Unlocking family stories - Rosemount

Many years ago I recorded an interview with my mother including some of her memories of Rosemount. I also found some photos that were taken on holidays at Rosemount.

Rosemount in the 1950s

Rosemount was a dairy farm with some pigs. It was a lovely spot. The house was very old. There was a creek at the bottom of the property where we used to swim on occasions. There were platypuses in the creek. There was a big mountain, Mount Archer, behind the property... Behind the main house, part way up the mountain was the share farmer's cottage (not always occupied).

Rosemount 1962

When the family first went to Rosemount they had their own generator for electricity. There was a large wood stove in the kitchen. The house had three bedrooms downstairs with Mother's bedroom upstairs and another room off that that Dad had. Mother had a lovely view from her room as she was up the top of the house. There was a little narrow staircase. Downstairs there was a big lounge, dining area and a verandah on three sides of the house.

Inside Rosemount 1962

There was huge Morton Bay fig outside the back gate. Down the side of the house was an old orchard, very neglected. It was where the clothes line was - wires with branches of trees holding them up. There was a huge barn. Aunt and Dad had about eighty sheep between them and we had to go out every evening and bring them in. They were often by the creek. We used to go for walks in a wooded area near the creek - Fairy Dell, Gran called it . It was great going in there, shady with many paths. Some of the walks were hilly but always pretty.

View from front verandah looking towards creek

My childhood memories of Rosemount were that it was a great place for a holiday. Living in Melbourne most of the year it was a different experience spending the summer holidays on a farm in southern Queensland. Lots of space, lots of animals, a very different environment from the city.

Madam, one of the pigs, liked to socialise with the cattle

As well as the dairy cows, pigs and sheep there was assorted poultry to feed and look after and, of course, eggs to gather.

Feeding the ducks

The Chev utility in the background of the above photograph is the one mentioned in one of the sale notices for Rosemount and came with the property. 

Many of the coloured photographs taken at Rosemount in 1962 have faded but they still provide a glimpse of what the house and farm was like. The photographs and my mother's recollections help record this part of the family story.

Unlocking family stories - Rosemount

When looking at a map of the Sunshine Coast recently I noticed in the left lower corner the words Kilcoy, Woodford and Villeneuve, places near where my grandparents had a farm in the 1950s and early 1960s. The initial postal address was Rosemount, Villeneuve via Kilcoy until some of the land around Villeneuve was reclaimed for the expansion of the Somerset Dam.

Queensland Places has a detailed article about Kilcoy which mentions flooding part of the Villeneuve area in 1958 and Woodford which were the closest large towns to the farm. There is also an entry for D'aguilar and Neurum. Access to Rosemount was via Neurum Road.

Checking the electoral rolls using Ancestry.com.au helps to narrow when my grandparents were at Rosemount. There are two entries in the 1954 electoral rolls - one for Beriley at Toogoolawah and the second at Rosemount, Villeneuve so the move must have been made that year. A search in Trove using the terms Beriley and Toogoolawah for 1953 to 1954 produced two articles showing that after the sale of the property, the new owners were changing to farming sheep.

Dairymen. from all over the Brisbane Valley and Ipswich attended a dispersal sale of Messrs. R. and F. Moyse's A.I.S. dairy herd conducted by New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Co. Ltd. on the property, Berily," recently purchased from  Mr. A. B. Lord. The whole herd of'60 head was sold at satisfactory prices which were. in advance of those at recent local sales. A stud bull brought £33/12/, cows in profit £24, cows and calves £25, springers to £27/10/ Jersey heifers to £22, and vealers £7 to £10. There was also keen competition for the stud pigs. Brood sows brought £25. All surplus farm machinery went at satisfactory prices. In future the holding will be used for fat lamb raising and agriculture. (Queensland Times 4 May 1954, page 4.)

As well as confirming the sale of Beriley the above article is useful for describing the type of farming previously carried out on the farm.

A search in Google for Rosemount Neurum provided a link to photograph of Rosemount, possibly taken in the 1990s, in Trove, plus the information that the property named Rosemount at Neurum near Woodford, was taken up by John Doyle in December 1875, and was still operating as a dairy farm in 1998. The house was lined and had ceilings of silky-oak.

Trove also helps provide information about Rosemount.

In 1949 two of the three properties, including Rosemount, owned by Mr Eager were put on the market. He had purchased Rosemount from Miss B V Doyle in March 1942.

Queensland Country Life 24 November 1949

An earlier sale notice for the property in 1952 provided additional information.

Queensland Country Life 11 September 1952

The property was advertised again in 1954.

Queensland Country Life 28 January 1954.

These three notices provide information about Rosemount when it was finally purchased by Arthur Lord in 1954. Rosemount backed on to Mount Archer. Mount Archer is a mountain within the Mount Mee Forest Reserve in southeast Queensland and is at an altitude of about 545m above sea level. 

The 1963 electoral roll shows that my grandparents were at Rosemount that year but five years later were living in Buderim. As Queensland newspapers for this time frame have not yet been digitised it may be necessary to wait a while to narrow the date range.

A Google search for Rosemount Neurum produced references to Rosemount Dairy, Neurum at 51 Doyles Road, which initially I ignored but when I checked this using Google Maps I found the original homestead among other buildings.
Doyles Road (named after John Doyle) probably follows the original private road that ran from Neurum Road to the main gate of the property.

A Google search for Doyles Road Mount Archer provided the sales history for a selection of properties on the road starting from 1993. According to this search number 51 was last sold in 2006.

So utilising general Google searches, examining maps, reading about the development of local towns in Queensland Places and exploring newspaper articles and an image in Trove has helped to discover some of the history of Rosemount including the time when my family farmed the property.

Unlocking family stories - journals and diaries

During the early 1930s George Hutton lived on the sheep station, Metavale, out of Cunnamulla in south west Queensland. The property was owned by his daughter and son-in-law, Nancy and Arthur Lord. George spent much of his time reading and writing down his reminiscences about his arrival in Australia in 1869 as well as a selection of family stories.

This nondescript black covered notebook contains a mine of information about this branch of the family in Australia in the nineteenth century.

George wrote in great detail about the properties he visited in 1869 and 1870 as well as expeditions with his father in 1871 until the decision to purchase Cooring Yering at Lilydale. George then worked with his father helping to establish the property until the rest of the family came out from England in 1874 when he set out to travel north and at that point stopped recording his story.

George also included notes about adventures that his parents had living in India and a short account of the journey of George Mackillop (George's grandfather) exploring part of eastern Victoria in January 1835, before the official exploration of the new colony. He also wrote about the death of his uncle, John Mackillop at the Siege of Cawnpore in India in 1857. Thanks to George we therefore have not only his account but stories to investigate further in other sources.

Unlocking family stories - photographs

Most of us have collections of family photographs - some with information attached, many without. Photographs can be an extremely useful resource when unlocking family stories.

The above photograph, taken c1935, is of my great grandfather, George Hutton (1850-1936). It was taken on my grandparents' property, Metavale, near Cunnamulla in south-west Queensland.

The photograph is useful not only for providing an image of George - 'an old man with a beard' who spent his time reading or writing (according to my mother who was a young girl at the time).  What is particularly significant is the garden in the back ground. This area of Queensland is known for its  saltbush vegetation suitable for grazing sheep but not growing lush gardens.

By comparison, the above image found online at Queensland State Archives shows what the homestead looked like in 1910.  In the 1980s I interviewed my mother about her memories of growing up in Queensland. She described the garden at Metavale -

Mother had quite a nice garden considering there was only bore water and the climate was terrible. There was a lot of bougainvillea growing on the trellis in the front. One of the things that would grow was a saltbush hedge around the house. There were also oleanders. Mother did have a nice flower garden in winter and spring. Dad grew vegetables.

Using the Images search option in Google is one way of locating images online.

Trove (Pictures, photos, objects section) is a useful site to look for images from Australian websites including the sites of the major collecting institutions in the country.

http://trove.nla.gov.au

Unlocking family stories - correspondence

If you have access to family papers you might find correspondence that could be extremely useful for your family history search.

One gem in my collection is the transcription made by my father of a letter found among papers belonging to my grandmother. The letter is dated 23 and 25 October 1855 and is addressed from Grosvenor Place, Bath. The letter was written by Jean Eleaonora Mackillop to her daughter, Eleanora Hutton, in India.

British families living in India often returned children born in India to the UK to be looked after by family members and educated in England or Scotland. The grandparents were looking after three children when the letter was written, George 5, Jean 3 and Eleonora 1. Jean had been born in India while her brother and sister were born in Bath.That morning George had had his first lesson to learn his letters and 'had been very attentive'. His grandmother hoped 'that when he can read he will learn to express himself well and clearly'.

She added, 'He does not know the Lord's Prayer quite perfect but nearly so. I do not think he is quick in learning by heart, at present, but his technical memory will probably improve when he acquires the habit of giving his mind to his occupation.'

The above is only part of a long letter with much more information about the three children including a description of new clothes for the girls for winter as they have grown. The grandparents had just returned from eleven days in Paris. There is also news about mutual friends as well information about family investments in tea in India.

As well as providing information about family members the letter provides a snapshot of life in Bath in 1855.

Also among my grandmother's papers was correspondence from a cousin who had been investigating the Hutton family story and believed that there were connections with royalty. He had a genealogist in England investigating possible links for him but there was no follow up letter in the files confirming or denying this.

With the Internet it is much easier now to research family history from afar and I therefore was able to follow the family back through the lines he suggested and it appears that direct links can be traced back to the Plantagenets, the Normans, some Scottish Kings and even to Alfred the Great. All a bit of fun which I would not have investigated if I had not found the letter written to my grandmother.

I also have a transcription of another letter written in September 1982 by the cartoonist, Syd Miller, to my father. In the letter Syd describes some of the outing he and his wife made with my grandparents in the late 1920s / early 1930s.

At that time I like to remember most a 1927 Buick Roadster. It had a dicky seat. ... This Buick seated three persons, but mostly seated four persons. Mo being wider than any of us sat against the left or passenger door, Agnes (sorry Fairy) sat on his knee, Susie squeezed into the middle, I always drove.... The dicky seat in the back we always reserved for odd bods we cared little for or for whom we cared little. It was mainly used to transport grog safely from place to place.

There is also description of leaving their children at home with relatives or people they paid to look after them. He added, 'later as the years progressed we'd say or think, "They're old enough to look after themselves." In more modern parlance:"She'll be sweet, Mate."...'

This was the first indication of the Bohemian lifestyle my grandparents must have led with their journalist and artist friends, colleagues and acquaintances. I wish that I had known about this when my grandmother and my father were alive. I would have asked them lots of questions.

Unlocking family stories - biographical dictionaries

The Australian Dictionary of Biography has been available online for many years. The ADB is produced by the National Centre of Biography at the Australian National University.
http://adb.anu.edu.au/

The entries provide a useful overview of the life of the person and are written by experts in the field.

A newer resource associated with ADB is  Obituaries Australia.

Women Australia and Labour Australia are other projects of the National Centre of Biography available online.

Another major biographical resource available at major reference libraries such as the State Library of Victoria is Who's Who in Australia. Some years ago I found a useful entry about my grandfather, including an outline of his journalistic career, in a volume of Who's Who Australia published in the early 1930s.

Anyone living in Victoria can apply for a State Library of Victoria reader's card enabling access to online databases from their website.

Similarly any Australian can apply for a National Library of Australia reader's card enabling access to online databases from their website.

Clicking the biography tab in the Browse Category menu provides access to 32 resources, both databases accessible only by using the membership card as well as websites available to anyone online. This is obviously a good place to start.

Unlocking family stories - e-books

Increasingly books that are in the public domain are being digitised and made available online. Two sites for free e-books are:

  Project Gutenberg

  Google Books

Public library websites often provide access to e-book collections for borrowing as well as links to sites providing free e-books for download to add to your collection. 

Whitehorse Manningham Regional Library Corporation website provides access to e-books via the e-resources link.

Typing the title of a book AND e-book in a search engine (especially if the title was published prior to 1955) is one way of discovering the availability of titles.

In 1839 George Mackillop submitted two articles to the Scottish publication, Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, describing his views about the possibilities of the new settlement of Port Phillip. I was unable to locate a copy of the article until I found a copy of the volume containing the article digitised as a Google book.

Often when searching for information about an individual, especially someone who lived during the eighteenth century, references will be found in digitised documents online. 

Unlocking family stories - books

Exploring libraries and bookshops for relevant General Nonfiction,  Biographies Fiction might provide context and / or facts for unlocking your family story.

 

The examples above are all books from my collection that provide background information about events experienced by family members. Sometimes they mention specific information about the person as well.

My father was a journalist at The Argus newspaper so The Argus, life and death of a newspaper is an important resource. One of the stories recounted by my father about the Second World War involved the evacuation of Crete, a story covered in Diggers and Greeks. With twelve convicts in the family The Rum Rebellion is an event that would have impacted on all their lives, especially Simeon Lord, a signatory of the petition to depose Governor Bligh. Another of my convicts, Uriah Moses, was Jewish so Australian Genesis  provides information about the lives of this minority group in the Sydney settlement. As my mother was a schoolgirl living at Rose Bay when the Japanese midget submarines entered Sydney Harbour in 1942 so Battle Surface provides interesting reading about these and other sightings of Japanese vessels off the Australian coast. 

When using non-fiction books for family history research always check the index as well as the contents and don't forget to investigate any relevant notes for further clues as well as appendices and the bibliography.

 Two of the books used when researching George Hutton's story about his first few years in Australia were Saltbush Country, a history of the Deniliquin area where George spent a few months in 1869 and Lillydale providing the area where George's father purchased a property and built a home for his family in the 1870s.

With family links going back to the Normans and Plantagenets it has been useful to read biographies about individuals and families. Many novels have also been written based on the lives, or supposed lives of people living during this period. The relationship between John of Gaunt and Katherine Roet has attracted the attention of a number of authors of romance novels - some well written and researched while others are unreadable.

Family milestones and / or reunions may promote the distribution or publication of  family histories while sometimes a family member may write and publish a story about an ancestor.

A word of caution: When using information to add to your family story always check the sources used by the author and, if possible, refer to a number of resources as not everything in print (or online) is necessarily factual.

Thomas William Birch

 In the Supreme Court of Van Diemen's Land - In Equity

TO BE SOLD IN LOTS

PURSUANT to a Decree of the Supreme Court of Van Diemen's Land, made in a cause of Lord and others v. Knopwood, since deceased, and others, with the approbation of His Honor the Chief Justice, on the premises, some time in the month of January, 1839, of which due notice will be given, certain PREMISES situate in and near Hobart Town, late the property of Thomas William Birch, Esquire,

deceased.

Particulars whereof may in a short time be had, gratis, at the office of the clerks of the Supreme Court; of Messrs. Cartwright and Allport; Mr. Stanley ; Messrs. Butler and Son ; and at the offices of Messrs. Horne and Wynne.

Hobart Town Courier 11 January 1839 

also 18 January 1839

Henry Moses - two more obituaries

MR. HENRY MOSES.

Mr. Henry Moses, a former M.L.C. and known as 'Father of the Council,' also former owner of Combadello Station, near Moree, died on Saturday at the age of 94. The late Mr. Moses resigned from the Council in. July, 1923, his parliamentary career having extended over 53 years. When he resigned he returned to the Railway Department his gold pass, which he was entitled to retain. His view was that as he had ceased to be a legislator he should no longer use a legislator's concession.

Deceased had had a very adventurous career. He had travelled the greater portion of Australia, and could tell thrilling stories of shipwrecks, railway accidents, and meetings with bush rangers, which had come within the scope of his experience. Coming to Moree 42 years ago, he bought Combadello Station, transferring it later to two of his sons. He was also a director of the Commercial Banking Company for many years.

The late Mr. Moses was born at Windsor and was married in that town. As a lad he served in a lawyer's office, but the Ophir gold rush led him in pursuit of the precious metal. He was a very keen sportsman, and cricket and racing in the Hawkesbury district found in him an ardent sup porter. He had six sons and four daughters. The four surviving sons are Mr. F. A. Moses (at present in England), and Messrs. Harry, Herbert and Leslie Moses (of Sydney). Mr. Fred. Moses and the late Mr. William Moses bred valuable blood stock, including the racehorse Poitrel. His son, Harry, played a sensational innings of 298 against the Melbourne Cricket Club.

Moree Gwydir Examiner and General Advertiser Monday 21 June 1926 page 3

MR. H. MOSES DEAD.

Romantic Career. SYDNEY, Saturday.

Mr. Henry Moses, a former M.L.C., who was known as the 'Father of the Council,' died at 5 a.m. to-day, at the age of 94. The late Mr. Moses resigned from the Council in July, 1923, thus terminating a Parliamentary career extending over 32 years, bridging the gap between Sir Henry Parkes and Mr. Lang.

His early life was crammed with romance and adventure. Shipwrecks, railway smashes, and threatening bushrangers came his way. He travelled a large portion of Australia, but Windsor always loomed large in the memories that he cherished, for Windsor was his birthplace, and there he was christened and married. There as a lad, he wrestled with writs and mortgages in a lawyer's office, but soon the Ophir gold rush led him in chase of the Will-o'-wisp luck. Later, he was a station owner for a time, and then to Parliament, where, as a staunch 'free trade' advocate, he fought hard for his ideals. The sporting life, too, had a fascination for him, and cricket and racing in the Hawkesbury district, found him an ardent supporter. His son, Harry, played a sensational innings of 298 not out against the Melbourne Cricket Club. One of his proudest thoughts was that two of his sons owned Poitrel, winner of the Melbourne Cup.

The Grenfell Record and Lachlan District Advertiser Monday 21 June 1926

Articles from Trove at  http://www.trove.nla.gov.au