Australia Day 2009
I don't know what happened here... I posted this page this morning, and I just noticed that it didn't appear on my friends' pages... So here I go again! :)
Today is Australia Day. 221 years ago today the First Fleet arrived in what is now the city of Sydney. The fleet consisted of two naval ships, six convict ships and three supply ships ( Read more... )
Today is Australia Day. 221 years ago today the First Fleet arrived in what is now the city of Sydney. The fleet consisted of two naval ships, six convict ships and three supply ships ( Read more... )
Thanks, this was so helpful. I see the difference at once between celebrating when the place was explored by various Europeans ("just passing through"), versus when it was claimed as a place to live. And I will definitely check out that link. After I saw the film "Australia" (which no one on my f-list who saw it liked besides me, lol), I rented or borrowed a whole spate of films about the country, about the people there, which only increased my interest.
I saw below in Samaranth's post that her husband's family knows its family history really well. I envy that; my own parents had no knowledge of their antecedents beyond their own parents. In my dad's case the knowledge was wiped out by displacement and war (people and records destroyed), in my mother's because no one spoke of them. Her mother was involved in a marital separation at a time when marital separations were not countenanced. My mother was the youngest of six and none of them talked about the grandparents on either side, and neither did her parents, as if they had cut themselves off from their pasts. I've said to myself that if I ever went back to England I would try to find someone who might have some leads for where to look, villages they might have come from before they migrated to the Midlands to work in the factories, where there are parish churches and parish records. I am sure *something* could be found out. In the case of my father's family, one of my uncles has been trying to find out more for years, using big libraries and internet archives, but it's produced very little. All the immediate relatives [in Armenia] were killed and the villages they came from pretty much destroyed, the survivors scattered. Ah, well. I guess I don't *have* to know, but I'd like to.
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I still haven't seen "Australia". I was a bit put off by the bad reviews. I suppose I ought to see it myself and make my own mind up!
It's really a shame not knowing your family background. I've grown up hearing about long-past relatives. My elder brother has done a lot of research into the histories of both Mum's and Dad's families. In family trees he's helped put together, it shows Mum's family going back to our great-great grandfather, born around 1775 in Blair Atholl, Scotland. Dad's goes back to our great-great-great-great grandfather's (phew!) marriage in 1757 in Calne, England (no birth date).
In your mother's case, it would be very difficult to know where to start first when you have so little information to go on. Do you have your grandparents' full names? Aunts and uncles' names and birthdates? What area they lived in, and when? Without some basic information like that, it would be almost impossible to know where to start first!
Your father's family history would be even more difficult to find, due to the terrible destruction you spoke of.
I know it isn't necessary to know your history, but it is nice to know where you came from. I hope that some time in the future you will be able to do so.
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No, I don't know even the birthdates or years of my English grandparents. But cousins who live over there might. As you say, they must have had siblings, but who they were I don't know. Someone over there might, though. It doesn't sound as though my English cousins have done any scrounging for information, but maybe they have by now. I've only even met a few of them, though there aren't many.
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