Hayes & Greene family history

Online scams and genealogy

2012-01-28T05:57:00.002+02:00

We all receive e-mail that contains phishing attempts, malware or viruses, and scams of various kinds. One of the most recent concerns the UK Census, and the UK Office for National Statistics has just issued a warning about such a scam Email Scam: We are aware that an email entitled 'Population Census: a message to everyone - act now' is being circulated, allegedly in the name of National

Free Genealogy Forms Downloads

2012-01-26T08:06:00.001+02:00

It's always nice to find free stuff, and these forms look as though they could be useful, especially to genealogists in the USA, though some of them might be useful elsewhere as well, or could be adapted for use in other places. Free Genealogy Forms Downloads: These free downloadable genealogy forms make finding and organizing ancestry search easy. These forms allow you to carefully copy your

Billion Graves

2011-12-27T08:02:00.003+02:00

My daughter, who is something of a fundi and enthusiast on Android smartphones, on hearing that I had recently acquired such a phone, and knowing my interest in genealogy, recommended the following "app":Participate | Billion Graves: The BillionGraves Project brings people together by making genealogy records available to the public.Volunteers use smartphones to take GPS-encoded pictures of

A convert to family history

2011-12-05T05:01:00.004+02:00

Many professional historians look down on family history and genealogy as somehow not being "real" history. For them, political and diplomatic history is all, that the rest is just amateur fluff. At best, many regard genealogy as an "ancillary science", but still not real history. Here's a story of how a professional historian changed her mind about family history BBC News - A Point of View: A

Preserving Your Family History Records Digitally

2011-10-27T05:05:00.002+02:00

Here's an article with some useful tips on preserving family history records digitally.Preserving Your Family History Records Digitally: While gathering family history records over the years, you’ve probably been preserving them physically. So why consider preserving them digitally now?This paper discusses the benefits and challenges of using digital preservation to both augment and enhance the

Untold lives II - the census

2011-10-19T06:25:00.006+02:00

Following on from yesterday's post on Untold Lives, last night the census enumerator called. He was scared of our dogs, so gave me the form to fill in, which saves a bit of time anyway, and it always seems such a fruitless exercise, as we are told that the forms will be recycled once statistical information has been abstracted.In the last couple of months we've been looking quite a lot at UK

Untold Lives - British Library blog

2011-10-18T13:53:00.005+02:00

The British Library has an interesting biographical blog, which may be of interest to family historians: About this blog - Untold Lives:The British Library’s collections contain stories of people’s lives worldwide, from the dawn of history to the present day. They are told through the written word, images, audio-visual and digital materials. The Untold Lives blog shares those stories, providing

The importance of historical literacy

2011-10-16T19:17:00.003+02:00

The Witness: LAST Thursday the University of KwaZulu-Natal Special Collections Day provided a showcase for the Alan Paton Centre and Struggle Archive, the Gandhi-Luthuli Documentation Centre, the Centre for African Literary Studies and, the hosts of the event, the Campbell Collections.My friend (and cousin-in-law) John Aitchison also spoke on the occasion.academic and activist John Aitchison, who

Using to-do lists in genealogical research

2011-09-29T03:51:00.004+02:00

I was very surprised to read this recently on Randy Seaver's blog: Genea-Musings: Can I Ever Tame (even manage?) my Genea-Monster?I have never used the to-do lists in genealogy software. I probably should do that, but I haven't. My mind set was that I would have to print out each to-do list from each of the ancestral families that I wanted to research in the libraries and archives. Of course,

Why don't you SAY something?

2011-09-21T17:29:00.006+02:00

One of the enduring mysteries of our family history research has nothing to do with descent, but it remains a puzzle that gets more puzzling with every month that passes.In addition to our family history blogs, we have a family history Wiki, which we started in the hope of encouraging family members to join in writing the family history.The site gets about 50-80 visitors a day, most of them from

Tuesday's Tip - use FREE Genealogy Forms to Organize your Search

2011-09-07T04:48:00.004+02:00

Randy Seaver writes in his blog about using free forms to organise research Genea-Musings: Tuesday's Tip - use FREE Genealogy Forms to Organize your SearchThere are several websites with FREE genealogy forms available. for instance:* Family Tree Magazine (http://www.familytreemagazine.com/info/researchforms) has many different types of forms - including a research calendar, note-taking,

Are genealogy web pages in the public domain?

2011-08-30T07:41:00.004+02:00

There has been some discussion in the soc.genealogy.britain newsgroup about genealogy web pages containing details of living people, and this spun off into a discussion about whether such information is in the public domain. In the course of discussion it emerged that some people have a mistaken understanding of the meaning of "public domain". When something is in the public domain, it means

Geni.com Just Got a Whole Lot Worse

2011-08-19T08:37:00.005+02:00

Quite a number of genealogy bloggers have commented on this announcement by on-line family tree provider Geni.com, and seeing through the spin, have realised that Geni.com has just got a whole lot worse. Geni Pro Just Got a Whole Lot Better:At Geni, our vision is to empower the genealogy community to create the world family tree, the single largest, most accurate, and comprehensive family tree

GeneaPress: 1940 Census To Be Free on Ancestry.com

2011-08-19T07:27:00.001+02:00

GeneaPress: 1940 Census To Be Free on Ancestry.com: Ancestry.com, the world’s largest online family history resource, today announced that both the images and indexes to the 1940 U.S. Federal Census will be made free to search, browse, and explore in the United States when this important collection commences streaming onto the website in mid-April 2012. When complete, more than 3.8 million

Yahoo hacked - warning

2011-08-07T15:19:00.004+02:00

Yesterday I uploaded a family history file to one of our groups on Yahoogroups, and today my wife wanted to have a look at it and her antivirus software chirped a warning.I investigated and found it that the Yahoogroups site had been hacked, and all the filenames pointed to a malware site. A quick look at some other forums showed the same thing - the filenames had been hacked.I've tried to report

Place names: Camp Growden, Washington USA

2011-08-05T06:51:00.007+02:00

My mother's maiden name was Growdon, and I'm interested in anything that mentions the name Growdon or Growden, so when I came across this news item it piqued my curiosity.Log structure moved, renovated to preserve CCC project’s history - Spokesman.com - July 30, 2011The work was back-breaking; the pay, modest. Living conditions were primitive – barracks in the Colville National Forest.But in the

Keith Zimmer dies, kept track of deaths

2011-08-05T06:00:00.003+02:00

Spare a thought for the people who have indexed genealogical records to make it easier for the rest of us to find them.Keith Zimmer dies, kept track of deaths: "Keith Zimmer started keeping track of dead people as an experiment in 1992.He worked at the Central Library in downtown St. Louis and he and his bosses wondered: Would anyone want a list of the obituaries published in the Post-Dispatch?

Transcribing digital images

2011-08-03T14:06:00.004+02:00

Have you ever had the problem of trying to transcribe the text on a digital image of a document, and found it a schlepp to switch back and forth between an image viewer and your word processor?Here's some software that is designed to make the task a bit easier. No, it's not an OCR program. It won't transcribe the text for you. But it will keep the text visible on the screen while you transcribe.

Argentina and the quest for identity

2011-07-27T09:30:00.006+02:00

Following on from the previous post which referenced a post Do You Have a Right to Know Your Father? | Clarissa's Blog, here's one on the same theme, but far worse than children merely growing up in ignorance of their real identity.Cori's Blog: Argentina and the quest for identity:I was in Buenos Aires last week attending a conference on genocide. One of the topics that was discussed at some

Do You Have a Right to Know Your Father? | Clarissa's Blog

2011-07-12T09:20:00.005+02:00

One of the things I occasionally see in genealogy newsgroups and other discussion forums is how one should deal with things like adoption -- do you show a person's adoptive parents, biological parents, or both?I found this blog post very interesting and relevant to the topic: Do You Have a Right to Know Your Father? | Clarissa's Blog: Understanding who your parents, grandparents, and

Mundia -- yet another flawed family history site

2011-06-18T07:44:00.008+02:00

With the recent addition of another 8 generations to our Ellwood family tree, all sorts of possibilities opened up. People we had been in touch with before, but had sadly concluded were not related, might prove to be related after all. So we set about looking on the Web for other family history researchers who could possibly be related. One of the sites that came up was Mundia.com.This is a site

Strays databases and indexes

2011-06-11T06:05:00.007+02:00

Some family history societies have collected indexes of "strays" - people whose records are found in unexpected places, without any local links. So, for example, someone who died or was buried far from home, or a family that stayed in a place for only a short time and then moved on, would be listed as a stray, and the index might help people in other places with "missing" family members. These

Keeping in touch: social media and genealogy

2011-06-09T06:52:00.011+02:00

One of the problems of family history research is keeping in touch with other family members and researchers. It's a lot easier now that it was a generation ago. Computer networking and internetworking have given us a lot more tools for keeping in touch than were available 30 years ago. The question is, which tool is the best for the job?Social NetworksNowadays most people think first of Facebook

Event-based history and genealogy software for family historians, biographers and others

2011-05-26T07:54:00.012+02:00

If you are looking for a lineage-linked genealogy program to keep your family tree and show all your relations, there is a wide choice available. Some, like Legacy and Personal Ancestal File (PAF) are free, others are shareware, and others you have to pay for up front. They all do much the same thing -- they allow you to enter people who are related to one another and show the relationships

Cemetery vandalism in Queenstown, Eastern Cape

2011-05-20T15:53:00.003+02:00

On our recent holiday we visited Queenstown cemetery in the Eastern Cape to take photos of my great grandparents graves. It was hard to find them, and as we walked up and down looking, we passed a number of graves that had been vandalised, with headstones knocked over, and crosses broken.Eventually we found the graves we were looking for, but though the stones were intact, the metal railings

Is this thing working?

2011-04-23T06:20:00.002+02:00

Recent attempts to post to my Blogger blogs were foiled by an "Illegal Date/Time" format error message.I've changed the language from English (South Africa) to England (United Kingdom) to see if that will make it work.If this post appears, it did.

Survey of online genealogical resources

2011-03-28T08:33:00.000+02:00

A researcher is doing a study of online genealogical resources and howuseful they are.If you would like to participate, please go Survey of use of genealogical resourcesThe findings from this study will help librarians and archivists providematerials and resources to better serve family history researchers.

Irish records available on line

2011-03-09T07:59:00.000+02:00

News: "The Irish Archives Resource is new website which will, for the first time in Ireland, enable catalogues of Ireland's archival collections to be searched online. The website includes records of current and defunct government and local government agencies, individuals, landed estates, clubs, societies, trade unions, religious organisations, cultural and political organisations etc.Speaking

Carnival of Genealogy: Women's history

2011-03-07T08:31:00.000+02:00

This month's Carnival of Genealogy has the theme of Women's History, and I made a contribution with a potted biography of Agnes Green, a pioneering teacher in New South Wales, who seems to have had a remarkably tough life. She had three husbands, one of whom she married twice, and both the others died of unnatural causes. You can find her story on our other family history blog at Agnes Green –

MyBlogLog closing - Yahoo's death wish?

2011-03-01T09:42:00.000+02:00

I received the following e-mail from Yahoo!We will officially discontinue Yahoo! MyBlogLog effective May 24, 2011. Your agreement with Yahoo!, to the extent that it applies to the Yahoo! MyBlogLog, will terminate on May 24, 2011.And if you go to the site there is now a notice that saysMyBlogLog will no longer be in service from 24 May 2011. We recommend Yahoo! Pulse as a service for you to see

On Pilgrimage: A little family history

2011-02-18T10:35:00.000+02:00

An interesting story on a friend's blog: he doesn't usually blog abour family history, but today's post is all on that topic and very interesting. On Pilgrimage: A little family history:I got a query this morning from my 13-year-old grandson Zackary Forest in Red Bank, New Jersey:I have a question for you, grandpa. In history class we were talking about an explorer named Henry Hudson. I told my

New FamilySearch

2011-02-03T07:56:00.000+02:00

For the last couple of weeks, every time I've gone to look up something on FamilySearch I've been taken to the new site. And almost invariably, after getting the first result from the new site, I scroll down to the bottom of the screen and look for the old version.Why is that?The main reason I prefer the old version is that it permits me to download a GEDCOM file of what I find, which can save an

Post-Confucianism and colonialism

2010-12-28T05:59:00.000+02:00

There has been quite a lot of discussion about post-colonialism (though I'm still not quite sure what that is), but it seems that Korean post-Confucianism is taking on elements of colonialism, as more and more Koreans adopt Western feminism, and reject the values of confucian society that stressed the importance of family and blood ties.donga.com[English donga]:Heo La-geum, professor of women’s

Genealogy Software Reviews

2010-12-16T12:24:00.000+02:00

A rather useful web site I came across the other day is Genealogy Software Reviews.It lists over 550 programs with about 700 reviews, and you can add your reviews of the programs you like best, or those you hate most, or anything in between.So if you've heard of a program and would like to try it, come here to see what other users have had to say about it, and if you do try it, have your say as

Find A Grave - Millions of Cemetery Records

2010-12-04T10:27:00.000+02:00

About twenty years ago the Genealogical Society of South Africa had a cemetery documentation project, which I was involved in for a while. The moving spirit behind it was Peter Holden, who was concerned about the deterioration of gravestones, which because of weathering and vandalism were being lost, and their information along with them. There were many farm cemeteries and no one knew where they

Why do online newspapers never tell you where they are?

2010-12-04T06:39:00.000+02:00

This snippet appeared in The Spokesman-Review. OK, in this example there are enough contextual hints to tell you that the paper is probably published in the US state of Washington, possibly in a town called Kettle Falls, but why doesn't that information appear in the masthead or its electronic equivalent?Jim Kershner’s This day in history - Spokesman.com - Dec. 3, 2010:From our archives, 100

The speeding up of family history

2010-11-24T11:10:00.000+02:00

Family history is speeding up, so that it is now hard to keep up.We got started on this in 1975, a week after we were married. An old college friend of mine, Alan Cox (who was, sad to say, murdered in Pakistan a few years ago) came to visit us, and mentioned that he was involved with ancestor hunting, and I said I'd always wanted to get into that, and asked him how. So he said, "Have you got an

Trying out Tumblr and Posterous

2010-11-20T11:02:00.000+02:00

I've been trying out Tumblr and Posterous.You've probably never heard of them, but they are quick 'n dirty blog hosting sites that let you share stuff with a minimum of fuss and bother.If you're toying with the idea of starting a family history blog, but don't want to get into all that computer nerd stuff, one of these may be just what you're looking for.If you frequently e-mail family and

Lost genealogy web sites

2010-11-19T06:23:00.000+02:00

It's now a year since Yahoo! closed down Geocites, which was one of the very first social networking sites. It consisted of a series of themed virtual communities where people could build web sites based on particular themes. A lot of people put their family history on Geocities sites, and some of them died, and some forgot about their sites and no longer updated them. Yahoo! took over Geocities,

Build A Better GEDCOM

2010-11-11T06:49:00.000+02:00

A group has been formed to build a better GEDCOM (GEnealogy Data COMmunication). GEDCOM has been used for about 25 years or more to transfer data from one genealogy program to another, regardless of the native data storage format of the sending and receiving programs.Build A Better GEDCOM - Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter: Tuesday Nov 9, 2010. Alexandria, VA. A group of genealogists and

Woman given legal rights to remains of long-lost relative discovered on display in university

2010-11-11T06:18:00.000+02:00

One of the things about family history is that you never know what you might find. Some of the skeletons in the closet can turn out to be quite literal. Woman given legal rights to remains of long-lost relative discovered on display in university | The Sun |News: A SHOCKED wife researching her family tree found she was related to a killer - still hanging from a NOOSE.Gobsmacked Mary Halliwell was

Mohammed is now the most popular name for baby boys ahead of Jack and Harry

2010-11-10T06:34:00.000+02:00

It seems that the most popular boy's name in Britain is now Mohammed, or variants thereof. I wonder how long that will last. For most of the 19th century the most popular boy's name was undoubtedly William, which made things confusing for genealogists, though towards the end of the 19th century there seemed to be more variety. Mohammed is now the most popular name for baby boys ahead of Jack and

Tombstone Tuesday: Isle of Axholme

2010-11-09T10:22:00.000+02:00

A few years ago we travelled to the UK and visited churches in villages where ancestors lived, and in some places found family tombstones.One of the places we visited was Crowle, in the Isle of Axholme, Lincolnshire, where my Vause family came from. We couldn't find any Vause tombstones in the churchyard, though there were a couple for the Bunyee family, and some members of the Vause family

Bagot family forum

2010-10-27T10:26:00.000+02:00

In the past few weeks I've had quite a lot of correspondence with people researching the Bagot family, and we've had a fruitful exchange of information.As a result of this, and to facilitate further exchanges, we've set up a Bagot family forum on YahooGroups, and invite other Bagot researchers to join us there. The forum is intended mainly for people who are interested in or descended from Bagot

Tombstone Tuesday: Tintagel churchyard

2010-10-12T12:55:00.000+02:00

No members of our family in this picture of Tintagel churchyard in Cornwall. we had some how were born here, but none, apparently, who died here. The war memorial may be of interest to some.

Recording sources and documents

2010-09-25T09:35:00.000+02:00

A few weeks ago I met Dennis Allsopp for lunch. Dennis lives in Australia, but visits South Africa occasionally on business, and one of his interests is developing the Genota family of genealogical note-taking software.He had read my blog post on Keeping track of paper files | Hayes & Greene family history and decided to take up the challenge of developing a replacement for the Research Data

South African genealogy and family history: Frequently-Asked Questions (FAQ)

2010-09-09T08:08:00.000+02:00

If you are a newcomer to South African genealogy, you may have a lot of questions. Here are some answers to some of the most frequently asked questions:WHERE'S THE BEST PLACE TO BEGIN?If you're asking this on the Internet, presumably you have access to a web browser, and one of the best places to begin with South African genealogy is right here: http://home.global.co.za/~mercon/WHERE CAN I FIND

America Before Pearl Harbor - Early Kodachrome Images

2010-09-06T07:36:00.000+02:00

Family and social historians might find some of these old photos interesting, even if you don't live in America. Daily Kos: America Before Pearl Harbor - Early Kodachrome Images:When we think of America during the Great Depression, we often picture it in shades of grey. It was a grim era and nearly all of the photographs we see are in black and white.When I was at school we used to have a lot of

Index of newspaper transcriptions

2010-09-04T11:40:00.000+02:00

Sue McKay transcribed a lot of newspaper material replating to Southern Africa, which can be searched at the sGSSA site here. Now Anton Dil had provided a list of some of the names recroded there, which can be useful so you can know what to search for.Zambia & Rhodesia Genealogy leads...: A-G Index to Sue Mackay's postings:We are all indebted to Sue Mackay for her tireless transcribing of

Connected Histories: Sources for Building British History, 1500-1900 | Institute of Historical Research

2010-09-04T05:35:00.000+02:00

This looks as though it will be a useful resource once it gets going.Connected Histories: Sources for Building British History, 1500-1900 | Institute of Historical Research:Early modern and nineteenth-century Britain is one of the times and places in history for which the largest number of digital sources is available. These have been created by universities, archives and commercial providers,

A fresh start for this blog

2010-09-02T11:24:00.000+02:00

I'm revamping this old family history blog, which has been dormant for a couple of years, and turning it into a general family history and genealogy blog. Our personal family history research will still mostly be on our other blog, which is on WordPress, which is better for things like posting family photos.This blog will be for more general posts on family and local history and genealogy. News,

Reviving this blog

2010-09-02T07:46:00.000+02:00

I've been thinking of reviving this blog.I stopped adding to it about two years ago when Google were making all kinds of changes to the Blogger software, and there were more and more bugs in it. Like a lot of other bloggers, I moved this blog to WordPress, which seemed more stable.Now the Blogger software is much improved, and for some purposes has some advantages over WordPress, and so it might

This blog has a new home

2008-05-11T08:41:00.003+02:00

This blog has a new home at http://hayesgreene.wordpress.com/.I have moved the older entries over to there, but the comments entered on the Haloscan comment utility may not have been moved.I had to move it because every time I tried to read the blog here, I got a "403 forbidden" message, so I could not read either the entries or the comments.I hope that the new system, called WordPress, proves

Problem with this blog

2008-05-10T17:59:00.003+02:00

All of a sudden, I can no longer read this blog.It seems that I can add stuff to it, but there is a bug so that I can't read it. It seems that there is a problem with the Blogger software, run by Google.I can still post stuff, but I can't read what I've posted, which means I also can't read any comments or responses.If you want to respond to this message, please do so on my WordPress blog, which

Family WikiSpaces

2008-05-07T11:33:00.005+02:00

You may have heard of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit, which is one of the most useful sources of information on the Internet.Now we have started a family history Wiki on Wikispaces, and we invite all members of the family to have a look at it and join it.The Hayes and Green family history space This WikiSpace, called "hayesgreene" is for members of the Hayes, Greene and

Josh Growden sets under 15 high jump record

2008-04-03T09:12:00.002+02:00

I'm not sure which branch of the Growden family Josh Growden belongs to, but his record is worth recording. But he is a pupil at Clare High School, South Australia. clipped from www.diigo.comJosh Growden on his way to setting a new record in high jump.The Clare High School sports carnival was held on Wednesday,

Bridget Hayes -graduation

2008-03-06T18:25:00.003+02:00

Our daughter Bridget graduated yesterday at Athens University as a Master of Theology (I think).Pictures here (the pictures are on Facebook, and you have to be logged in to see them).

Hailee Growden in volleyball team

2008-03-01T10:10:00.002+02:00

As I've said before, I don't know if any how Hailee Growden is related, burt here's a snippet of news anyway. clipped from www.herald-mail.comThe Hagerstown Community College volleyball team underwent a changing of the guard Thursday at the HCC athletic complex.Three Williamsport players signed Thursday - middle

Simon's birthday

2008-02-28T19:23:00.004+02:00

It is our son Simon's 30th birthday today, and to celebrate he didn't go to work.Here he is with our puppy Fluffy Lumpkin, three and a half months old.

Found! Ida Carolina von Lilienstein, wife of Henry Green

2008-01-19T10:50:00.000+02:00

One of the long-enduring mysteries of the GREEN family history has at last been solved, thanks to Ione Evans of New Zealand.Henry Green, the British Resident of the Orange River Sovereignty in the early 1850s, came to South Africa some time in the 1840s, as did several of his siblings, including Fred (Val's great great grandfather), Edward, Charles and Arthur.It was known that Henry Green married

My Heritage web site

2008-01-12T08:35:00.001+02:00

I got a strange e-mail message today saying that several people's family trees had matches with mine.I went to the linked web site, where i was apparently a member, and my family tree was there, but with several thousand more people than it actually has. I have no recollection of joining the site, but I had a look at it, and some of the matches seemed interesting, though some of them seemed to

Some Stooke descendants added

2008-01-09T03:43:00.000+02:00

I've just entered some data that sent in e-mails from Mike Gouge and Barbara Cox. Mike Gouge sent information on descendants of George Frederick Stooke (4590) and Alfred Thomas Stooke (4592), including information on the Hanna, Matura, Kymer and Brennan families. Barbara Cox sent information on Richard Elworthy who married Annie Stooke, and settled in Australia.

Family visits

2007-12-27T10:52:00.000+02:00

Val's sister Elaine Machin (nee Greene) came from Durban on the bus to visit family in Gauteng over Christmas, and we had tea with her and her son Greg and granddaughter Abby this afternoon.The picture shows Greg with Abby, Elaine and Val.

Val's birthday and name day

2007-11-25T11:27:00.000+02:00

It was Val's birthday and Name Day today (St Katherine of Alexandria), and we had a pretty busy day. First we went to the Hours and Readers Service at Mamelodi, and then went to the annual prizegiving at St Athanasius School in Tembisa, with the monks from St Thomas's Orthodox Church in Sunninghill. Here is Val with Fr Evsevije (Eusebius).At the prizegiving just about all the children got

Ogilvie family and other news

2007-11-25T07:12:00.000+02:00

Yesterday we had a letter from Andy Blum in the USA, asking about a David Ogilvie who was mentioned in a family history newsletter from Blue Earth, Minnesota, USA.This David Ogilvie (1852-1943) had a fairly interesting life, and Andy wondered if he was related to the Ogilvie family of the Eastern Cape, from which Andy himself is descended.We couldn't trace any connection, however.The Ogilvie

Hailee Growden chosen as queen of the Mummers Parade

2007-10-28T14:21:00.001+02:00

Does anyone know where Hailee Growden fits in to the family? clipped from www.herald-mail.comMiss Maryland Shana Powell, left, crowns Williamsport High School's Hailee Growden as the 2007 Alsatia Mummers Parade queen. (Photo credit: Joe Crocetta / Staff Photographer)Williamsport High School’s Hailee Growden was

Romange Growden objects to cemetery party

2007-10-27T10:10:00.001+02:00

Romange Growden has objected to a Halloween party in Palmetto, Florida. Not sure if she's related. clipped from www.myfoxtampabay.comRomange Growden says she's mortified the place where her husband and mother are buried -- and the place she'll eventually be -- is the site for a Halloween party. "I just don't see

Hayes, Dunn, Doddrell

2007-10-26T09:30:00.001+02:00

Louise Doddrell left a message in the Bravenet Message Forum (see sidebar for link).She is descended from Gertrude Hayes who married Robert Seymour Dunn, and we're looking forward to an exchange of family history information.

Hospital

2007-09-19T09:13:00.000+02:00

I took Val back to Sunninghill Hospital yesterday, and they checked her arm, said it was healing, but she now needs to visit a physiotherapist, and must be weaned from the sling gradually.

Accident

2007-08-09T07:10:00.000+02:00

Val went to a course for work in Johannesburg on Monday and Tuesday, and fell down the stairs at the Balalaika Hotel in Sandton on the way down to the parking garage. When she got to the car she found her arm wasn't working, so she phoned me and Jethro to come and fetch her, as she couldn't drive.I took her to Sunninghill Hospital on the way home, and they put her arm in a sling and did all sorts

And you thought your family had skeletons in the cupboard

2007-07-10T07:03:00.000+02:00

And you thought your family had skeletons in the cupboard?How about this: Yes, I'm related to that Himmler.

Cottam and Bagot and reading novels

2007-06-21T11:38:00.000+02:00

I went to the LDS Family History Centre in Johannesburg today and transcribed more baptism records for the Cottam, Bagot and Mashiter families.I reread Rider Haggard's novel Allan Quatermain, and found that family history made me enjoy it more, as it had links with my great grandfather Wyatt Vause and Val's great grandfather Daniel William Pearson. I've written about it more fully in my

Emily Growden

2007-06-14T11:35:00.000+02:00

I'm not sure if this is one of ours, but I found it on Athens Exchange:Say It In Slang is a vocally sound record, excuse the corny pun. Gonzales delivers his signature dreamlike vocals, but one thing that sets this album apart from other M Coast records is that Emily Growden, wife of band member Derek Almstead, contributed her voice to lead a few of the songs. Her light, feathery voice is a

Miscellaneous family and research information

2007-05-13T10:08:00.000+02:00

Today I moved 367 records of people from one genealogical program to another. Most of them were in material sent by cousins, quite a lot relating to the Nipper and Benoke families (descended from William and Ann Allen of Winscombe, Somerset). I hope to have a kind of consolidated pool of information about the descendants of William and Ann Allen to share with any members of the family who are

Message forum and guest book - gatvol

2007-04-29T07:15:00.000+02:00

As you know, there is a message forum and a guest book that you can use for introductory messages and things that aren't in reply to any particular blog posting.Here are the usage statistics for your message forum service for 2007. Every time a message is posted in either the guest book or message forum I get a notification by e-mail and get all excited, thinking there's a cousin with

A quiet week

2007-04-19T09:19:00.000+02:00

Not too much to report on the family history front over the last couple of weeks. We've been recovering after Easter and all the pigging out in bright week. You can say what you like about Easter eggs -- I like mine fried, with bacon. Actually our Bright Week breakfast was the BEST breakfast: Bacon, Egg, Sausage and Tomato.Taking some people back home after the Easter vigil at about 3:30 AM we

Robert Laing of Colington

2007-04-11T10:49:00.000+02:00

Mon 19 Mar 2007 carries an obituary for a South African genealogist, Robert Laing of Colington, who died on 12 March, 2007, in Johannesburg, aged 58.Robert Laing was sometime chairman of the Genealogical Society of South Africa, and was an enthusiastic researcher into genealogy and heraldry, though rather given to claiming dubious and even outright spurious titles for himself, though his

Huguenot ancestors from Brandenburg

2007-04-02T09:47:00.000+02:00

A little less than a year ago I blogged about the Falkenberg branch of Val's family, where we discovered a couple more generations after more than 30 years of searching. But Val's great-great grandfather Christian Falkenberg married as his second wife Justine (Jessie) Schultz, who was 9 years old when they came out on the ship together from Germany.Back when we first started we found that the

Internet problems

2007-03-24T11:05:00.000+02:00

Still having problems with Internet access. We bought an extra 2 gig of access till the end of the month, but it meant having a new temporary account and changing all sorts of settings, and in the process some e-mail was lost, as they put in the wrong address. Things seem to be working for now, though, so if you sent any e-mail to which you expected a reply, please resend. And please, before

No web access

2007-03-19T00:10:00.000+02:00

I've had no access to the Web since last Thursday (15 March), and am posting this from an internet cafe, so there won't be any new postings or responses to comments here until access is restored, whenever that may be. So if you've made a comment on this blog and there has been been no response, that is why.I'm not sure what the problem is -- my normal e-mail still seems to be working for now,

Benoke family - Allen descendants

2007-03-15T05:27:00.000+02:00

June Murphy has just sent me a lot of information on the family of her great grandfather Hooper Scott Benoke, and from it I've been able to to work out that June and I are 5th cousins, and we are both descended from William and Ann Allen of Winscombe, Somerset.The Allen family seems to have been quite prolific. At various times I've discovered mysterious cousins staying with Hayes relatives in

Waiting...

2007-03-14T03:53:00.000+02:00

Nothing much to report.Several people have got in touch over the last couple of months, and promised to get back to us with more information, but so far none of them have.Just writing this to show that this blog hasn't been abandoned.

A few more Hayes bits

2007-02-23T05:34:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I went to the LDS Family History Centre in Johannesburg, and looked at the microfilms of the parish registers of St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol. A lot were faint and illegible, but I did manage to find the marriage of John Hayes to Margaritta Jane Caple, and the baptism of their son William Wickham Hayes. John Hayes was the brother of my great great grandfather James Andrew Hayes.The Caple

Allen, Williams, Benoke, and Nipper families of Somerset

2007-02-19T07:22:00.000+02:00

June Murphy replied to a query I had left on the RootsWeb message boards, about the Allen, Williams, Benoke and Nipper families of Somerset. She is descended from Hooper Scott Benoke, who was staying with his grandfather Giles Williams in the 1861 census.June also left a message in our message forum (see sidebar), that Hooper Scott Benoke is her great grandfather, and descended from Ann Williams

Death of Mary Jane Conway

2007-02-19T01:53:00.000+02:00

I've just had a phone call from Belinda Kalantar to say that her mother, Mary Jane Conway, had died a couple of weeks ago.She couldn't give details, as the phone line was so noisy (I'd only just reported the problem to Telkom when she phoned), and I'll only be able to post this if there are enough clear second on the line.Mary Jane Conway (born Parsons), or Jane, as she liked to be known, was

Mocine family update

2007-02-17T10:38:00.000+02:00

Lois in Wisconsin has just sent us an update on the Mocine family history and we'll be checking through it to see if there are any births, marriages and deaths we don't have, and bring our family tree up to date. Thanks Lois!Lois lives among strange creatures called Yoopers who wander around in the snow feeding deer, if her blog is to be believed!For a long tim,e we were in correspondence with

Crighton or Creighton

2007-02-09T00:42:00.000+02:00

When we started doing family history, soon after we were married, one of the first things we did was to ask Val's grandmother, Emma le Sueur, (formerly Greene, formerly Chelin, born Decker), about the family. Val's grandfather was her second husband, Allan Greene, and she couldn't remember very much about her in-laws, other than that their name was Creighton, and they were leather merchants in

Devantier family

2007-02-05T00:00:00.000+02:00

A few years ago Deborah Devantier posted this on a message board, and I must have missed it at the time:I am researching my husband's family tree and know that his gradfather Otto Wilhelm Devantier arrived with his mother and 6 siblings in Queensland Australia in 1874. Unfortunately his father died on the voyage out and all we know was that he was Carl Wilhelm Friedrich Devantier born 1834 in

Lost cousins

2007-01-24T03:09:00.000+02:00

If you have British ancestors, you might find the Lost Cousins website useful.It's free to join, and what you do is enter any members of your family who appeared on the 1881 census of England, Wales or Scotland. And you can find the census on line, too.Once you've entered them, the Lost Cousins site attempts to match them with data entered by other members, and if you've entered the same family

This explains everything

2007-01-14T09:58:00.000+02:00

About a week ago I wrote a bit of family news here and invited some family members to make contact and respond in some way -- leave a comment, sign the guestbook, something, anything.But after a week, only silence. Oh, there was a Christmas card from cousin Josephine Tsegaye (nee Hayes), but that doesn't count, because she's not on the Internet anyway.But now I believe I've found what the problem

Family news, links, odds and ends

2007-01-08T11:52:00.000+02:00

News of 2006Check our family home page for general news and background, especially if you landed here without knowing who we are and are not sure if you know us.Several friends and family members have sent us Christmas cards and letters, giving news of themselves and their doings, and this is a kind of response to them.Val, after working for ADT security for 8 years, left for a new job at

New Growden cousin

2007-01-02T06:25:00.000+02:00

Jackie Seaman recently joined the Growden family discussion forum, and has sent me a chart of the descendants of William Growden and Elizabeth Sandercock she had managed to trace, which shows that she is my fourth cousin once removed.She has quite a few descendants that I don't have, and I have some that she doesn't have, so we're going to have fun over the next few months comparing notes.

Happy New Year!

2006-12-31T09:38:00.000+02:00

Happy New Year to all friends and relatives out there.We're taking a break between Christmases, as we will be getting two bites of the cherry this year. We had Christmas last week at St Nicholas Church in Brixton, and next Sunday we'll be having it over again at St Thomas's Church, Sunninghill Park, which is on the Old Calendar.

James Andrew Allen Hayes and Emily Healls

2006-12-17T08:09:00.000+02:00

I haven't had much new family history information for quite a while, partly because it's the summer holidays and all the archives are closed or closing for Christmas, and partly because I've been busy with other things, which those interested can read about on my other blogs.But on the Bristol and Somerset mailing list someone called Liz posted something about the HEALLS family of Bristol, and

Running out of bandwidth

2006-11-27T08:25:00.000+02:00

For the last couple of days we have had no internet access, because we have used up our 2 Gig limit.This means that we cannot use e-mail or any other services for one week out of four, and so if anyone wonders why we haven't responded to e-mails etc, that is why.There seems to be an idea the "broadband" means unlimited access, and so people scoff at complaints about sending e-mails with HTML

Killed in air raid on Bristol

2006-11-11T06:02:00.000+02:00

17/18 SEPTEMBER 1940. BRISTOL C.B. Central Division At 83 Mina Road, St.Werburgh's COOK, Isabelle Niven (67) Widow of Alfred Rowland Cook. COOK, Ivy Gladys (27) of 23 Stroud Road, Patchway. Daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Pike of Teddington, Middx. Wife of William John Tod Cook. COOK, Rowland John (6m) of 23 Stroud Road, Patchway. Son of William John Tod and Ivy Gladys Cook. Died

Growden in Western Australia

2006-11-09T06:46:00.000+02:00

Some time ago I noticed in a news item a reference to a Growden Street in Mereddin, WA.I wrote to ask if there was any information about the origin of the name, and received this from the Mereddin public library:In case no one has got back to you, Growden Street was named after Frederick William Growden. He was the first chairman of the Merredin Roads Board, when it was established in 1911. The

Some more Francis information

2006-10-09T06:04:00.000+02:00

Shelagh Spencer, who has long been researching Natal families, put me in touch with Maeve Haigh, of Norfolk, England, who is a member of the Gunningham family.We know that Cecil Arthur Francis, son of Arthur Walpole Francis and grandson of Margaret Agnes Anne Green, had married a Billy Gunningham and died in Fort Portal, Uganda, in about 1940, and had heard that they had a son Peter.Maeve has

Family visits. births: Ellis, Growdon

2006-10-05T08:50:00.000+02:00

Val's cousin Enid Ellis (nee Gammage) was with us for a couple of days this week. She was visiting from Windhoek, Namibia, and came through Botswana. It was good to have a chance to catch up, as we hadn't had a chance to talk properly since we visited Windhoek back in 1991. Enid has gone on to stay with ther sister Maggie Foley in Roodepoort.An e-mail message from Wayne Growdon, somewhere in