Trove Tuesday - The Catholic Press

It's been a while since I have written a blog post. Work has been hectic. However, I expect to be busy very soon checking out The Catholic Press on Trove. I have many alerts to newly digitised articles coming in the next month All of these are about some of my Catholic families in NSW. These families live in Armidale, Uralla, Cooma and Cootamundra. If you have CAtholic families why not take a look now.

Trove Tuesday - Philip Merchant Tenterfield

I love it when Trove allows you to find events that would not be easily discovered without a random search.

This post concerns my great grandfather, Philip Richard Merchant of Tenterfield. His story made both the Brisbane and Sydney papers.

Sydney Morning Herald, 12 March 1931, p. 10

DRAGGED BY A HORSE

TENTERFIELD, Wednesday

Late yesterday afternoon Philip Merchant,

a married man with 11 children, a resident 

of the Tenterfield district, suffered severe in-

juries when he was dragged several hundred

yards by a horse. He was riding on a cart-

load of wood, and, when he attempted to

jump off, his foot became caught in the reins,

tearing the winkers off the horse and causing

it to bolt. Merchant was dashed against

three telegraph poles. His condition is

critical.

Philip survived this accident. He died 20 years later in Tenterfield aged 68.

Trove Tuesday - The Baumgarten brothers and Ned Kelly

Many years ago when I was beginning my family research I made contact with a relative in Victoria who I believed was my grandfather's first cousin. I had sent him a letter with a hunch that he was possibly named after the two towns in which his parents were born - Franklin (Tasmania) and Heathcote (Victoria). My guess was correct and we corresponded for several years.

One of Frank's letters dropped a bombshell. The Baumgarten family had connections with Ned Kelly. As this was pre internet days I raced off to the nearest library and went straight to the indexes of all the the books about Ned Kelly. There they were -  Gustav and William Baumgarten.

My connection to this family is through my great great aunt Catherine Ellen Dawson who married Gustav Baumgarten in Melbourne on 30th November 1876.

Trove Tuesday - Australian Women's Weekly

For this week's Trove Tuesday post I was lucky enough to find mention of a family member in The Australian Women's Weekly.

The Australian Women's Weekly, 19 December 1956, p. 46

Royal Melbourne Championship Show 1956

McWilliam's

Awarded

T.C. Seabrook Trophy

for 

Most Successful Exhibitor

In all still table wine classes

Thomas Claudius Seabrook was a wine merchant and judge. You can read his biography in The Australian Dictionary of Biography here.

An advertisement taken out by McWilliams in The Argus of 5th November 1956 states that this was the first year this award was presented.

Australasia through a lens

My inspiration for today's post came from my Facebook feed via Gould Genealogy.

This post alerted me to the UK National Archive Flickr launch of an Australian collection of images titled Australasia Through a Lens.

My first thought was of course to wonder if there were any images I could assist to identify. This is not as silly as it seems as my great, great, great grandfather Henry William Seabrook and his sons were responsible for building many prominent buildings in Hobart.

Sure enough in the Tasmanian folder I found a copy of a photo of the Royal Society's Museum on the corner of Argyle and Macquarie Streets, Hobart.

Henry William Seabrook and his son, Henry William Jnr, built the Royal Society Museum on the corner of Argyle and Macquarie Streets, Hobart between 1861 and 1862 at a cost of £3772. A prominent architect of the time, Henry Hunter was responsible for the design of the building.

The Royal Society's Museum, Hobart

Our family is very fortunate as a descendant of Henry William Seabrook, Malcolm Ward has published a book Built by Seabrook - Hobart Buildings Constructed by the Seabrook Family from the 1830s. This book documents over 40 buildings built by the Seabrook family in Hobart spanning 4 generations over a 100 year period.

Trove Tuesday - Tough Street, Hawthorn

Once again, Trove has provided me with useful family details and another search to clarify information found in these Death and In Memoriam notices.

The Argus, Monday 5th February, 1894, p. 1

SEABROOK - On the 3rd inst., at Tough-street, Hawthorn, 

Charles Stephen, second son of W.J. Seabrook, aged 19 years.

The following year two In Memoriam notices were published.

The Argus, Monday 4th February, 1895, p. 1

IN MEMORIAM

SEABROOK - In loving remembrance of Charles

Stephen, second eldest son of William John and

Mary Seabrook, who died at Ravenswood, Tough-

street, Hawthorn, on 3rd February, 1894

SEABROOK - In loving memory of my dearly-beloved

brother, Charles Stephen Seabrook, who died on

February 3rd, 1894.

Charlie's gone from his home below'

sad it was to hear the blow;

But now he's in the realms above,

Trusting in our Savour's love.

(Harry Seabrook)

My first thought was to look up where Tough Street was in Hawthorn. A quick search on google maps revealed no such address. I remembered that a previous family street in Melbourne had had its name changed so wondered if that was also the case with Tough Street.

I send an email to the Hawthorn Historical Society and was pleased to receive this message from Elizabeth a few days later.

Tough Street is now called Yarra Grove. It was originally named after Alexander Tough who lived at number 18 from 1876.

Yarra Grove runs between the end of Yarra Street and Evansdale Road Hawthorn.

Google map showing location of Tough Street which has been renamed Yarra Grove.

A look at Google street view reveals a mixture of new houses and some very large old properties and a terraced group on Evansdale Road bordering on Yarra Grove.

Now that I have located the street, I need to find where I can find Ravenswood. A search on Trove for Ravenswood Tough street turned up an interesting find.

The Argus, 24 September, 1890, p. 1

TOUGH - On the 23rd inst. (accidentally), at his

mother's residence, Ravenswood, Evansdale-road,

Hawthorn, James Campbell Tough, second youngest

beloved son of Margaret and the late Alexander

Tough, aged 22 years.

This death notice says that Ravenswood was in Evansdale Road. Were there two Ravenswoods?

The Argus, 1 February 1902, p. 3

HAWTHORN FREEHOLDS

RAVENSWOOD, TOUGH-STREET, two-storey

eight-roomed brick house, on land 72ft x

293 ft.

A beautiful position, on the bend of the Yarra.

The Argus, 2 May 1903, p. 2

TRUSTEES' REALISING SALE by PUBLIC

AUCTION,

To Wind-up Estate,

Of that BRICK TWO-STORIED BALCONY

RESIDENCE Known as

"RAVENSWOOD,"

TOUGH-STREET, HAWTHORN

(Three minutes from Railway Station),

For ABSOLUTE SALE

A PERFECT 

containing Nine Very Spacious and Lofty Rooms

(21 x 15 &c.), Grand Entrance-hall,

Bathroom, Pantry, Laundry, Outhouse, &c.

MAGNIFICENT BLOCK OF LAND

Having a Frontage of 72ft. to Tough-Street by the

Splendid Depth of 293ft. to the River.

The Seabrooks either didn't own Ravenswood as Charles Seabrook's father William didn't die until 1914 and the above advertisement says the sale was winding up an estate or they purchased and sold to another buyer in the interim.

Of course these finds have left me with more questions.

1. Exactly when did the Seabrooks live at Ravenswood?
2. How do I solve the confusion about the two addresses for Ravenswood?

What turned out to be a very simple death notice has led to a reasonable amount of research.

Parallels between education and genealogy

It's back to work for me tomorrow after the summer break but hopefully I will still be able to allocate time to my passion. I will just have to be more disciplined.



Over the last few days I've been reading Will Richardson's Why School? How Education must change when Learning and Information are Everywhere.

In it he shared several unlearning/relearning ideas for educators. As I read them I could see the point he was making not only for educators but for the genealogy world as well.

• Share everything (or at least something) To those who share best genealogical practices and thinking. Thank you. You are sharing some of your knowledge with those who are seeking it. Often I have found tips quite useful and file that new knowledge away for a time when it is needed. Other times I can relate to the post. Sometimes I just love to read the stories you have written. I hope I too have shared information that has been of use to others. There are so many ways we can share our work - blogging, twitter, Facebook, Google+, online trees.

• Discover, don't deliver - I had more difficulty finding a parallel for this point. But then I thought that maybe my personal example would be my blog posts that start with an object and tell what I know about it. This is usually followed by me asking questions about what else I can discover about it. I could just deliver the final product but I feel the process of showing readers what questions to ask could help them in their personal family discoveries.

• Talk to strangers - To those of you who may be reading this post and haven't made contact with a stranger online in the genealogy world perhaps now is the time to do so. I have made many online contacts, some of whom I have since met but others who I might not know if I passed them in the street. However, my life has been enriched by these contacts because often these 'strangers' are experts from whom I can learn a lot. "It turns out that strangers have a lot to give us that's worthwhile, and we to them." (Location 445)

• Be a master learner - If we wish to become experts in our chosen field we need to continually improve ourselves by taking part in online webinars, attending lectures and reading books on areas of interest. The list goes on and on. Genealogy is not just about names and dates. Learn about the history of the places they came from, what events could they have witnessed, what may have led them to move across the world, what may their house have looked like.

• Do real work for real audiences - If our work is stored in paper files on our bookshelf or digital files on our computers we certainly don't have a real audience. Writing this I realise that although I have written two books, I still have a lot to share with others. 

• Transfer the power - "guide others through the process of asking questions and finding and connecting with experts" (Location 533)  Perhaps there is some information I have that someone else may pick up and run with and discover much more that I have or have time to investigate.

What do you think?

(Location quotes are on my Kindle app on my iPad)