The Ancestor Plates

With  the Winter Solstice upon us indicating that we are almost half way through 2019 it may be time to look at the Resolution blog post written as part of the #52Ancestor challenge 2018 at the end of last year in order to check the progress so far.

This was prompted by a conversation that I had with my seven year old grandson about our Ancestor Plates. He and his sister were having dinner with us so instead of the Peppa Pig and George Pig plates usually used we decided that they could have 'big' plates. Hence their introduction to the Ancestor Plates.

In 1988 the primary school had a fundraiser selling melamine plates based on designs prepared by family members. As it was the Bicentenary and the Bicentenary logo was to be on each item I decided to order a plate decorated with information about family convicts. The names, ships and dates of arrival in Australia were provided for each of nine convicts. This resulted in Ancestor Plate no. 1.

However I later discovered another three convicts in the family so when a similar fundraiser was held a few years later I arranged for Ancestor Plate no. 2, this time with the names, ships and dates for twelve convicts to be made.

Aiden was most impressed with his Ancestor Plate and wanted to know about the names on the plate. I explained that they were convicts, the first members of our family to come to Australia more than 200 years ago. My husband asked Aiden if he knew what a convict was so we then explained that a convict was a prisoner. Aiden's immediate question was had they been in gaol. What followed was a conversation about why these people had been in gaol, why they had left England and Ireland to come to Australia and how long did it take for the ships to make the journey. Obviously the time has arrived to make some of the family history available to the grandchildren.

Resolution number 3 in my December blog post was to collect all the stories in my blog relating to specific families to start compiling histories of those families. Obviously the time has come to start this.

Resolution number 1 was to complete the eight posts for the #52Ancestors challenge 2018 which I did not do last year when we were away on veterans cricket tours. I have now completed these posts so one tick.

Resolution number 2 was to organise my family history research collection more effectively. This has now been started. A few months ago I ordered ten polypropylene boxes from Archival Survival and have just finished assembling them. (partial tick) Now I can put papers and other items relating to specific families in one box making it easier to locate information. When working on a box I will put some of the material into polypropylene enclosures. [Looking after special items in collections]

My other resolutions to locate additional information, including background information, on projects such as family living in the Hawkesbury region of NSW, family in India during the Raj, and answer remaining questions about George Guest's land in Hobart will no doubt be investigated as I piece together the various family stories.

Consquently some progress has been made in carrying out the research resolutions for 2019 - however there is still much to be done.