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Friday 15 December 2023

A Christmas Tradition- Mum's Christmas cake

 

As an annual  Christmas tradition, since I had married in 1977 I’ve made a version of my Mum’s Christmas cake as passed down to me. I’m sure this recipe was passed down to my mother when she got married.




I think I let her “off the hook” for fulfilling this seasonal obligation by volunteering to make it each year until she died in 1992.

Mum's Christmas Cake recipe -given in 1977

 

This nearly 70-year-old  recipe is in pounds and ounces but that’s not the only noticeable difference between the ingredients used and the methods of today.  Traditional scales usually convert these measurements for me but this year I tried to go it alone, converting the measurements to grams on my Thermomix -a machine never even dreamt of by my mother.  Only the butter, sugar and eggs can really be accommodated in the bowl. The dry ingredients and the sherry-soaked fruits (hic) take up too much room.

 One of the ingredients listed is the two baby food tins of stewed and pureed prunes. Sadly, or probably thankfully for the modern baby, they are no longer selling in the baby food aisle having been replaced by minced avocado and broccoli or some such thing.  The prunes from memory gave the cake a darker look and were plentiful years ago due to many mothers being obsessed with babies’ bowel movements.


My biggest surprise when I got the recipe from Mum was the fruit-soaking method. I knew the obligatory flagon of McWilliam’s Cream Sherry was purchased in preparation for the fruit plumping each year with the rest left for a few Christmas drinks with the neighbours.  I remember my mother’s mortification one year when the flagon needed replacement before the cake was made! “Robyn, don’t let the neighbours hear about that ”shhhed my Mum. In the olden days, the purchase of the 2-litre flagon was a Christmas expense, a bit decadent and reserved for special occasions only. Sadly today it is a trifle of our annual alcohol expense.

 As I perused the recipe, I checked the sherry requirement. I looked at Mum- is this right? Required for the cake -4 tablespoons of sherry.

                                                   " 4 TABLESPOONS OF SHERRY"


The actual wording was “4 tablespoons sherry (generous)”.  Remembering back to the time we had to replace the sherry I was onto Mum! To be fair modern recipes say along the lines of 14TB of Brandy and 250g Ginger wine.

Another thing I remember is the size of the mixing bowl you needed.  Back then it was a large enamel bowl from the laundry, suitably sterilised. The fruit was soaked overnight. The mixture was much larger than your average cake and, in some families, there may have been a tradition of stirring the mix with a wooden spoon around this big bowl.

I still have Mum’s square baking tin but it is rarely used as no one likes or needs a little slice of fruit cake from the big slab of cake at Chrissie lunch today. The fruit cake baking tin was always lined with layers of brown paper, trimmed and buttered, and then a layer of grease-proof paper. The baking process is simplified today by using only baking paper and a squirt of spray-on oil.  I remember decorating the initial cakes with a sprig of fake holly on top, a pretty pattern of blanched almonds and a frilly red paper decoration around the edges.  Each year the plastic Merry Christmas cake collar was recycled.

 


                   The cake was always decorated with a paper frill and plastic holly leaves on top


Even with the passing of Mum in 1992, I carry on the tradition. Each December I buy the required Sherry, to make a double batch of cake and then use the rest for rum balls, trifles and Christmas truffles. I would describe the 4 tablespoons (generous) as a good glug or two over the mixed fruits stirred and topped up every few days until I have time to make a double batch of cake. Today, it takes in various forms- small cakes, small loaves and ½ loaves to accommodate elderly relatives and extended family.  My family prefers to consume it throughout the January summer holiday, sometimes heated with custard. 

In the absence of an enormous enamel bowl and cringing at the thought of using a laundry bucket I have often used a punchbowl as a suitable reciprocal to marinate and mix.

Christmas cake traditions

Originally in England Christmas cake was made with oatmeal as a sort of porridge eaten on Christmas Eve. Later it evolved into a boiled fruit cake and the addition of eastern spices (cinnamon) to the seasonal dried fruit was associated with the spices brought to Jesus by the three wise men.

It was basically a commonwealth country tradition- dried sultanas from Australia, suet from NZ, apricots from South Africa, spices from Sri Lanka etc

The traditional Christmas cake was a very heavy cake, dark in colour, fairly rich and long life:  kept moist by pumping the fruit prior to cooking and feeding it with alcohol. The tradition was to make it very early and keep it in an airtight container after securing it with holes and putting sherry, brandy or whiskey into the holes every week until Christmas.

From a basic cake, it has morphed and been updated each year by recipe designers and everyone adding their own spin. I’m sure the cake baking was very competitive amongst the Carlingford mothers who brought out slices at pre-Christmas morning and afternoon functions and at neighbourly Christmas and New Year drinks and parties.

I do remember Santa got a slice on Christmas Eve at our Robin Street house along with some of Mum’s shortbread bikkies and a small glass of sherry (if there was any left). Sadly I had to devise my own version of her bikkies. I make loads and loads of these special treats each year. They are possibly more popular than fruit cake.

Sherry -a traditional Christmas aperitif

My sister was born on Christmas Day and didn’t like fruit cake so the Christmas lunchtime cake treat was replaced by that interloper - Pavlova.

 

Pavlova for Helen's birthday 

Later when I met my husband‘s family I found out about other Christmas must-haves such as mince tarts and plum puddings. I was introduced to the ritual of steaming, hanging and “flaming the pud “. Don’t even start me on finding silver threepences. Sadly, I had a deprived childhood of this fun tradition!

After moving to Wollongong, I was exposed to the Italian tradition of eating panettone. Their version of Christmas cake is a much lighter fruit bread style associated with the ending of the 12th night of Christmas around 5 January. I rather like it as an after-Christmas breakfast tradition.

 So while the cakes were in the oven, I wrote this story.  One thing led to another and a bit of research and discovery or two on the internet later…….  Oh my goodness the cakes!



Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Top of Form


 

Wednesday 13 December 2023

Claire Juanita Cornish 1938 to 2023 OAM Wendy and her important performance- Mrs Raffles.

 


The story below is from my memories of  my second cousin Wendy. Any mistakes are mine as there are gaps in time due to breaks in contact with one another. I’m like Wendy- don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story!

 

Wendy was born Claire Juanita Gadsby on 13 March 1938. Her father was William (Bill) Gadsby of London, and her mother was Edith Rita Fell of Stroud. They had married in Melbourne in 1936. She was nicknamed Wendy by her father, my Great Uncle Bill for Wendy from Peter Pan at a very early age. How apt that name was.

About 12 years ago, my Auntie Airdrie had some papers witnessed by Wendy. She pulled me aside and said “Did you know her name is Claire Juanita?” So, her 86 year old cousin only just found out that her official name was Claire Juanita.  I thought that Wendy came from a shortening of Juanita, but her son Stephen claimed that his Grandfather who was an “out- of -the- books eccentric” nicknamed her from the Wendy character of Peter Pan story.

The photo says it's to be a very important performance

Uncle Bill and baby Wendy

Little Wendy became motherless when her mother was institutionalised due to mental illness when she was very young. Believing her mother to be dead, she spent time in Melbourne while Bill was working there, but whenever she lived in Sydney, she was mothered by her father’s sisters, Grace, Lena, Kitty, Edie, Maudie Rose and Julia and spoilt by brothers, Jack and Harry.

Wendy 

She fitted in well with the small families or childless aunts, and occasionally with big families like those of Great Uncle Harold and Great Auntie Kath who helped to also house their own daughters, sons and grandchildren in those post war years of housing shortages. Wendy remembered fondly sitting with her cousin Dorothy each Friday night carefully preparing Dorothy’s glory box items of towels and linen.

She had lived with almost everyone because of her father’s long work hours in the hospitality industry.  As she spent a lot of her childhood around adults in our extended family Wendy picked up all the family stories and perhaps a few secrets. For example, Aunty Kit’s business tips for running a Reception Hall. A number of 21st, engagements and weddings were held there and it was all hands on deck for the catering and serving.

I’ve known Wendy all my life so I picked her brains when I began doing Family History because she knew the extended family better than anyone. She regaled me with lots of fancy stories, some of which I was unsure whether to believe or not. I am pretty sure I don’t believe the one about my Great Grandmother Selina being a mistress of Edward VII even though she points out the family resemblances. 

Being my mother‘s cousin and of a  similar age, Wendy knew Mum (Marlene) and my Grandmother Julia well, and all the ins and outs of the married life of the Kelfs. She had lots of stories about Julia, her working life at Grace Brothers with Auntie Maudie Rose, her romance with the fancy Frank Kelf.  and her religious beliefs.

Wendy, Marlene, Auntie Julia and Douglas

When Wendy finished school, she went to work in an advertising agency, a job I believe she enjoyed immensely. This was in the 1950s. She would call around after work and help my dad babysit us while my mother raced off to complete her university degree at night.

In 1958, Wendy married Dean Bruce Reid Cornish. Electoral Rolls tell us she lived in Wells St West Pennant Hills not far from our place at Carlingford. No doubt Mum and Wendy had the odd coffee or two when my brother Paul and sister Helen were little. They would be playmates with Steven born in 1962 and Danny born in 1964.

Unfortunately, her marriage was short lived and had ended by the time Danny was born. I remember when Danny was born, I was taken back that Wendy had been sitting in her hospital bed, sketching her tiny son, and sending out cards, announcing his birth to her cousins. Others have told me that it was because she was stuck in a corner because there were no rooms at the hospital and she was poked in a corner-probably no one to talk to.

Wendy was a resilient woman and carried on. As a mature age single mother student, she obtained her primary teaching qualifications  passing the course with fantastic grades.  By this time she had moved to the southern side of Sydney living close to Aunty Grace and Bet and close to her Cousin Betty Shortell, husband Ray and her two boys Ian and Jeffrey.  From what I can remember it was just a hop skip and a jump between the Oatley houses. Her best friend, Aunty Pat Hepworth was always around. She was like a second mother to the boys and was always welcomed by the extended Gadsby clan at family  weddings etc.

 After completing her studies, Wendy was eventually appointed to Mortdale PS after Chester Hill, then spent time at Oatley in the 1970s. She retired at age 55 from her position as Principal of Hurstville Grove PS.  From what I’ve been told she was a well-loved if not chaotic teacher around the Mortdale, Oatley and Hurstville area. I can remember her dark horn-rimmed glasses and imagined she was not one to toe the line when a person, teaching method or curriculum did not earn her respect.

Wendy's class at Oatley 1976



She was so proud of her boys Steven and Dan and their partners, Karen and Fran. Over the years two grandsons Jesse and Alexander came along. They in recent years have grown up (literally) and graduated from school and Uni beginning their own careers.

Wendy with sons Dan and Steve, Daughters-in- law Fran and Karen and Grandsons Alex and Jesse 

She was well remembered by her past students and I met some of them in March when they came together for an event Wendy organised. At the last event we were at she kept referring to people in the room as her grandchildren. Knowing that her two grandsons weren’t at the event I shook my head.  Someone explained she was referring to her “adopted” grandkids who were supporting her cause at that time which was the Rotary Thankyou Day.  That’s the sort of person she was.



Page 2 of the jigsaw letter 

Wendy was quirky, regaling us with memories and stories, and always talking at a million miles an hour, putting a spin on everyone’s thoughts and actions.  One of the first bits of family history she sent me was a letter written on a blank jigsaw template. I had to put the puzzle together from the envelop. She had written on both sides -even harder! Perhaps it was a metaphor- Family History is a puzzle to resolve.

Betty Shortell, Harold Gadsby and Wendy visit me to tell me the family story 2011

She was always keen to read the stories I had uncovered. The Gadsbys and the Smith/ Greedus /Baker side never ceased to amaze us once it was unpicked. If only Selina was here to tell us her side of the story.

As the last “with it” family matriarch she was very knowledgeable about the crazy goings on in our family history and more was remembered over the years.  Along with cousin Betty Shortell they took turns in gathering the clans together for Christmas or birthday events. At one of these events, my mother filmed the colonial dress up day Wendy hosted around the Bicentennial and collected up notes for the beginning of my Family Tree. It was good to see all their cousins laughing and talking together at her Oatley bush block. Uncle Bill was interviewed and told of the day the bailiffs turned up during his childhood and tried to seize the furniture and the piano.

Wendy, Marlene, Airdrie and Betty at Doug and Jill's 1982


To everyone’s surprise her mother Rita was released from care after the Richmond Scheme Report recommended release of patients back into the community. This was somewhere in the eighties. If we didn’t know Wendy’s name was Claire we certainly didn’t know about Rita. Wendy was at first shocked to know her mother was even alive, but she was able to have a relationship with her from then until  her eventual death in November 2002 when she was 89.

Rita Gadsby- Wendy's long lost Mum

When I inherited Family History duties I called on Wendy to help me. She and Betty hopped in a train to Wollongong  for the day to fill me in. As soon as I discovered it was 100 years since Gadsbys and the Kelfs arrived in Australia, it was decided to have a Centenary celebration with the wider family in late 2012. She told the stories and Leane Lawrence and I organised the troops. What a great day that was.


Her best friend, Aunty Pat Hepworth was always around. She was like a second mother to the boys and was always welcomed by the extended Gadsby clan at family  weddings etc.

In retirement Wendy travelled  around to various parts of the world with Patty,  Grace and  the two Bettys covering China, Alaska, Africa, Egypt, USA, New Zealand, and the UK. I was most intrigued by the dogsledding in Alaska.

                                        Betty Whitcombe, Pat Hepworth, Betty Shortell, Wendy

Over the years, she inspired students and colleagues with her methods, dedication and fun and passion. When she retired her urge to help others, spilled over to fundraising for many causes. Committees and organisations around the local area where enthusiastically supported by Wendy. Some of these included Bezzina House Lions, Rotary, C.W.A. (the cranky women) Catherine Hamlyn Foundation, Amnesty International,  Grace’s Place, St George Hospital, Jeans for Jeans and Probus etc.

Apparently, Wendy liked to “don a hat” to gain attention on a street corner in Mortdale and many were given as mementoes at her funeral. You did not dare ignore the lady in the beanie or sparkling hat, holding a book of raffle tickets in the local shopping centre daring you to buy a ticket or toss a coin in a bucket.  Many spoke very highly of her and her antics during her numerous eulogies which continued during her wake. I think all her functions and events kept the Mortdale RSL afloat.  Locally, she was known as Mrs Raffles or the Raffle Queen. Can you believe she had “RAFFLES” number plates?

Imagine Rita’s joy to see her talented daughter be honoured in the Queen’s Birthday list. The office of the Governor General announced on Monday, 10 June 2002 that Wendy was to be included in the Queen’s Birthday honours for an Order of Australia Medal (OAM). This was for service to the community as a fundraiser, particularly for the Cancer Care Lodge and Lamrock Community at the St George Hospital. 

Dan with Steve wearing Wendy's OAM 

She kept the award quiet and until recently I didn’t even know of her extensive reputation. Stephen wore her award at her funeral after a search for it. Wendy wasn’t in it for the accolades. She made me dizzy, with all the events and causes she was associated with. One morning I was lying in bed listening to the local Wollongong events and happenings when up popped an advertisement for a Probus meeting at the Wollongong Master Builders Club. Mrs Wendy Gadsby was talking on a topic like “How to be a Clown” or “How to tell a joke”. I gather she was a regular guest speaker.  In addition to the fundraising she made time to driving friends to doctors’ appointments.

I will always remember Wendy’s 80th birthday party. This party was an enormous spread of her friends from all the above community groups, acquaintances, people she could cajole into singing, dancing, play music, etc for an entertaining afternoon. It was nice. It was at small gathering of our relatives. A couple of years later when I met up with more relatives at her cousin Harold ‘s funeral they all greeted Wendy as a long lost “sister”.

            Wendy left with a selection of her cousin's children at her cousin Harold's funeral

Wendy was a great support to me when Auntie Airdrie, her cousin came under my care in the nursing home. We watched her only daughter Julie die of the same cancer as Wendy. After Julie had passed away. Wendy was a constant visitor and mentor until Covid hit. During lockdown she wrote letters and reminded Airdrie of the family stories. We didn’t trust the Nursing Home and we had a scheme in which we visited the nursing home on different days at different times so that we could get a feel for what was going on or not.

I think Wendy suffered withdrawals during the time of the pandemic from the isolation and lack of contact with her friends, children and Grandchildren. She used the time to dig in burgeoning coffee grinds from the local coffee shop into her garden and grass verge.  During the pandemic, you could still do small trips and talk to passers-by, and being good at talking, it filled in her day as well as helping the environment in the last years of her life.

Recently I met some of her friends, particularly Rozie, Carole  and Rozie‘s daughter, Ceilidh and we vowed to keep an eye out for Wendy.  Wendy and I had our Rotary Clubs in common and the last time I saw her was the day she organised to thank people at a local clubs event. I was to sell raffles but by the time I got there some others were organised into it! Everyone won a prize at this particular one. The day was a brilliant concept of getting like-minded people together, sharing our causes and thanking each other for what we did.   

Wendy and I March 2023

Only a few days later, Patty died from complications of Covid. After that news, Wendy did admit she was down. I was worried she was so thin but I hadn’t seen her through Covid. ln another one of my phone calls in July when I was checking on her she told me she had news about a cancer diagnosis that was going to be the end of her.  She was determined to be in the group that got an extended time but it was not to be. She died of pancreatic cancer on 13 October at the age of 85.

In the end she had helped raise more than $1 million for charities. For her fundraising achievements she also won a Paul Harris Medal from Rotary. She was also nominated for the Rotary Inspirational Woman of the Year. 

                                                    Wendy received a Paul Harris Fellow

Typical of Wendy and her concern for the Environment she wished to be composted but it is not currently allowed. Steve invited her friends in the days before her funeral to decorate her cardboard coffin. It arrived at her service all green and adorned with paintings, poems, stories, stickers and bling, A real environmental statement.


Vale Wendy RIP

 

                                    Airdrie, Ray Julie, Moi, Steve, Wendy, Merrie, Uncle Bill 

Our Wedding 1977

It's a shame to only meet at funerals Dan, Steve, Jeff Chris



This was the 2nd reading in Wendy’s Celebration of Life booklet

To laugh often and much                                            To leave the world a bit better

To win the respect of intelligent people                     whether by a healthy child

and affection of children                                            a garden patch or a redeemed

To earn appreciation of honest critics                        social condition

and endure the betrayal of false friends                     To know even one life has breathed

To appreciate beauty, to find the best                         easier, because you have lived

in others.                                                                     this is to have succeeded.

                                                Ralph Waldo Emerson         



Here's a couple of other shots I found    

Marge and Leo Herdon, Betty Whitcombe and Marlene Kerr

Bill Gadsby's 80th  with Wendy's cousins Betty, Harold, Marge, Bill, Dorothy


                       
Fran, Eadie nee Gadsby Bill, Wendy, Ray and  Betty Shortell, Betty Whitcombe, Dan 

          

Tuesday 12 December 2023

Accentuate the positive 2023- the lost, found and convoluted stories of 2023

 

 

 

My focus in 2023 was to revisit research on my great grandmother. My goal this year was to unlock the mysteries of her of my grandmother’s relationship with her mother, Mary McLaughlan.

This was a family found in lost and found again. My Covid findings became a Covid fuddled mix-up and much had to be deleted from the tree at one stage.

Still a few mysteries with my grandmother Lavinia Strelley, but her mother Mary’s family eventually unfolded before my eyes with a little information about their origins in Ireland, still to be a project this next year.


I got generousity from the lady who works in a Scottish genealogy society and gets access to lots of Scotland People records. She attached plenty of good ones to her tree. I still spent a fortune on certificates this year, but her findings managed to help me find what I needed.

 


I managed to attend a few New South Wales archives webinars. Having used up most of my local records and sources, my focus is now on wills, probates and divorce cases. A personal visit to Kingswood will save me heaps but if all else fails I’ll throw cash at getting some files digitised and sent to me.

Hooking up with someone else’s cousins A Genea surprise came in the form of a DNA message on an Ancestry tree while doing a project for a cousin. It piqued my interest and that lead to more and more of the story of my relatives’ grandmother sad early life. Through some clever detective work by someone with DNA matches Mary Thelma’s mysterious mother’s and father’s real names have been revealed.  All the cousins coming out of the woodwork or is that the closet? It is incredible and of course leads to more unanswered questions.  Mary Williams Campbell Begg and Maria Wheelhouse have been revealed. Believe me it has been an Australian wide project you. I was impressed by the detective, work of the big family in making the Wheelhouse connection through DNA. It is much more fun when people share and collaborate. 

I'll acknowledge here the power of Ancestry's algorithm. Two very dis-similar names and the syncing with  Family tree maker program managed to throw up the most useful hint - I love it when technology works! 

 

Same woman - different name and they had a photo!

A social media post I am most proud of during the year. The Henderson’s Hat building burnt down in Sydney. I have written about the famous business as my husband’s mother, grandfather and step grandmother were entwined in the story “Love and Other madness at the Hatworks”. Not only was the Facebook post reminding people of the story gathering speed but through the magic of tagging the post anyone googling Hendersons during the tragedy boosted the people visiting the blog. Eventually my pictures got used in a TV television story. Later a second Facebook discussion followed about copyright and TV journalists knowing better manners and etiquette.

 My most valuable subscription this year was multiple points purchased for Scotland’s People. Despite the number of wrong certificates, I purchased. I do love the instant gratification. It is like a poker machine addiction. I will just have one more pull.

 It is great that the National Archives Australia is slowly releasing digitised World War II records. I followed up on my son-in-law’s grandfather Max Palmer.  Much was revealed to the next generation, and it got the family talking about him in a good way. 

The genealogist of the future will despair at the lack of graves, church records and funeral notices. Somewhere down the line someone will start archiving and recording funerals that have eventuated from the Covid funeral video trend, and the availability of technology for people to watch online. I love it recorded eulogy!

I finally completed the revised Frank Kelf memoir started years ago. With newly inserted photos, pilot records, and expanded story I’m publishing it, regardless of the lack of effort to proof and fact check it for me by “people who know who they are.”

 


 

It’s been a year of updating the records.  People I have discovered mainly remotely through Ancestry and DNA research – the hatches, matches and dispatches for 2023 have had a few updates. Vale Mark Overton, Jessie Martin, Brian Cassidy, Airdrie Petersen, Airdrie Srath, Wendy Cornish, Patricia Hepworth, Di Hansor.  The hatches and matches I’ll leave off due to privacy. Lots of babies expanding the field, especially on the Kelf side. Congratulations to all.

I post I’ll need to write next year… Dealing with the end of life, wills or lack of, and probate has consumed me this year. We don’t do “wills “well in my family.  My experience of the past few years shows that you need to get good advice. Cross all the T’s and dot all those Is lovely people.

I’ve read the New South Wales Successions Act from cover to cover, and what don’t I know about invalid wills now? Don’t start me on legislation to do with cemetery plots. Considering Willing your interest in a spare plot to save on interment, land space and heartache.

Another positive I’d like to share is… I was certainly valuable being the Family Historian this year. Even the solicitor was impressed with how much I saved them buying birth, death and marriage certificates and my knowledge of who was who in the tree.

When the solicitor said "I don't suppose you have Bryce's death cert...."

I’ve written a lot but I hate the tidying up process. I wrote a lot of blogs about my research and some reflective posts. Plenty are still in draft because the research is not quite happening. Not all are ready for public publication.  

Yikes, my family booked a trip to Japan at the beginning of Covid
 

I’d like to start a movement where people record some reflections on how Covid pandemic and isolation affected your own family.  We don’t have much on how our family coped 100 years ago and what changed. It would be nice to record it this time.  

I might have been down on my blog count this year, but the interest is there and collaboration has been up. It is not so lonely, and I find the results are greater than the sum of the parts. Collaboration brings local knowledge and perspectives expanded research and bigger brains trust. We all have different favourite “go to“  websites. I might find the shipping list where someone else finds a relevant article on a cattle station.

I’m up to 91000 hits on my Robyn and the Genies Blog and 7343 on my Schweidnitz POW Camp blog.

As usual my range of Facebook groups has expanded. I love my love, my local Aussie ones, but the Irish, Scottish and British ones are a great fall back.

I’ve attended a number of writing courses to strengthen my biographical skills on the blogs. I particularly enjoyed Voices from the Past- Memoir Writing Workshop by Christine Sykes, and Gwen Wilson and a Biography and Ghost-writing talk by Jeff Apter.

 I finally got a cousin to sit down with a photocopy of his photo album and pen to label his photos. We had an enjoyable morning driving to a funeral, chatting about people he recognised in the photos and his memories. The bonus was meeting up with cousins. You know what they say – “we only see each other at weddings and funerals. “

“we only see each other at weddings and funerals. “


 I’m glad I read my fifth cousin Simon Smith’s  newly published book “A Man Of Honour”.  It has snippets of Allan family history inserted in this true story about Henry James O’Farrell’s failed attempt in 1868 to assassinate Queen Victoria’s , son Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh in Sydney.   Worth the wait Simon- I want more of your beautiful writing.

My goal for next year is transcribing Lucy Harris’ diaries from her pioneer days in Swan Valley Western Australia circa 1830s

 

Merry Christmas  and a productive 2024 to all the Geneabloggers out there. 

Robyn xxx

Accentuate the Positive 2023 #

Monday 6 November 2023

James McLaughlan 1849-23/12/1932 from Omagh County Tyrone

 

My Great Great Grandfather James McLaughlan was born around 1849 to 1851 in Tyrone Omagh. Omagh is a county town of Co Tyrone in Northern Ireland. He was the son of John McLaughlan and Mary McIver. His father had been a farmer. He was one of the many who left Ireland for Glasgow. Although he came from Northern Ireland he is of Roman Catholic roots marrying twice in the Roman Catholic Church and this religion has passed down through his descendants.

He seems to have arrived in Scotland a little before 1871. I’ve tentatively placed him as a boarder with his older brothers’ family at 74 Muse St Glasgow.  He was an iron foundry worker which is consistent with other documents. His tentative brother is John McLaughlan  married to Margaret Grainey or Graney from Lissen Co Derry.

Transcript of McLaughlan Family 1871 census (TBC)

I’m presuming that as he was boarding with his brother in 1871,  that his parents were possibly deceased or had stayed behind in Ireland (they were definitely deceased by 1886).

In the years after the famine people continued to leave Ireland often sending back the fare for other members to join them in their new destination. Most of the immigrants were illiterate with little, or no skills and education. Usually they took the lowest paid jobs, not in agriculture, but in industrial work such as labouring jobs in cotton mills, docks, railways and canal building.

Their new life in Glasgow was harsh with Irish migrants living in their own close-knit communities characterised by cheap housing, overcrowding and unsanitary conditions. Naturally this meant high incidence of disease and high mortality. There was resentment by the local Scottish workers who thought the Irish men offered unfair competition for their jobs and lowered wages.

A little while later, James married Catherine Hall in 1872 in a Roman Catholic ceremony. Catherine was a fellow Irish immigrant, and the daughter of Richard Hall and Mary Milligan.  James signed the certificate with his mark X, and that is consistent with many of the other documents which he signed.

 

James and Catherine's marriage 1972

After his marriage to Catherine a daughter Mary McLaughlan was born in 1875. This Mary was my great grandmother. Catherine and James had five children:

Harriet born in 1877 dying in infancy in 1880.

Margaret was born in 1880 and died the same year.

Jane was born on 6 December 1880 and didn’t see the New Year.

Previously they had lived at 74 Muse Lane in Milton nearby to where his brother and family lived. By the time Jane was born they had moved to 62 Stewart Street in Milton. Despite all the tragedy Mary continued to thrive. In the 1881 Census, James, Catherine (Kate) and Mary are still at Stewart Street with  two lodgers, who were fellow foundry workers.

By the years end the situation  would look quite different. Kate was pregnant again with James, who was to be born in December 1881. Constant pregnancy, the loss of babies and the wasting disease of TB prevalent in these overcrowded dwellings may have contributed to Kate’s premature death after the birth of James McLaughlan on 22 December 1881. He too, didn’t see the year out. Kate’s cause of death was described as  Phthisis Pulmonalis or TB, coupled with a lung infection and pelvic peritonitis.

Catherine's death after childbirth 1881

So hard times for these people who have suffered so much in their lifetimes.  Our James begins, 1882, as a widower, and with a five-year-old daughter, Mary, and none of his other children or wife, surviving.

There’s a short gap and James meets a new lady who he married on 31 December 1886 in a Catholic Ceremony. Sarah McAllister was a fellow immigrant from Northern Ireland.

 

James marries Sarah McAllister

Despite being 30 plus years since the Great Famine Ireland remained a poor country. Lots of people, in fact, around 5 million, left Ireland.  Mostly this consisted of young able-bodied people who were disillusioned by British misrule. The poverty was a ‘push’ factor, and the prospect of economic growth and opportunities elsewhere, were a ‘pull’ factor. Those who had been in subsistence farming and agriculture suffered most as did others who saw the decline in the woollen and linen industries.

Glasgow was the desired destination from Belfast. Irish people from the Derry and Newry areas, travelled the 10-to-12-hour journey by ship from Belfast to Glasgow paying

21/- for a cabin, 10p for steerage or 5p for deck class.

Sarah McAllister‘s family had recently immigrated from Northern Ireland. They came from Moneymore, which is a village in Derry. It is an ex-Plantation village and the McAllisters also were a Roman Catholic family. The records show they came from Carncose Road.

Elizabeth or Lizzie McAllister was the last born in 1883 in Magherafelt Londonderry. The McAllisters had had  approximately 10 children born between 1867 and 1883. When James McLaughlan had married 26-year-old Sarah McAllister she was the oldest daughter of  John McAllister and Margaret McGill, who had who resided at Moss Park, Farm, Paisley.

This provided a stepmother for his daughter Mary. Together they had John born 1887, died 1890, Margaret born 1889, and Annie born in 1894. Sarah’s sister, Elizabeth or Lizzie McAllister was in attendance for the birth of John.

The 1901 Census shows Sarah and James living at Bright Street with their daughters, Margaret and Annie. By then Mary, had given birth to Lavinia, and was living elsewhere in Milton. James and Sarah had 17 years together. Sarah died in 1903 at Bright Street, Glasgow, aged 43 of a Gastric Ulcer.

 

James McLaughlan and family 1901 census

James can’t be found amongst the plethora of James McLaughlans in the 1911 census. However in the newly released 1921 census, James McLaughlin, widower, was living at the same address, 34 Bright Street. Notations on the document shows it as a  two-room premises, housing five people.

With his age noted as 72 and nine months he was recorded as a retired labourer. For the first time we get a better clue as to his Irish origins, with his Place of Birth listed as Tyrone Omagh. Only a few years earlier he was listed as a Causeway labourer in daughter Margaret’s marriage certificate. Also residing in the premises is his daughter Annie, still single and aged 28. She is a shirt machinist working for Walter Herburn Shirt Factory. This is the last we see of Annie as she died of influenza and bronchitis in 1924 not long after this Census was taken.

Also, living with him in the 1921 Census is his daughter Margaret’s family, comprising of Margaret, her husband, Charles McGonigle aged 31 who had been away at war serving as a Private in the 4th Battalion of Royal Scots, and was now working as a coal miner at Mount Vernon Coal Coy. He had married Margaret in September 1918. Son John age 7 is listed as McLaughlan. He had been born in December 1913, but subsequent attachment to his birth certificate registration dated 1929  shows that his birth was legitimised after the marriage of his parents in September 1918, Margaret had been a munitions worker during the war period but was now performing domestic duties.

 

James McLaughlin and family 1921 Census

James was still living at 34 Bright Street upon his death on 23rd of December 1932 having died of bronchitis and cardiac failure. His daughter Margaret was present as a witness. He made it to  a good age of 83 years!  On his death certificate James McLaughlan‘s parents were listed as Mary McLaughlan maiden name, MacGyver[sic] (McIver) and John McLaughlan- farm labourer. This is been cross-referenced and verified with his marriage certificate. Nothing can be found of  them at this stage, but at least I’m two generations further ahead with this story than I was in 2022.

James McLaughlan death 1932

What became of his children?

Mary had Lavinia Strelley in 1898 and married John Bannan in 1914. She lived a couple of years longer than her father dying in 1934 and Lavinia lead the diaspora further to Australia in the late 20s when she married my Grandfather James Kerr.

Annie died in 1924. 

Daughter Annie McLaughlan's death

Margaret married Charles McGonigle at the end of the war. and lived until 1965, having outlived Charles by 14 years, when he died in 1951. Her son, John was a Collery haulage motor man who was single when he succumbed to the dreaded white disease, pulmonary phthisis and cardiac failure at just 18 years.

Margaret McLaughlan married Charles McGonigle 1918

 

Onwards and Onwards……Looking for McLaughlin, McIver, Hall and Milligan.

And so after years of not having any clues on Mary McLaughlan or her parents much has been achieved in the past 10 months with bonus Irish Great Great Great Grandparents. I think I’ve had another brick wall shattered. It’s really hard to scramble over the rubble to dig down to the Londonderry or Derry records to find the McLaughlans, McIvers, the Halls and the Milligans. but when did that ever stop me?