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Not sure how accurate this is, but my grandmother told me that one of our distant Irish relatives (many moons ago) was sent to Australia as a convict for stealing 6 pillows.

I know my dad's family is from England as we have a family crest - not sure how they got to Australia?
 
I seem to be my own generations 'family archive guardian'. Women do tend to be more drawn to this activity (prob due to their traditional homemaking/domestic role), but men can have a great passion for it too. There is nothing more satisfying than unearthing a buried or shunned family secret, or finding out an anecdote or two were innacurate. Whether we like to admit it or not, the lives of our great-great etcs are part of our identity, our habitus, etc. Not to mention, photography has now been widely available and purchasable for over a century now, and due to the internet, records are becoming more elaborate. People in society now also arent quite as constrained by cultural ideals as they were in eras past, so a sense of uniqueness and individuality is also coming out through photography, as opposed to those stately 'significant occasions' (ie. weddings) photos from a few generations back, where photo subjects generally tried to look idealic and not entirely lend themselves to a photograph.

Photographs dont tell the whole story, but family archives are an incredibly powerful medium (and therefore the first possession we tend to save from housefire). They are also useful as a mode of initial investigation into murky areas of family history.

My own family history isnt that exciting really.

My grandfather (moms side) has traced the family lineage back to King Henry VII (1457-1509), but I dont think there is much detail, mainly "_, son of_". He was the father of King Henry VIII, probably a more famous figure that I have some relation to.
His ex-wife (grandmother) came to Australia via boat from England during WWII. Father was Welsh.

Dads side of the family came to Victoria very early on, back around the 1810/20's, and settled in the Camperdown/Cobden area of West Victoria. Family history name appears to come from Lancashire or possibly Scotland, but the name also appears Germanic (maybe a few centuries back).

All up, mix of English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish, German & French. Nothing terribly exotic. But my dads side really has as much a claim to 'Australian' as any anglos. Mums side are mostly 20th century arrivals.

I have a wedding photo of my great-great grandparents, it looks like a scene from Titanic lol. Definitly from another era. That is about 1910-ish, the oldest photo in my possession (grandparents might have some older ones).

Some common family surnames (not including my own) in recent history include Evans & Kelly. More random ones include Goodladd, Dickman & Duffy.

My own surname is rare, there is only one other person in Australia who shares my initials and surname (some old dude), and I was the only person ever to have my old male name (as far as I know). And yes, I've googled myself :D
 

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Apparently way back somewhere there is a tie-up between Spanish Conquistadors and an Inca princess. I was in Cuzco this time last year (almost to the day), but don't know the name of the ancestor (or remember the name of any of the dudes mentioned, portaited, etc in the museums there).

Its only of importance as it may put me soewhere in the top to three billion in line for the Spanish throne and/or any repatriated Inca goodies. So I figure I could get a call-up any time now. :p
 
Our family history on my Dad's side is very easy to trace, because for the last 500 odd years every eldest son has named his firstborn son after his father.

We're not a particularly imaginative lot.
 
Caesar said:
Our family history on my Dad's side is very easy to trace, because for the last 500 odd years every eldest son has named his firstborn son after his father.

We're not a particularly imaginative lot.
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I thought Caeser was a title, not a name, and that it went back much further than 500 years.
We all use our real names on BF don't we?
 
Hap Hapablap said:
that ancestry.com.au really doesnt help if your relatives were not from the UK or the USA.
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Try the Genealogical Society in your state. They will be able to tell you how to go about finding stuff.

My old man is right into it. Has done two trips to Scotland and a third planned later this year solely to research church records etc.
 
One of the branches of my family arrived at Geelong in 1852

The Vic govt paid for them to come because there was a labour shortage due to the gold rush (thousands left their jobs to look for gold )

Not long after they arrived one of their kids disappeared and was assumed to have wandered off and died

After a few years the father hears rumours of a white boy living with one of the indigenous tribes so he checked it out and found it was his son

He paid the tribe some flour and sugar to get him back
 
My cousin had to do a school assignment on this a year or two ago. He dug up some great stuff.

Apparently my ancestors on my dad's side were of German descent (I thought they were British convicts) who moved out here after WWI and changed their surnames from a German spelling to a more Anglo spelling so they could avoid the stigma that came with being German at the time.
 
Not as far back as some, but I recently learned that my Great (possibly one more Great) Grandfather was in the first wave of soldiers that landed on the beach at Gallipoli in WWI. And he survived. Somehow.
 
Roobs321 said:
Whether we like to admit it or not, the lives of our great-great etcs are part of our identity, our habitus, etc.
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I often wonder how far back the little quirks we inherit from our parents go. My father, brother, grandfather, uncle and cousins all share a lot of little tics and personal habits. I'm often curious of where they originated - if I went back 300 years ago, would some ancestor still finish his meal and put his cutlery at half-past-six before meticulously turning the plate so they face twenty-past-four.
 
We have a book of our family tree that goes back to the 1700s in Cornwall via New Zealand but I don't think there's anything too exciting or interesting, most of my Cornish ancestors were probably just boring old miners or farmers.

I haven't researched my ancestry very thoroughly though, going on that Who Do You Think You Are tv show would be the easiest way to do it where they research it all for you.

I'd be worried it would end up like this though.

 

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Often wonder about the habits myself. When I was young noticed my Great Grandmother, her daughter (my grandmother) and then also HER children (my Dad and uncle) all have this same 'thinking noise', hard to explain, but have noticed now all of my brothers and I also make this same noise. Weird.
 
With Italy, can't find much other than 3 or 4 generations above.

Got a town named after us, and I though it would be easy to find the history based on that...but nothing. I googled my rare surname and saw images of all the people with the same surname...most in Italy and USA...all look the same. It's freaky.

My parents ran into a family with the same name in a cruise last year and the bloke is a spitting image of my uncle.

That's pretty cool
 
+1 for the crazy Auntie looking it all up.

Apparently my great(x) grandfather (or something) was pissed, fell off and got run over by his cart, stumbled into town and then eventually died of his injuries.

Shouldn't laugh.

Did. :oops:

Mums side is all sort of ****ed up (she only found out who her biological father was in about '05 because he was an Italian POW after WW2 in South Africa who got shipped back before she was born).
 
Apparently one of my sets of grandparents were married at 'Pentridge'. My Dad really tried to make sure no one mentioned it and kept it quiet (REALLY out of character for him).

Some years later my sister dug around and found that the whole area around where the prison ended up was called 'Pentridge' for awhile, I think before being split up into Coburg etc. Apparently that was alright then with my Dad....... seriously its 100 effin' years ago.... who gives a crap if someone might 'think' it was in prison or not? Jeez.....

My Mum's uncle was in the Charge at Beersheba. She never found out much. Family story is he was a bit of a dirtbag and not one nieces or nephews ever got left alone with......
 
My mothers side so far goes back to the Isle of sky when the Mcdonalds had a fair empire rich in greek and arab culture. The mcdonalds go back all the way to Norway, where my fathers ancestors migrated to Newcastle(the first one) from.

Somehow though we are of greek DNA and not German DNA (most British people are)..
 
I was adopted as a baby and when I decided to research my biological parents at age 23, I discovered my natural father, who was born in Croatia, was cousins with former footy player Val Perovic. I still haven't met him (Val, that is), perhaps if I had been a St. Kilda or Carlton supporter I might have pressed someone to introduce us.
 
worbod said:
I was adopted as a baby and when I decided to research my biological parents at age 23, I discovered my natural father, who was born in Croatia, was cousins with former footy player Val Perovic. I still haven't met him (Val, that is), perhaps if I had been a St. Kilda or Carlton supporter I might have pressed someone to introduce us.
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I have met Val's brother, he is my friends dad. Great group of people, you will be glad you met them!
 

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