Genies packin' for cruisin'

This post is for genies who are planning to go on the genealogical cruise in Feb 2014: Fourth Unlock the Past Cruise: Southern Australia.

Source of image: http://www.unlockthepastcruises.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Voyager-Adelaide-2.jpg

Recently, I asked a few people for some tips on what to pack for the genealogical cruise I'm embarking on in February 2014. Thanks to all who have helped me with this preparation.

Here are a few ideas I have gathered up so far:

• windproof jacket as well as a lightweight jacket and a scarf for neck and shoulders - handy for being on the deck and in cooler air-conditioned rooms
• a notebook or two, and/or an iPad, for taking notes in the presentations, recording new contacts
• BYO coffee if you like good coffee
• Bathers or cossies, depending what state you're from, and a cover-up from getting to your room to the pool area
• a smallish over-the-shoulder pouch or purse that allows you to store a few minor essentials when making short trips around the ship when you don't want to cart your entire handbag
• travel detergent to do a bit of laundry in your room
• over-the-door bags with small compartments for keeping jewellery and other smaller items that get lost in your luggage
• make sure your luggage is labelled inside and out with your name, cabin number and mobile phone number 
• some type of rainwear
• a couple of "sparkly outfits", as Jill Ball calls them, but don't go overboard with formal wear
• thumb drives - handy for swapping files between genies when/if the internet isn't working too well

For more tips on what to take on this cruise, see

• Gearing up for a Geneacruise - The Second Time Around by Jill Ball
•  What to pack
•  Top 10 Cruise Packing Tips, 

Here's a reminder about our itinerary:

• Tue 4 Feb Sydney – depart 9pm
• Wed 5 Feb Cruising – conference day 
• Thu 6 Feb Melbourne – in port 8am – 8pm 
• Fri 7 Feb Cruising – conference day 
• Sat 8 Feb Adelaide – in port 8am – 6pm
• Sun 9 Feb Cruising – conference day 
• Mon 10 Feb Hobart – in port 2pm – overnight
• Tue 11 Feb Hobart – all day – 5pm
• Wed 12 Feb Cruising – conference day 
• Thu 13 Feb Sydney – arrive 6am

An alternative to the unavailable Rookwood Cemetery Deceased Online

If you have Catholic ancestors who were buried at Rookwood cemetery in NSW, this blogpost may be worthwhile for you.

Source of photo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rookwood_Necropolis.JPG

We have all lamented the unavailability of the deceased online search facility on the Rookwood Cemetery (NSW) website: currently unavailable. So, here is an alternative ...

The Catholic Cemeteries and Crematoria site does allow you to search for your ancestors' graves if they are buried in the Catholic section of the cemeteries listed below. It's quite a good search engine (see http://search.catholiccemeteries.org.au/), allowing you to search the following cemeteries:

• Catholic Cemetery Field Of Mars- Ryde 1890
• Catholic Cemetery Greendale
• Catholic Cemetery Kemps Creek
• Liverpool Cemetery & Crematorium
• Catholic Cemetery North Rocks
• The Religious Society of Friends (Quaker) - Rookwood
• Catholic Cemetery Necropolis Rookwood

Something special about this search engine ...

The special thing about this search engine is that it provides you with the details of graves either side of the grave you are searching for.

Although the graves either side of James' grave (grave no. 141 and 143) didn't have gravestones, I kept searching until I found graves with headstones.

This is great if, like me, many of your ancestors have been buried in gravestone-less graves. In 1945 when my great-grandfather was buried at Rookwood cemetery, I guess that not many people had a lot of spare money, at the end of World War II, to spend on gravestones. So, there aren't many graves around his grave that had headstones. The closest graves with headstones to his grave (no. 142) were graves numbers 138 and 150. Based on the information about these two graves with gravestones, I was able to work out where he was buried.

Using this search engine, I found out that Robert Wallschutzky was buried in Grave 138:

... and James Tanner was buried in Grave 150

There were no gravestones in between these two graves with gravestones (no. 138 and no. 150). However, by counting the spaces, I could work out where grave no. 142 was - where my great-grandfather, James Walter KINGSBURY, was buried.

James Walter KINGSBURY's gravesite (30 Dec 2013)

James Walter KINGSBURY

He died on 19 June 1945, aged 77 years, and was buried on 21 June 1945 in the Roman Catholic Section graves, Mortuary 2 , Area 17, grave no. 142 at Rookwood Cemetery.

Although I didn't find out any additional information about his life by finding his gravestone-less grave, it was satisfying to stand at the place where he was laid to rest.

Genealogy cruise count-down: 38 days to go

Ever thought of going on a genealogy-filled cruise for over a week of genealogy-related activities? Well, I thought about this early this year and, after being encouraged by a few other Genies Down Under listeners, I took the plunge and booked my first ever genealogy cruise. Actually, it's my first cruise ever. The last time I spent more than a few days on a boat was back in the 1980s, travelling down the Nile in a felucca sailing boat. However, I expect the Voyager of the Seas to be a equipped a little better than the felucca - that is, I reckon it will have a few things that the felucca didn't - internet, a bed, toilets! I can't wait ... for the cruise, that is:)

Here is our boat - which I probably should call a "cruise ship". It's more like a building than a boat ..



... a bit different from the felucca in Egypt all those years ago.

Some highlights I'm looking forward to on the genealogy cruise ...

• Living and breathing genealogy for over a week.
• Meeting up with some other Genies Down Under listeners.
• Listening to some well-known genealogy presenters from Down Under and overseas - Jill Ball, Jan Gow, Thomas MacEntee, Julie Goucher, Chris Paton, Shauna Hicks, Noelene Kyle and other fantastic presenters.
• Seeing some of my favourite Australian cities during port stops.
• Finding out more about DNA and genealogy
• Being part of a panel about ethics and genealogy
• Giving a presentation on Friday 7 Feb  at 8.30am called "Using free podcasts"
• Being a cruise blogger. See the list of other cruise bloggers (scroll down).

So, where are we going? Starting in Sydney, we then head to Melbourne, Adelaide, Hobart and then back to Sydney. Here is our route:

Finally, thanks so much to Alan Philips and his team at Unlock the Past for their fantastic organisation of this cruise.

For more information on future Unlock the Past genealogical cruises, please go to their Unlock the Past site.

Two genies go down under: Janelle and Maria tour the Tank Stream beneath Sydney

Two genies went down under the streets of Sydney today on the Tank Stream Tour. What a fascinating tour it was. I  always remember learning about the Tank Stream in my old school days but it was so much better to see, feel and smell the real thing.

After being given plenty of protective gear (hard hat, harness, hair net and gumboots), we were off ... climbing down a set of stairs backwards, past the group-of-three cockroach welcoming party and into the tunnels under Sydney.

The Tank Stream was one of the first sources of Sydney's water in the early days of white settlement. The early settlers unfortunately didn't look after it that wisely and it had turned into a sewer by 1826 whereas the Gadigal had used the stream a for thousands of years before 1788. These days it's used as a storm water drain.

Running along under the streets of Sydney, the section of the Tank Stream that we toured through showed three main sections: a convict-built section, a mason-built section and a more modern section. The builders' marks and initials can be seen on many of the sandstone bricks that make up the tunnel walls.

Yvonne Kaiser Glass, Sydney Water's archaeologist, gave us a wonderful, informative tour.

If you ever have the chance to go on the Tank Stream tour, I can recommend it wholeheartedly. Thanks, Janelle, for inviting me along!

Check out this map of where the Tank Stream is situated, in relation to the Streets of Sydney:


From the Living Museum site:

Source of photo: http://www.hht.net.au/visiting/tank_stream_tours

For more information about how to join a Tank Stream tour, check out the Sydney Water site.

TROVE fashions in the 1890s in Australia

After doing a bit of analysis of one of my ancestor's dresses from the 1890s (see this blogpost: Fantastic book about ancestor clothing!! Out of style by Betty Kreisel Shubert), I decided to do a bit of trawling through TROVE to find some more examples of women's dress styles in the 1890s in Australia. Here are a couple of the illustrations I found.

A description of "new bodices" (February 1894)

From page 364 of The Queenslander, 24 February 1894, with the article titled "New Bodices"

An illustration of "a new style of linen dress" (November 1894)

The following illustration appeared in The Oakleigh Leader (North Brighton, Vic.) on 10 November, 1894.

Fantastic book about ancestor clothing!! Out of style by Betty Kreisel Shubert

>>>> How did I find out about this book? <<<<

How did I hear about this super book? On a morning walk recently, I was listening to Drew and George on the Genealogy Guys podcast on my old 2006 iPod. Although the podcast episode I was listening to was from 3 March 2013, I only caught up on this episode about three weeks ago - that's the great thing about podcasts ... you can listen to them anytime, no matter when they were broadcast. Drew and George spoke about a fantastic book called Out of Style: A Modern Perspective of how, why and when vintage fashions evolved, published in 2013 and written by Betty Kreisel Shubert. Because I was in the first stage of planning an episode about ancestors' clothing for my own podcast Genies Down Under, I couldn't believe how lucky I was to find out about this book. So, thanks Drew and George for sharing this information with your listeners! As soon as I arrived home from my morning walk, I jumped onto Amazon.com and ordered the book.

>>>> How does this book relate to the Genies Down Under podcast? <<<<

Just one day after I uploaded the October episode of the Genies Down Under podcast (Clothing stuff for genies: Investigating the fashions of your ancestors), this wonderful book arrived on my doorstep. I'd ordered it a few weeks ago, hoping that it would arrive before I had finalised the October episode. Although I was disappointed the book didn't arrive before the end of September (which meant I couldn't include it in the most recent podcast episode on ancestors' clothing), the October episode was great fun to make because I had some lovely listeners of the Genies Down Under podcast who emailed me stories about their ancestors' clothing. Their stories covered many aspects of fashion, including shoes, jewellery and clothes. Check out the stories on the Episode 25 of the Genies Down Under podcast or on the shownotes. In the November podcast episode of the Genies Down Under podcast, I'll include some of the great ideas that Betty Kreisel Shubert presents in her book

>>>> Where can I get a copy of this book? <<<<

Betty Kreisel Shubert's book is called, Out of Style: A Modern Perspective of how, why and when vintage fashions evolved, and was published in 2013. The book costs around AU$22-30 in paperback version from Amazon.com. Although the book was written and published in the US, the tips, examples and explanations are also useful for genealogists researching their ancestors in Australia.

>>>> What's so great about this book? <<<<

Here are some highlights from the Out of Style book:

• Two main sections: Part one: 19th century 1830-1900 and Part two: 20th century 1900-1960
• Instructions for photograph analysis. An entire chapter on How to trace your ancestors ... Literally! In this chapter, Betty provides a great set of methods for analysing your ancestors' clothing shown in old photos by tracing the main features of the clothing from an old photograph and then analysing these features in terms of hair, collar, necktie, coat, vest and pants (for men) and hair, bodice, sleeves, skirt and jewellery (for women).
• 19th - 20th century. Since most of the photos I'm trying to date in my family history collection are from the 1850s through to the early 1900s, this book will give me plenty of clues to add a bit more authority to my estimates based on guessing my ancestors' ages.
• Illustrations. The annotated illustrations in this book are so, so intricate. The author really seems to know what she's talking about. I have to admit I was a little disappointed by the lack of photographs (there are just a handful) in the book but the illustrations made up for my disappointment.
• Men and women's clothing: Although female ancestors' clothing is probably easier to analyse and date, this book also provides plenty of information about men's clothing.
• At 350 pages I definitely feel like I got my money's worth with this book.

>>>> How did I use this book for my family history research? <<<<

Here is an example of how I analysed one of my ancestors' photographs using Betty's book.

Before I received Betty's book, I did know some information about the photograph of my ancestor.

The photograph below is a studio portrait photograph of my great-great-grandmother, Catherine CARRICK (nee HIGGINS). Catherine was born in the town of Tuam in County Galway, on the west coast of Ireland about 1838. She moved to Macclesfield, County Cheshire in the UK at some stage before she married Thomas CARRICK in 1859 at the Church of St Philip and St James, Chapel St, Edgeley in the District of Stockport, in the Counties of Cheshire and Lancaster.

Thomas and Catherine CARRICK had a number of children and sailed with their five surviving children, Mary Anne, Thomas, Patrick, Honora and Catherine, to Sydney in 1880. They lived in the Rozelle and Balmain areas close of Sydney. Catherine died in 1904 and is buried in the Catholic area of Rookwood cemetery in Sydney.

The following photo was sent to me by one of my distant cousins, a descendant of Thomas and Catherine CARRICK's daughter, Honora CARRICK. The photo was taken in Sydney in the Eden Photographic studio. 

From the book titled The Mechanical Eye in Australia, Photography 1841-1900 (shown to me a few years ago by another genealogist in my family), I found out that Eden (Society Studios) operated from 805 George Street, Sydney from 1895 to 1897, and then from 1897-1900 at 725-729 George Street Sydney, as George Eden Proprietor. This information means that the photo below was taken somewhere between 1895 and 1900, when Catherine was 57-62 years of age. In the photograph below, I think Catherine looks closer to 57 than 62 years of age, so I guess that the photo was taken closer to 1895 than 1900.

By using Betty Kreisel Shubert Out of Style book, I worked out that:

• Catherine's sleeves were typical of fashions in the 1890s: "Starting as small vertical puffs in the late 1880s, by the early 1890s sleeve caps had grown into leg-o'-muttons or ballooning bishop sleeves. Each year they grew bigger, reaching their most extreme size and greatest popularity between 1895-1898" (from page 157 in Out of Style).
• The narrow waist on Catherine's dress was also quite typical of the day: "Waists were as small as corsets could squeeze them. Combined with top-heavy sleeves and bell-shaped skirts, the Hour Glass Silhouette was 'the look' of the decade" (from page 157 in Out of Style).
• Catherine's hairstyle was also common for the period: "Repeatedly seen in vintage photographs of average women are simple, pulled-back, sometimes careless hairstyles, without added hairpieces. Bangs were gone, foreheads were clear ..." (from page 163 in Out of Style).
• The style of dress worn by Catherine was also typical of this time. In her book, Betty describes a dress designed and made by her grandmother as described on page 163 in Out of Style. The description of Betty's grandmother's dress included very similar features to Catherine's dress. Betty describes the main features of her grandmother's dress as follows:
  - two-piece brown dress
  - beautiful handwork of tiny cross-stitches that held featherbones onto every seam
  - a narrower stiffened sleeve supported the large outer sleeve
  - Betty dated her grandmother's dress as 1896-1898 because sleeves were "at their most extreme" during this period
  - a separate velvet collar topped the V-shaped yoke on the bodice
• The buttoned-up front of the top of Catherine's dress is very similar to the illustration depicted in "The Nine Sequential Phases of the Rise and Fall  and Rise (Again!) of the Bustle" (from pages 20-21 in Out of Style), especially as the illustration in the book also shows a high neck with a squarish centrepiece at the neck. Bodices and jackets are described as similar to the one worn by Catherine: "Bodice/jackets: Jackets were short again, with small buttons going all the way up to the neck. All had a tight, tailored, corseted look (from page 29 in Out of Style).

>>>> How long does it take to analyse an ancestor's clothing using this book? <<<<

All in all, although I did have a fair idea of when the photograph was taken, the Out of Style book about how vintage fashions evolved really did give me a definite way to analyse this ancestor's clothing as shown in a studio photograph above. The whole process of analysing Catherine's photograph, with Betty's book as my guide, took just under one hour.

Please note that all the photo analysis above was undertaken with good old-fashioned printed books. Although I absolutely LOVE using the internet for my family history research, I am constantly reminded of the value of non-online resources.

Do you look like one of your ancestors?

Great idea from FindMyPast for comparing your looks with your ancestors' looks.