#52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks 2024 - Week 9 - Changing Names

 

I have quite a few “changing names” candidates for this prompt. It never ceases to amaze me how some names through no fault of their own can evolve down the track in records to something very different.  A careless or atrocious hand writing on some forms can cause all sorts of headaches for a Family Historian trying to match up research in their family trees.

My own father was a prime example of how names can change by accident or by choice.  Dad was christened Garvice Galvin BRANDT.  In his adult years he chose to go by the name of “Jack”, although I do remember in family situations he was called Garvice.  I am pretty sure my Mum always referred to him as Garvice.  But it wasn’t uncommon for him to fill in forms with Jack.

I remember early on in my family history journey, that even though I knew the details of when and where my parents were married, I didn’t have any documentation. So I chose to go down the road of proving it with research.  It is here that I ran into trouble as I started my search with my father and I chose to search on Ancestry.  

For the life of me I could not find any records for a marriage between Garvice Galvin Brandt and my mother Ruby Florence Briggs.  In frustration I took a break and decided that I would  search for the Marriage records in my mother’s name.  You guessed it, there was the record for their marriage!  So I figured that I must have missed something and went back and searched for Marriage records in my father’s name again.  Nothing came up, there just wasn’t any Marriage record in the name of Garvice Galvin Brandt.  So I did another search under my mother’s name and it came up again.  

But on a closer look, I realised that I wasn’t seeing what I thought I was seeing. Yes the record was for Ruby Florence Briggs but my father was listed on the Ancestry record as Gravice Joseph Brandt!  It was then that I had a vague memory that Dad’s confirmation name was Joseph.  So that possibly may have a been Dad’s choice when filling out the Marriage form.  But I can only surmise the Gravice was a transcription error in Ancestry. I have since obtained a Transcription Certificate that clearly states his name as Garvice Joseph Brandt.  So we have a clear case here of name change by “accident” and by “choice.”

#52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks 2024 - Week 8 - Heirlooms

 

I have quite a few keepsakes in my possession that I have acquired over the years and some would say that I have far too many.  I am not a hoarder but I do love my ornaments and things that mean something to me.  These things are not antiques or worth a lot of money but they are all part of who I am and where I have come from.

My Christmas decorations have a special place in my heart and they bring me joy every year to see them displayed.  One of the most treasured things on my Christmas tree is some very old and tattered and threadbare gold and pink tinsel.  My Dad brought this home one year when one of the clubs he delivered small goods to was updating their decorations and was throwing it out.  It has stood the test of time and adorned our Christmas trees of my childhood, travelled with my Mum in her possessions after Dad died and then became part of our family decorations.  I leave it on our Christmas tree now each year when packing up, to preserve it a little bit longer as I think the putting on and taking off each year is a bit too much for it and would add to its threadbare(tinsel bare?) state.  So now it is carefully covered with the whole tree each year. 

Another favourite tree decoration for me are the set of wooden Christmas teddy bear hanging ornaments that I painted in one of my Folk Art classes.  These are all named on the back and this year I asked the Grandies to pick their two favourite while decorating our tree and their initials were also written on the back.  So somewhere down the track CR, AJ, IF, PH, LP, EJ and CM will know which ones they may claim!  I also have quite a few hand painted Christmas ornaments and plaques that I loved painting and which give me much pleasure.  I have a fairly large collection of Santas.  Each year they adorn a coffee table and as yet I haven’t been able to stop my addiction with collecting them, but I do try to limit the purchase to one a year. 

I also have lots of glassware in our china cabinet that was my Mums.  Some of the things are also mine that I have acquired over the years.  I have a twelve piece dinner set that I got for my 21^st from a group of friends.  This over the years was brought out for special occasions but it hasn't seen much use lately as I don't have the ability to get it out and put it away.

Then I have my books.  Fred said once on Facebook that he thought I should have been a librarian as I had more books than a library, he is a bit prone to exaggeration!  But in saying that I do have some favourites that I would love someone else to eventually treasure as much as I.  I have a collection of Georgette Heyer that has brought me many hours of enjoyment. Also I have a collection of paperback Agatha Christies mysteries that were my Mums.  She would scour the Op shops for copies that she didn't have and I haven't had the inclination to get rid of them.  Then there is my collection of Anne of Green Gables.  So I have noted many times with my family to think before they relegate things to the Op shops. 

I am currently working on my heirlooms.  My quilts!  Sewing patchwork quilts brings me joy.  Also seeing Grandies snuggled up together under one, two or three of my quilts while watching TV is something I treasure!  They still manage to find them even on a stinking hot day!  So I am happily creating my supply of snuggle quilts for heirloom treasures.

I need to go through my china cabinet and mark things that have been passed down to me.  Most of these things I don’t know the origin of, as my Mum and Dad just had them when they were around and of course it was never mentioned where or how they came to have them.  I also have a very delicate diamond ring which was given to me for my seventeenth birthday and from memory was told it belonged to a Great Aunt.  Who was this Great Aunt?  I have no idea and I don’t remember ever being told and why I didn’t ask I will never fathom!  

So in writing this it has spurred me into thinking that I need to get around to documenting what things are and how they came to be for future generations.  I just hope they are given the same pride of place that I have given them.

#52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks 2024 - Week - 6 - Earning a Living

 

John Robert Brandt was born on 22 October 1876 in the goldfields near Gulgong. He was the fourth son born to Alfred and Louisa Brandt.  Another two sons and a daughter were born after John.

John lost his father in 1883 when he fell to his death down a well.  His mother remarried August Engstrom in 1886 and another daughter was added to the family in 1887.  Then August died in 1888, leaving his wife of two years with eight children.  Louisa was the licensee of the Sugarloaf Inn, near Gunnedah NSW, which she had run with her first husband and continued after his death with her second husband, although the license was only in her name.

As a young boy of thirteen and the fourth oldest my great uncle John Robert Brandt must have had yearnings to get out into the world and help his widowed mother.  No doubt he was home schooled and ready to take on more responsibility. I assume like most teenagers he was keen to prove his worth and earn a living.  He probably nagged his mother to let him get a job.  He would have had dreams and plans, but I assume initially it was only his desire to help his family.

From a report found in the local newspaper of the day I have learnt that John’s employment came to a tragic end.^⁠1  Also I feel for his mother who had buried two husbands and now was faced with her son’s death all in the space of seven years. In the same clipping from this paper it was reported on the amount of rain the area had received. Most probably the ground where he was working in his employer’s yard was very slippery from all the rain and may have contributed to his accident.  It sounds like he was in great pain for four days in hospital before his death.  Did his mother sit by his side in her own pain during this time? Whatever his dreams for future employment they were cut short too soon.

I have not been able to find any information as to what he was actually employed as or how long he had been employed.  Surely at the age of thirteen it couldn’t have been for long.  I hope that he was happy in whatever he was doing and not just treated as a drudge as a lot of children were treated in these times.

From the Australian Town and Country Journal (Sydney, NSW 

ACCIDENT, -  A lad named John Brandt, about 14 years of age, met with a painful accident on Sunday last.  It appears that he was doing something in the back yard of his employer, when he somehow fell on to a pointed piece of wood.  The splinter tore his jaw and some part of the cheek. He was afterward removed to the hospital, suffering great agony, and died on the following Thursday.

________________

¹ Gunnedah. (1890, March 1). Australian Town and Country Journal (Sydney, NSW : 1870 - 1919), p. 15. Retrieved February 4, 2024, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article71108542

#52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks 2024 - Week 5 - Influencer

 

I have been struggling all week for something to write about for this prompt.  Who in my Family Tree could I write about? 

Nothing jumped out at me, no one sprang to mind.  But then I changed my thinking once again as I have done in the past and realised that maybe I am looking in the wrong places.  To my family I may possibly be an Influencer or at least I have had many influencers in my life that made me the person I am.

So I have decided to write a little post on who and why certain people have influenced me.  Yes there are the usual family members, parents, siblings, children etc.  But for the purpose of this exercise I am also going to touch on people outside of my family who have shared their talents with me.  

I had a good friend and mentor who always said that you really should share your talents, otherwise what was the point of having them.

So over the years I have dabbled in many hobbies and art forms.  My family and friends will attest to this as they have also been gift recipients of my work for many years.

It would be remiss in me not to include my first Influencer - my Mum.  It was through her example and teaching that I became a sewer.   Following her lead but not her ability I became an adequate clothes sewer.  I outfitted my four children when they were young and also made many home furnishings and camping gear.  My husband would get an idea for something and ask if I could do it and if he was prepared to design the object he had in mind I would take on the challenge to sew it. My trusty sewing machine never let me down despite the challenges I threw at it….tent canvas, tent zippers, tarpaulins, bags for camping gear etc.

Then around the age of forty I was looking for a new hobby and was keen to dabble in folk art.  My Mum encouraged me by shouting me an introductory course and away I went.  I signed up with a very talented teacher for weekly lessons in a class of about sixteen.  These lessons continued from Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced and then just onto long term members.  My teacher Carolyn was and still is a very talented artist.  But more to the point she had the ability to impart her skills with grace and encouragement.  It was her influence that also saw me progress from Folk Art to Pastel Painting, although she never actually taught me Pastels as she moved away to another state, but she became a life long friend from our time together in classes and I cherish her influence in my life.

But my sewing skills although a bit inactive once my children had all left home, came to the for again when grandchildren came along.  It was lovely to sew for little people again especially at Christmas time!  Every year my grandchildren with encouragement from their parents indulged me with wearing Christmas outfits sewn with love.  This was a relative easy task as I had six granddaughters and one grandson.  The dresses were easily produced but the outfit for the grandson was a bit more of a challenge.  Luckily I was able to access super hero fabric and appliquéd these figures on handmade t-shirts and put a Santa hat on a different one each year!  It is here that I can also see the influence of my Mum as she loved Christmas.

In the last four years though I have hankered for a more creative outlet with my sewing.  Here is where I introduce my next Influencers Monica and Alaura Poole, a mother and daughter team who started an online QAYG(Quilt As You Go) Patchwork Youtube channel and classes.  I dove into the wonderful creativity of quilting, along with many others.  It was through these ladies that I also ventured into the creative process of thread painting which has given me much joy.  I fell in love with this art form and now I have gone onto my own designs which fall into the category of “Textile Art - Fabric and Thread Painting”.  I now have the confidence to design and create pieces of art, although there is room for a lot of improvement. 

So now with guidance from these online courses and teachers, I now consider that I have gone from a “Sewer” to a “Sewist”!  I have sewn for over 56 years but now I am finding this new art form takes me on a journey with my sewing machine, that challenges and excites me. I have dabbled in many painting mediums over the years but this world of thread sketching and thread painting with unlimited resources of colour, design, texture and imagination is exhilarating. There is no paint, paper or pencils involved! Just Me and my hands let loose with free motion sketchy stitching, fabric and threads on my trusty sewing machine. But I do still pick up the brushes or pastels occasionally. 

As to my mentor who suggested that a talent not shared was a talent wasted. It has just occurred to me that he was an Influencer as I have over the last nineteen years donated a framed painted piece of art or lately a framed Thread painting for auction to the annual Wally Bamford Memorial Benefit Concert.  This concert raises funds for research by the The Centenary Institute, into the disease SADS, in memory of my daughter-in-love’s brother who died at the age of 26 in 2004.

#52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks 2024 - Week 4 - Witness to History

For this week’s prompt I have decided to write about my own witness to history.

I have lived through the Covid years.  In Australia the first case of the Covid 19 virus was recorded in January 2020.  We  are still living with Covid but now in 2024 it is an accepted fact that we have to do just that ….live with it.  My husband and I as a retired couple were vaccinated and kept up to date with booster shots.

But in reality it didn’t have a big impact on my life til about mid 2020.  We were advised to stay at home first and then the compulsory lockdowns came into place at different times in differed states.

Being retired it became our practise of tuning in each morning to the TV for updates on the cases in Australia and the advice being given by the Health Authorities.  

We became very adept on hand washing and sanitising everywhere we went.  There were Apps on our phones that had to be signed into if we visited anywhere for medical or other appointments.  We were also required to wear masks wherever we went outside of the home.

Being in the age group of most at risk, family were not allowed to visit but the ones in our town were able to drop things off to us without actually coming inside.  We became adept at online shopping and online grocery shopping became the normal with home delivery or click and collect.

Non essential workers were required to stay at home and work from home if possible.  Schools were only open for children of the essential workers.  So this then meant that parents were now working from home and also supervising their children’s online school work.  I know that it was a challenge for our three families with children. But amazingly they all adapted and embraced the challenge but it was still not easy.  Children missed out on the vital interaction that goes on in the classroom setting.  Many of the children’s outdoor sporting activities were suspended and I feel a lot of children once they stopped playing weekend sport found it difficult to return to it.

For me personally as an avid “crafter” and being retired, I didn’t find it difficult to fill my days.  I made approximately thirty face masks and also joined an online Patchwork and Quilting Mystery Quilt group, which filled my days easily and resulted in a new passion and quite a few quilts finished with more in the making.

We became excellent Zoom participants with our 4 children and their spouses and our grandchildren.  But these Zoom gatherings were missing the physical component of hugs and cuddles with our Grandies.

We zoomed with our friend groups as well. But it was never the same as sitting with a drink or cuppa with treasured friends. 

These are just some of my thoughts on being a witness to history, which the Covid Pandemic was and still is!  Many lives were lost and many suffered.  It impacted on people’s mental health and well-being in lots of ways, including through isolation and loneliness, job loss and financial instability, and illness and grief.  

But most importantly I think it has taught a lot of us that life is indeed precious and worth looking after each other and that family is a great blessing.

#52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks 2024 - Week 3 - Favourite Photo

For this week's prompt I have chosen not one of my favourite photos, but technically more like one of my Family History Interesting Photos!

Let me elaborate on how I came to take this photo out of the passenger window of our car on the 7 September 2016, along the Coonabarabran Road, Gunnedah.  There is no-one in it, but I have an interesting story and theory as to the stone wall you may see.

My husband and I were doing one of our bi-annual holiday trips north to see my sisters in Queensland. It is usually at least a two day trip so we planned on doing a little Family History Research as a side trip on the way to break up the journey.  My early paternal Great Grandparents were in a town called Gunnedah between the years 1877 -1915.  My G/Grandfather Alfred Brandt was there until his death in 1883 and my G/Grandmother Louisa until her death in 1915.

The Back Story

My Grandfather was the Publican of the Sugarloaf Inn, on the Coonabarabran Road, near Gunnedah until he died when he fell down a well in 1883.  His wife took over the Publican’s license after his death and continued to run the Sugarloaf Inn up until late 1891 and after that another pub the Bank Hotel until the early 1900s.  Then deciding that she needed to slow down she established a Lodging House in the Imperial Hotel in Gunnedah, until her death in 1915.  Her life had been hard, she buried two husbands and one son at the age of fourteen.

My Theory

So what does the accompanying photo have to do with all of the above?  We had decided that we would like to find the Sugarloaf Inn and Alfred and Louisa’s grave sites. 

• We knew there was a range of mountains with the name Sugarloaf.  
• We knew where they were buried.  
• We had an appointment with one of the volunteers of the local Historical Society.  

How hard could it be?  Well harder than we thought!

The Historical Society had records that confirmed my research of where Alfred and Louisa were buried.  Although they didn’t have any information about the Sugarloaf Inn.

We were informed that the cemetery was no longer in use, so we set out to see what we could find.  Unfortunately there were many graves with headstones that were no longer legible and we eventually gave up and decided to try and track down where the Sugarloaf Inn may have been.

We knew the road and thanks to Google Maps we were able to find the area known as Sugarloaf.  The road was no longer the small country track that it would have been a hundred years ago.  It was now a major road on the outskirts of the town with mainly farmland property on both sides.

From memory we were also able to pinpoint where we thought the Inn would have been and it was here that we found a farm house.  So taking a hunch that the owners would be receptive to a couple of strangers asking questions, we drove down the long driveway. Of course there was no one at home, so another dead end!

But on leaving the property we decided to drive back and forth on the road  for a few kilometres a couple of times.  On one of these trips I noticed in the paddock what looked like some stonework.  We managed to get off the road close to the fence and it looked like a stone wall that had seen better days.  

So I took a photo of it and until somewhere down the track in my research or another trip to Gunnedah, I hold onto the belief that it was indeed the remains of the Sugarloaf Inn.  It was close to the road which was a necessity for a thriving Inn.

For now it is enough to have this theory and maybe one day I might actually be able to prove it!