The heavily worn coin in my possession, a traders’ token, has been handed down through four generations. Who knows how many pockets it has lined or how many times it was traded.
Until it was discovered that there was a familial link to the coin, it was deemed to be just a curious piece of Fremantle’s history.
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Later known as Lord Forrest, a young John Forrest at one time, happened to be the Acting-Comptroller of Prisons, in Western Australia.
Regular inspection of the vast Fremantle Gaol was one of his duties and on one visit, Forrest was informed by one of the prison authorities of the misdeeds of a terrible ruffian, who had to be kept in irons, as well as solitary confinement lest he should murder somebody.
The Acting Comptroller desired to see this barbarian, who was brought into his presence with a 24lb. iron on each leg. His hands were secured, and three warders guarded him. Continue reading
How often do you hear people lament over the missed opportunities to ask their loved ones all the questions they’ve wanted to know the answers to, but now it’s too late?
One thing I bring up with friends often is to make sure you interview your elderly loved ones. Ask them all the things you want to know before illness steals that memory or worse, they’re no longer around.
That information becomes such a valuable heirloom, not only for yourself but for generations to come.
The easiest way to do this is just to sit down with a cup of tea and ask questions while you record the conversation using a smart phone’s voice recorder, most have the app inbuilt these days.
If you want to go the extra mile, use a camera to film or even go the whole hog and create a mini bio-documentary like I did with my great aunt.
Is it odd that my genealogical fantasies include stumbling across local, 19th Century glass negative plates at a 2nd hand market or that someone contacts me about some amazing long, lost family heirloom? Unfortunately, this hasn’t come true, but I was able to make it happen for a lucky lady in England!
Earlier this year I visited a 2nd cousin of mine who is into genealogy as much as I am and just before leaving she brought out the most amazing old book that she purchased from an antique dealer many years ago.
The large, earthy, marbled tome was a bit tattered, but it contained over 300 pages of musings, thoughts, poems and events of a woman living through the mid to latter half of the 1800s. Continue reading
One of my favourite hobbies would have to be colouring old photos. To put some colour into the cheeks of an image over 100 years old suddenly brings them to life and lets you see them in a whole new (colourful) light.
I use Adobe Photoshop to colour them, each colour is a separate layer. With up-close portraits I use a combination of colours for the skin; the usual flesh and blush tone, but also blues, yellows and even greens!
When I first started, it was landscapes that caught my fancy, especially streetscapes of my hometowns of Perth and Fremantle.
Corner of Wellington & Barrack Street, Perth, c.1906
But when I started on portraits, especially those of my ancestors, it was truly amazing to be able to see them in a new way. Just adding colour seemed to give them a more multidimensional texture that also gave a feeling of knowing them just that little bit better.
Coloured Photo c.1945
Depending on how immersed you are in family history research, a descendants group on Facebook might be something you could create if you yourself have already researched the family in depth or, if a group already exists, something that could help you immensely if you’re just starting out in your genealogy journey.
Usually, the main point of creating one is to gather all your family contacts in the one place to easily share research and photos, discover new contacts and uncover previously unknown information about the family.
Facebook is also a great tool for tracking down distant family members who may have previously unknown info or photos and having a group makes it easier for that new family member to quickly legitimise your request and hopefully create enough intrigue for them to go research and unearth their own info on their family line.
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Last week I was working on a distant line in my tree that centred around a notable figure, Rowland Taylor. Now Rowland himself is an interesting man. He was born in Northumberland in 1510, growing up under the reign of Henry VIII who separated from Rome forming the Church of England (only so he could divorce his wife and marry another).
Rowland went into the Ministry and became quite a popular pastor who tended the poor and believed in strong family foundations. But when Henry VIII’s successor, son Edward died young, the crown ended up in the hands of Queen Mary who quickly reverted the country back to Catholicism.
This was not good for Rowland… Continue reading
Sally’s Fremantle Memoirs
Sarah Agnes (Sally) Hundt (nee Mocken), provided by her daughter Robyn.
I was born on a bright summer’s morning according to my mother’s autograph book, July 19th, 1921. Ten pounds in weight and named Sarah Agnes. According to Mum, she told Dad to name me Hazel Rosemary but Dad, who till the day he died I’d never seen affected by liquor, got drunk with his shipmates on the way to the birth registry, couldn’t remember Mum’s names so named me after his eldest sister and his mother. I was always and still to this day, called Sally.
My Grandmother lived on the corner of Nairn & Market Street and we lived in a cottage on Collie Street, no. 22, now an estate agency.
In those days, 1921-1941, all around Collie, Nairn, Essex and Marine Parade (Terrace), there was a polyglot of nationalities; Italians, Yugoslavs, Portuguese, Germans, English, no Asians – white Australian policy was enforced then I believe. There was a Japanese laundry in Bannister Street and two Chinese fruit & vegetable shops in South Terrace though.
An Italian family, named Vinci, lived in 20 Collie Street and when they moved the Gumina’s came to live there. In 23, a Greek family named Anastas lived, in 26, another Italian family, the Rottendellas – red headed or as the Italians say titian headed. No. 26 is now a restaurant.
Next door to my Gran in Market Street was a wonderful Italian lady, Mamma Migliore. Mamma had seven sons and always yearned for a daughter. When she eventually had a daughter after 17 years the daughter was stillborn and Mamma died. Tony, one of her sons, was a very dear friend of mine till he died a couple of years ago. He was born a month after me and we always kept in touch through the years.
Mamma spoilt me rotten. Always, when I came down to Gran’s from Boulder, inviting me into dinner where huge servings of spaghetti was put in front of me and much pinching of the cheeks and ‘mia bellos!’ was the order of the day.
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To tell the history of Perth photography involves a little history about the art of photography itself. The thought of capturing an image had been around for a few hundred years, with even a fictional tale detailing an accurate developing process in the late 1700’s. But the 1820’s was the pivitol point when photography as we know it came into crude existence through Frenchman, Nicéphore Niépce. It was his associate Louis Daguerre who later used a polished silver plate covered with silver iodide and exposed it to light through a camera lens to invent the Daguerreotype process, that was the first to be commercially introduced in 1839.
It took 7 years for the first known ‘Daguerreotype Artist’ to visit Western Australia, when Robert Hall visited Perth, staying for a few days at Mrs Leeder’s Hotel. He charged 1 Guinea for a photo with a frame or £1/ 5s for a photo in a pressed tin, ‘Morocco’ casket, thus restricting his patronage to only the most wealthy colonialists. Unfortunately none of his captures have survived.
Being a remote outpost on the other side of a busier east coast hindered the amount of photographers who visited Perth and it wasn’t until the 1850’s that permanent studios started to pop up. New Yorker, Samuel Scrivener Evans appears to be the first in 1853 when he opened a Daguerreotype Gallery at the Castle Hotel in Fremantle before later moving to Perth. None of Evans’ photos appear to have survived either.
Evans was followed in November 1857 by the Duryea Brothers of Adelaide, working from St George’s Terrace and later Hay Street, charging 10s/6d per sitting and Frederick Herbert who set up shop in Howick Street, Perth.
They were quickly followed in August 1858 by a Mr Curtis setting up business from his home at Bazaar Terrace, Perth. Continue reading
I’d like to bring to your attention, the story of one Grace Ellen Vernon Bussell and the family’s stockman, Sam Yebble Isaacs, the son of a Native American mariner and a local Wardandie tribe mother.
While they’re not part of my family tree, the Bussell family are intertwined with mine, the first of their family arrived at the Swan River Colony with my great-great-great grandfather, John Foss Tonkin, on the ship Warrior, in 1830.
This story is about the heroic, brave actions of this young girl and the stockman who worked for her father. They lived on a large property in what is now part of the Margaret River area while the nearby town of Busselton is named after the prominent family.
The Genetic Arborist 