About My Family Up A Tree
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My Family Up A Tree acknowledges our past. In the spirit of reconciliation, we give deepest respect to Australia's First Nations Peoples. Their histories, their stories, their resilience. Their connection to culture and land. The wisdom of their Elders past, present and emerging.
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"Come and talk to me,
come and tell me your story."
~ Goff Letts, Editor, The Donald Times
"You own everything that has ever happened to you.
Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly
about them, they should have behaved better". - Anne Lamott
Immigrant, you shriek -
I hear you -
I am the land you seek.
In sight of salvation -
Miscalculation -
Welcome to my deep.
Twelve thousand miles to perish
Just a shout
From beach and farm.
Just a breath
From fear and harm.
Can you not swim
Into my arms?
~ Unknown poet, found 2008
A 'picnic by the river' in 1927, when Dorrie Pope [nee Fletcher (1896-1969) discussed with Jake Fletcher (1892-1970) at their only meeting, the research she had been conducting into the Fletcher history. It is likely this was a Boxing Day picnic, which was a tradition in them days, amongst Wimmera people. Jake's mother, Bess Fletcher (nee Buchanan) had died earlier in 1927, a pioneer of Mt Jeffcott.
It was not until the mid 1960s that Dorrie's efforts and the information she had gathered, became popular as she began to write the history of the Fletchers. Jake who had retired in 1957 from a globe-trotting career, was put into harness as Dorrie's workhorse and writer of letters to extended family, mithering them for assistance with names, dates and places. My mother, Edelene Marjorie Glenn (nee Hook) provided screeds of information in April 1968 that helped jog memories and pulled old cows from ditches. Oddly she never told the stories to me!
The primary tree (in scroll form) that focused on a heavily edited patrilineal Fletcher line was circulated about 1990-1992 by G.K. Hook (1924-2002) of Canberra, ACT (twin brother of Edelene) This provided basic direct line connections and details to the fifth generation (Baby Boomers) of the Australian descendants of the sons of Mary Storey - William, John & Japhet Fletcher - and forms the core of the digital record that appears here, as at late-May 2019.
Enthusiastic family historian in New Zealand, the late Les Pearce, on the Blackmore side, in tandem with a letter written 1975 by Mavis Hook-Tootell to Edelene, along with contributions from distant Hook cousins ~ in particular G.V. Clough of the Goulburn Valley in Victoria ~ has enabled the story of Albert George Hook and his antecedents to emerge from the shadows of the aggrieved status of G.K. Hook.
Near on twelve years of intensive grass-roots research and cobbling together of three decades of conversations, personal letters and remembrances, by the data manager of this website, has expanded to embrace other families that intersect with the key lines of Blackmore-Buchanan- Fletcher-Hook-Hudson-Nicholson.
The Donald-Wimmera Basset family is included as a nod to Marjorie Rye (nee Basset) whose memoirs provided much flavour as to the Donald community. Also some Morgan and Meyer identities and there is a special nod to Mr R.H. Keegan, former selector of Block 14, Parish of Jeffcott, whose decision to "throw in the towel", lies at the root of the Fletcher-Buchanan stories.
Personal letters between Annie Louisa Hook and her son, Louis, written in 1952, provided more names of neighbours and friends in Donald: who have also been included, where traceable, to weave together a glimpse into the halycon days of post-WWII reconstruction and social networks: the twaddle and gossip!
Additionally, cobbers from WWI and WWII who served with key Fletcher-Hook identities also appear as a complement to the wider 1914-1918 AIF project and the Search for Bobby which occupied Annie Louisa, Edelene and Louis Hook, casting a deep shadow over their lives, as the Fall of Singapore had been for the entire nation.
The intention is to provide for present day querents a coherent database of information and a seed-bed from which future generations can start their search and, hopefully, build on what was an inspired passion for Dorothy Fletcher in 1927, whose efforts as a female relative, in service of all the former and future generations is lovingly remembered and honoured.
Please take time to check out the Stories section where I have stolen from the best to flesh out the zeitgeist of our generations.
NEW ADDITION in the time of CORONAVIRUS : as a adjunct to this database, as at Mabon (autumn equinox 21 March 2020) I have decided to tell my story of the bachelor bogan from Canberra who watches over me and says "you can't write that! what will people think!?!" - Jacob Fletcher - at loveunclejake.blogspot.com
The Family Genealogy
Compendium of dullness, in your pages
Name crowds on name; the humble and the great
Each in few lines receives his equal wages,
And headstrong passions crumble to a date.
Here are the founders of a mighty nation;
Here are the pioneers who won the soil,
As generation followed generation,
With axe and plough and with back-breaking toil.
Here are the women of a hardy people,
Weakness and doubt yielding to faith held fast;
The pulled-up stakes; eyes lifted to the steeple;
Farewells to home; the new homes gained at last.
Here are the hints of buried old romances;
The broken families, and the too young dead;
The autumn frolics and the village dances;
Roll of recruiting drums, the soldier's tread.
And here are darker things, now long forgotten;
The unwed mothers; the deserted wives;
Misdeeds of rogues far better unbegotten;
Heartbreak and self-destruction; ruined lives.
All this and far, far more is in these pages
If we might clothe with flesh the lifeless names,
Parade the knaves, the saints, the fools, the sages,
And resurrect their obloquies and fames.
Their names, their dates, are entered in a column,
The unjust here embalmed beside the just;
And in the pages of this dusty volume
A second time they moulder into dust.
Donald Lines Jacobus
Disclaimer: The enclosed chronologies were developed for personal use and are unedited and unchecked by professional genealogists/historians who charge upwards of $15 per hour. Some dates are from multiple sources and are believed to be reliable (where indicated). Others have been obtained from family folk-lore and stories and remain uncorroborated. There may also be errors committed by the developer of this resource. Credit given to other sources is included where possible (and remembered): honour amongst tea-leaves and all that. The seasoned family researcher doesn’t believe other people’s trees ever. We all do the research over again ourselves to see if we come to the same conclusions.
Some entries will be meaningless to most readers and relate to private histories, while other entries are just there for Fun, Because, Why Not?, Bugger All on Telly and I Don't Have Netflix.....
FOR QUICK & EASY REFERENCE:
The dates of the UK censuses were as follows:
1841 – 6 June
1851 – 30 March
1861 – 7 April
1871 – 2 April
1881 – 3 April
1891 – 5 April
1901 – 31 March
1911 – 2 April
1921 – 19 June
The intended date for the 1921 census was 24 April, but was postponed due to industrial unrest, which the GRO decided would have made it impossible to collect accurate information in some areas.
In the censuses of 1801, 1811, 1821 and 1831 lists of names were not collected centrally, although some are held in local record offices.
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Getting Around There are several ways to browse the family tree. The Tree View graphically shows the relationship of selected person to their kin. The Family View shows the person you have selected in the center, with his/her photo on the left and notes on the right. Above are the father and mother and below are the children. The Ancestor Chart shows the person you have selected in the left, with the photograph above and children below. On the right are the parents, grandparents and great-grandparents. The Descendant Chart shows the person you have selected in the left, with the photograph and parents below. On the right are the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Do you know who your second cousins are? Try the Kinship Relationships Tool. Your site can generate various Reports for each name in your family tree. You can select a name from the list on the top-right menu bar.
In addition to the charts and reports you have Photo Albums, the Events list and the Relationships tool. Family photographs are organized in the Photo Index. Each Album's photographs are accompanied by a caption. To enlarge a photograph just click on it. Keep up with the family birthdays and anniversaries in the Events list. Birthdays and Anniversaries of living persons are listed by month. Want to know how you are related to anybody ? Check out the Relationships tool. |
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