May Willock. My great grandmother. Edna’s mother. Who was she? My DNA results point to one of two sisters – Miriam or Mabel Willock. But which one? Either of the girls could reasonably have gone by the name May Willock; Miriam perhaps had May as her middle name, or May could be a shortened form…
Tag: Jo Callaghan
The pioneers of Yarramalong
How often can any of us ever say we were ‘the first’ to do something? My 3x great grandparents were one of three families who were the first to ever live in the Australian town of Yarramalong. What an amazing ‘first’. In 1852 Alexander and Elizabeth Hill of Antrim Ireland, paid £8 to board the…
Abundant Harvest
On Saturday 22 February 2020 St Matthias’ Church in Windermere, Tasmania, celebrated the harvest festival. The festival was a roaring success with lots of money raised for the benefit of the church. It was an abundant harvest indeed. And Wild Oats was officially launched! Wild Oats is a Windermere best seller!! Copies are still available,…
Tree lines and bloodlines – Edna, part 6
I have to admit, when I first looked at my DNA results I thought it was a lost cause. I apparently have more than 33,000 matches in the database. How would I ever make sense of the sea of DNA matches with people I have never heard of? So I shut the tool down, opened…
Wending my way to Windermere
This week I’m thinking about and planning for a visit to St Matthias’ Church for their annual harvest festival on 22 February. You can find out more about the festival at the St Matthias’ facebook page https://www.facebook.com/stmatthiaswindermere/ The beautiful little church on the banks of the Tamar, with its white white walls and its red…
The truths we tell ourselves – Edna, part 5
So this it it, this is the only other picture I’ve ever seen of Edna, my paternal grandmother. Edna is the youngest one, second from the right. How old does she look to you? The dresses look like they belong in the 1940s. She’s not exactly smiling, or it looks a little forced, which makes…
Kincumber Boys Home – Edna, part 4
It is 1940. You are 8. Your brothers are 5 and 3. One morning your mother leaves the house, taking your brothers with her. She comes home without them, and then she leaves again, this time taking your sister with her. She doesn’t come back. Not tomorrow, not next week. She’s gone, and so are…
From Dunfermline house servant to Braidwood property tycoon
Introducing Janet Meldrum, my 3x great grandmother in a direct female line. And what a great grandmother she was, perched up there atop a line of very great women! Janet Meldrum was a house servant from the town of Dunfermline, Fifeshire, Scotland. I remember being quite excited to find a Scot in my family line….
Hurricanes, cannon balls and cannibals: Francis Sendall, the tropics
Following the disastrous end to his marriage to Jennie, Francis was looking for something exciting to fill the void. In September 1891, Francis left Sydney on board the steamer Waroonga, bound for the warm, tropical climate of the New Hebrides. After sailing around most of the islands of the New Hebrides, Francis bought several pieces…
The Dorneys of Waterloo – Edna, part 3
Before I knew that Edna’s surname was Willock, I was looking for Dorneys in Waterloo or Redfern. There was only one Dorney family living there in 1910. They were William, his wife Lucy, and their four children; Florence Ada, William Vincent, John Francis and Eugene Frederick. Two other Dorney children, Lucy and ‘Bertie’, had not…
KINdling 