July
2010 Letters
A REMARKABLE COINCIDENCE
Dear Editor A brief note to let you know how thrilled I was
to see my article Breadmore and Giles – a remarkable coincidence
in the June 2010 magazine. Thank you for publishing it.
Jan Humphreys (ggg granddaughter of John Giles)
and I (gg grandson of George Breadmore) are still shaking our heads
in disbelief at the circumstances that led to our meeting 185 years
after our ancestors were tried, convicted and transported to VDL
together for their burglary in Hungerford UK in 1824.
We’re hoping that some of your readers can
add to the information we already have. We would particularly like
to hear from anyone with knowledge of schoolmaster George Edwards,
the man who brought the charges against Breadmore and Giles. Although
we believe that we have identified the house which our ancestors
burgled (it still stands at 41 High Street, Hungerford, and is known
as ‘The Schoolmaster’s House’), we have not been
able to confirm that George Edwards was the occupant of that particular
house at the time of the burglary. A list of previous occupants
of the house is available on the website of the Hungerford Historical
Association at www.hungerfordhistorical.org.uk/ but, unfortunately,
it does not extend back to 1824.
Thanks again for a magazine full of interest each
month.
Don Bradmore (by email)
Dear Editor
Each
month I await the arrival of your wonderful magazine with great
eagerness, wondering what wonderful stories or interesting articles
you will provide us with.
The June magazine once more fulfilled all expectations
of a great read. One story in particular which struck a chord with
me, and made me smile, was that by Don Bradmore. His connecting
with Jan Humphreys thanks to that wonderful librarian in Reading,
was truly a remarkable coincidence, but perhaps such occurrences
are not as rare as we might expect. In this country, we had such
a small population to begin with that more of us are related to
each other than most of us know, as I found out for myself some
ten or so years ago.
In September 1964 I obtained a position at Collins
Book Depot, Town Hall Branch, Swanston Street, Melbourne where one
of my work mates was a lady named Barbara Carroll. We soon became
good friends and over the years that friendship has grown and strengthend.
Barb and I have shared many wonderful times and experiences together
over the past 46 years, and it was Barb who infected me with the
genealogy bug about 12 years ago.
Around 2001 or 2002, Barb had been lent The
Floating Brothel by Sian Rees. The bells started to ring for
her when she read it and she sent me up a copy. As a lot of your
readers will know, this book is the story of the Lady Juliana,
the first ship bringing female convicts, which reach our shore on
3 June 1790. One of those convicts was Susannah Mortimore who married
Private of Marines Thomas O’Brien who had arrived on the Scarborough
on 26 January 1788. Susannah had given birth to a daughter on board
ship on her journey out here, and she and Thomas went on to have
another 9 children.
Barb had been guiding me in my efforts to research
my family tree so she was familiar with my heritage. To cut a very
long story short, it was whilst reading that book that she thought
she had better look a little deeper into my tree and there it was.
Barb is a descendant of Thomas and Susannah’s daughter, Elizabeth,
and I am a direct descendant of their daughter, Margaret, so we
are actually cousins. Who would have thought that after seven generations
we would have formed such a strong bond of friendship and then found
out we were related.
Another coincidence is that Barb, who is always
taking people under her wing, has been helping a young man with
his family tree research. She met him at the State Library in Melbourne
some years ago and, you guessed it, he is also related to us, descending
from another of Thomas and Susannah’s children. I have the
sneaking suspicion that there are a lot more of their descendants
lurking about somewhere. I already know some of them and can’t
help wondering if any have formed such lasting and wonderful friendships
as my cousin Barb and I have. I do hope so.
Thanks for a great magazine. Di
Pryor (by email)
Dear
Editor One
of the pleasures of researching your family tree is the serendipitous
moments that occur from time to time, such as that told by Don Bradmore
in Breadmore and Giles - a remarkable coincidence (June 2010).
In the 1970s I was telling a work colleague some
of my family history and to our surprise his grandmother had the
same surname as one of my convict ancestors, Manning. Frank did
some research and established that we were 5th cousins.
In the 1980s I was speaking to a fellow member
at a family history society meeting, when we realised we had ancestors
with the same surname, Whitelaw. Later, after comparing details,
we concluded we were 5th cousins way back in Scotland.
In the 1990s I met Rossie whose First Fleet ancestor,
Phillip Devine, was guarded by my Second Fleet soldier Obadiah Ikin
on Norfolk Island in the early 1790s. Rossie is now my lovely wife,
and together we visited Norfolk Island where we toasted our ancestors.
Many thanks for publishing my story about my grandfather
Orrie LANE in the June issue.
Grahame
Thom (by email)
CORRECTING
MISINFORMATION
Dear Editor
Following on from the letters in the May 2010 magazine regarding
misinformation in online family trees, I can see that Ancestry would
not have the resources to vet every family tree submitted to them.
Perhaps they need to decide whether they should continue publishing
these trees (which they have not researched and don’t support),
or to post appropriate warnings to those reading the trees, that
everything you read online (or elsewhere) ‘ain’t necessarily
so’.
On the other hand, when Ancestry adopts this misinformation
into their own World Family Tree, they are accepting responsibility
for publication. I have found no simple way to correct these errors
- has anyone else?
And yes, I do have a personal interest in this
topic. A John Swadling who arrived here as a 14-year old convict
has been ‘adopted’ into my own family by several people
with trees on Ancestry. I have left comments for them but have seen
no response. Actual research (not copying someone else’s errors)
would show them that he came from a different part of England, and
has different parents than shown in their trees.
. Lindsay
Swadling (by email)
Dear Editor
I read with interest Arnie Fletcher’s letter [Misinformation,
April 2010] in your excellent magazine and thoroughly agree with
it.
I have been studying my family tree for 30 years
and have completed many courses to help with the research –
nothing is left to guessing.
To recently read a very large portion of our family
completely incorrectly written, but convincing enough for a new
researcher to accept as fact, filled me with horror. The person
who placed the garbled family history on the internet is known to
me. I had written to them many years ago, when first starting out.
I contacted the person again and was told ‘you gave it to me’.
I found it very confronting to be so accused, especially when they
are not related to our family at all.
Nothing was given to this person without complete
truth and trust. For them to create a huge family tree, bringing
it forward through one generation, mixing marriages, children and
deaths, then placing it on the internet worries me greatly. The
early family records concerned are very incomplete. There is an
illegitimacy and while many areas are known, we still need proof.
I am writing to ask people to very careful when
you read these so-called family histories. The name may be the same
as the one you are researching and may well be yours, and I hope
it is, but you need the written proof, references etc. before you
accept anything listed on the internet.
With websites used so much today, a lot of people
think that compiling a family tree is easy. I would like to say,
please bring back the early days when we wrote letters to people
with similar surnames in the phone book;we interviewed our old relatives,
delved into drawers, boxes, garages and spent many hours at libraries
up and down the coast and, most of all, bought certificates. We
had a wonderful time doing this and met some of our distant relatives
too.
Most importantly, we knew the information we received
was correct because we were doing all the research ourselves.
Beth
Williams, NSW
