister were ladies who always preferred what was new and modern and on one memorable day they made a bonfire on my parents' back lawn and proceeded to burn any photos where they thought the clothes were old fashioned. My mother came home in time to save a few precious relics but the bulk of the family photos had gone up in smoke by then.

This loss was compounded when my other great aunt died and a distant family member took it upon herself without any consultation to throw out all her photos and other memorabilia. There was a lot since Aunty had kept a detailed record of everything she could find relating to family, all filed in at least a dozen albums of photos and newspaper cuttings. Since the family was well known in the town where they lived and had often figured in the local press it would have been a treasure trove of information.

All this means there's a huge gap in that part of our visual family history although we do have a number of photographic portraits from the paternal side of the family - photos on the walls were a big part of home decoration back in Victorian and Edwardian times. Some of the oldest of these are now deteriorating badly and I'm trying to find ways to preserve them for future generations, hoping that someone else will take up the torch after me. It would be a shame for all this history to be forgotten.