Kathleen May Thomas progressed through the examination syllabus of the Trinity College London, and ultimately was awarded an Associate Diploma of the Trinity College of Music, London, in Piano, which qualified her to become a recognised piano teacher. An article … Continue reading →
My paternal grandmother (Nana Van) Kathleen May Thomas was born in 1900, and was raised by her grandparents in Maryborough, Queensland, owing to the death of her mother (and baby) following childbirth in 1902. Young Katie was supported and encouraged … Continue reading →
If you walk from Alexandra Fountain in Bendigo today, and head down Pall Mall towards the Law Courts, its a little hard to see where J. B. Edwards Jewellery shop at 3 Pall Mall was. The picture below shows the … Continue reading →
Hendrik Van Cooten was a plantation and slave owner. In Britain, in August 1833, the Slave Emancipation Act was passed, giving all slaves in the British empire their freedom, albeit after a set period of years. Plantation owners received compensation … Continue reading →
In 2015, Bram Hoonhout, then a PhD student working on the 18th century history of Essequibo and Demerara, alerted me to the existence of references to Hendrik, Jan and Nicolaas van Cooten in the letterbooks of Theodore Barrell, a merchant … Continue reading →
Great great grandfather William Thomas, in his handwritten autobiography of 1926, refers to his time on the railways in Wales in the early 1870s, and using the “Spagoletti speaking instrument.” This turns out to be a form of the Single … Continue reading →
I mentioned in a previous post that I needed to consult the medical directories for the UK. I have since browsed the State Library of Victoria microfiche for 1846 and 1848, and the GSV Library microfiche for 1847. Alas I … Continue reading →
Some time ago I obtained an 1881 English Census household entry from the LDS transcripts on CD for Thomas and Ida Gorsuch. The other day, having access to ancestry.com at the GSV Library I obtained a scanned copy of the … Continue reading →
The Orphan Chamber (Weeskamer) was a Dutch practise that made provision for the collection and administration of the property of persons who died intestate and left heirs absent from the Colony or were under age and therefore unable to take … Continue reading →