The World War II nominal roll only gives bare details but it lists Patrick Joseph Farraher enlisting on 15 September 1942 in Enoggera, Brisbane at the age of 34. He was attached to the 4^th Field Bakery (AASC) as a private. His next of kin was my Aunty Mary.

Among my aunt’s estate were some old family photos including some of Uncle Pat’s military service, including those mentioned above. Today we start moving into the field and the Australian War Memorial’s photographic collection places Pat’s photos in context. I knew he’d served in Papua New Guinea, and immediately recognised some of Pat’s place photos from his time there, but knew nothing about these service photos of his.

It may be this is field training prior to departing to Papua New Guinea -it looks like Australian scrub in the background. Photograph from Pat Farraher collection.

The cook “train” -you can see this photo links with the one above. Photo from Pat Farraher collection.

I could see this was an Army Dukw (amphibious vehicle) photographed, I suspect, at Enoggera army camp by Uncle Pat but what relevance did it have?

Perhaps they were heading off to the ship to PNG. Photograph from Pat Farraher collection.

But the AWM website makes it clearer in its caption for this photo: A FIELD BAKERY BEING ESTABLISHED ON THE NORTHERN BANK OF THE BUMI RIVER. THIS PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS MEMBERS OF THE 4TH AUSTRALIAN FIELD BAKERY PLACING SHEER LEGS IN POSITION ON TWO “DUKWs” PREPARATORY TO UNLOADING THE BAKERS OVENS.

Photograph 61074 from the AWM Collection, taken in the Finchhafen area of PNG. Image in the public domain. Men from the 4th Field Bakery.

Armies need food as well as ammunition so the army bakers were kept busy making bread, rolls, meat pies and who knows what else. I don’t suppose that with people being shot at, any concerns for health regulations went out the window. I was lucky to find so many great photos of the 4th Field Bakery in the AWM collections.

Image 061258 AWM. 4th Field Bakery men preparing bread rolls. Image out of copyright.

In a hot and humid region, working in the bakehouse must have been incredible sweaty work though they were probably well-served by their bush-materials bake house. In the bigger scheme of things I guess the Diggers probably didn’t care too much about a salty addition to their bread rolls.

The AWM states on one picture “with improvised ovens and huts and the help of native boys, the men of the 2/4th Field Bakery baked thousands of bread rolls each day to supply the Division”.

Some bakers from the 4th Field Bakery heading back to quarters after a busy day’s work. The contrast between the featured image today and the men in this image is amusing, I think. No wonder the British officers complained about the casualness of Australian soldiers during WWI.

AWM Image 061613 of the 4th Field Bakery men leaving the bush materials bakehouse at Dumpu in the Ramu Valley, PNG. Image out of copyright and in the public domain.

You have to admire these  visiting guest speakers to the Genealogical Society of the Northern Territory: the attendees get maximum bang for their buck with back-to-back presentations, and if they’re quick, a slice of Elaine’s delicious fruit cake for morning tea.

Susie’s topics today include a new spin on some old favourites like researching house and land records for our ancestors and the fantastic records and databases of the Geelong and District Historical Society and the Bellarine Historical Society in Victoria.

Susie also spoke about the abundance of records, and indexes, available through the State Records Authority of New South Wales, though with abundant warnings regarding the site’s offer to order a photocopy for $15 per page, rather than pursue the data the old fashioned way, via microfilms, which enable you to scan and/or print the page at minimal cost. Equally important from my point of view is that going to the microfilms lets you peruse the adjacent pages, not just focus on your own specific entry.

Warnings about the $15 tempt-trap for the buy-it-now researcher, could equally well be replaced with caveat emptor or RTBM (read the bloody manual!). Susie strongly recommended that we ALWAYS read what is contained within a database, and how it works/whether wildcards can be used etc.

Another warning was to read, read and read some more about the background history applicable to your ancestors, their place in Australia and where they came from, so that you understand the context.

Over the course of the morning a vast number of resources were mentioned which were new to novice researchers, and well worth investigating to round out your family history. The slides which listed her recommendations were helpful and good guides. However the slides which set out to show particular documents were, in my opinion, close to useless. Even with distance glasses, and having used many similar records I couldn’t make out what on earth was on some. It would be great if the image could be cropped to focus on the particular entry, making it a more useful learning and information tool.

Susie comes into her own when talking about heritage studies and the history of houses, and had a couple of great examples. Her final presentation focused on the value of casting a doubting eye over everything we’re told, and read, and regularly reviewing our past discoveries, certificates etc. She told a couple of hilarious stories about how family stories are tweaked to fit popular sensibilities and I loved the story of one of her convicts in particular, not to mention her mother’s response.

I’m not sure that I agree with her assessment that “family history=the stories” while “genealogy=the science of family history, and where to prove the stories” but the genealogy vs family history debate is one that’s unlikely to be resolved any time soon.

I’ve adopted Susie’s tip about using the ~ symbol in conjunction with a “enclosed set words” to find words within ~20 words of each other. The tilda symbol is one that Shauna Hicks recommends but I hadn’t realised (or had forgotten?) that combined with a set of words in inverted commas, those words would not need to be a phrase rather a combination of words that need to be close to each other. I’ll be using it for my Partridge ancestor in Ipswich to get around all those annoying feathered creatures that come up in a Trove search: So “Partridge Ipswich” ~20.

For me, the discovery of the day was Susie’s recommendation about the “geeky” combined search site for the WWI record finder. It’s so cool to be able to see the entire service record for a relative and pick out which document you want within it.

I also liked the Wraggelabs population browser, which lets you slide the button through the years, producing population data from the Australia Bureau of Statistics. Those so minded can then document the data into a spreadsheet and prepare a graph as Susie did  – a very clear way of seeing the huge gender disparity on the goldfields, for example. You could have a ton of fun with this tool!

When Mr Cassmob gets into his own family history, the online Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works sewerage maps at PROV are bound to be helpful for his Melbourne-based ancestors.

Why not take Susie’s advice and move beyond your comfort zone: it’s the only way to learn more about your ancestry and to expand your knowledge and skills….and you never know, it might not be as scary as you fear. Good advice!

All in all a morning well spent with someone who really knows their stuff.

My tip: if you own a tablet, take it with you to talks like this, as it lets you follow up the links on the spot and see exactly what’s being talked about.

FYI: If you want to read more about my own list of offline resources you can click on this link and work your way through my Beyond the Internet posts from last year.

Researchers with German ancestry might find today’s posts on my much-neglected From Dorfprozelten to Australia blog worth a read in case they can apply the results to their own family history.

I will be trying to upload stories of my Dorfprozelten families in the coming weeks.

For years I’d been researching this family and writing up their story was in my “gunna” pile. One day I decided it would be a major life regret if I didn’t buckle down and complete it. And since I was going to write it, it seemed only appropriate to have a hard back cover that would last for ages and become a family heirloom. I had some feeble ideas about the cover design but I couldn’t believe the huge difference my daughter’s contact made to the final product. The faces of George Mathias Kunkel and Mary O’Brien gaze almost confrontingly from the darkness of the background. You can see the strength of pioneers in their faces.

One of the greatest thrills of my life was seeing my book in print and holding it in my hands. Not quite up there with my marriage or my children’s births, but pretty good all the same <smile>.

For all that Mary’s face seems as if it should be the less dominant, her steady gaze is what catches my eye first. And I can’t help wondering if I can see her eyes two-toned as mine are. You can read a little about her here. 

There are lots of references on my blog to the Kunkel family but this post reveals how I finally handled the roadblock (or mental block?) I’d had about describing George Kunkel’s departure from Dorfprozelten in Bavaria. It was clearly indicated as a hypothetical story but based on the facts of the village which I’d visited a few times and read about in the local history.

Or you might be interested in learning a little about how this pioneering family celebrated Christmas, and the Bavarian traditions that George brought with him, from this story.

I was surprised looking through my photos that I actually had relatively few of anyone, cigarette in hand. One or two of Granddad with his pipe, none of Mr Cassmob but quite a few youthful photos of Dad, some alone, some with me.

Dad at the beach during my parents’ honeymoon, pipe in hand.

With me at the beach, cigarette in hand.

On the rocks at Rocky Bay, Magnetic Island.

Dad was healthy – he had to be because he walked for eight hours straight every day in the railway yards, many miles in a dangerous environment. For possibly the first twenty years of his working life there were steam trains, progressively fading out over the years. By the time Dad was fifty, our friend, a physician, said he had the worst lungs he’d ever seen, full of coal dust. Dad also smoked until he was in his 70s.

For ten years before he died Dad was on oxygen 24/7. Coal dust or cigarettes: which was the major problem? Impossible to say. No doubt the coal dust played a part offset by the lung capacity from walking every day and a longevity gene. 

I wouldn’t wish it on anyone to watch someone they love cough hackingly, be too embarrassed to go out in public accompanied by the oxygen cylinder, totally dependent on it for breathing and vulnerable to power outages. Smoking isn’t sexy or sophisticated: it can and does kill. Hence the bans on cigarette advertisements and the warning notices on cigarette packs. I could have included a photo of Dad, wired up for oxygen, but I preferred to show him full of youth and vigour, and also to respect his privacy in ill-health.

The timing of Dad’s death is inextricably linked in my mind with the re-election of the ALP to government in Australia which was happening during his final stint in hospital. Dad died on the same day as Australia’s campaigner for compensation for those with illnesses caused by work-place asbestos. Both men’s deaths were, at a minimum, contributed to by work-place dangers. Ironic I suppose in conjunction with the election into government of Australia’s party for the working person.

Mum & Dad were apparently terribly agitated and very sad that they’d never ever see me again: they cried and cried and put posters in hundreds of letter boxes but no one had seen me. Lucky for me the cat gods were looking after me and I’m perfectly safe, if a little wiser.

I came home on the evening before my 7^th birthday, Anzac Day. I’d been away for 7 weeks, one week for every year of my life (well in human terms anyway). They say that marriages have seven year itches, and people have mid-life crises, well I was turning 49 in cat years and I think that called for a crisis of its own. I just didn’t expect it wouldn’t be much fun. I don’t like to frighten my family so I haven’t told Mum & Dad all the things that happened, and they’re really not very good at understanding cat language, so I just look deeply into their eyes instead and purr and do paddy-paws.

What happened was that Mum was in Brisbane, Dad was at work and I just felt like a little adventure. I was tired of being home by myself – I’m used to company while Mum works on the computer. My friend Slinky Malinky, a black cat who I’ve been playing with lots, dropped by and we were running and playing in the yards nearby.

Then I got a terrible fright – a scary person I didn’t like tried to catch me and I hid. Later on some big dogs chased me –there’s far too many of those creatures around here!  I ran and ran so fast to get away from them and I had to dodge the cars as I raced across a big street. By the time I stopped I just didn’t know where I was, even though I know some of the streets from when we go to the vets or the cat resort.

For a couple of weeks I just wandered around trying to find my way home, getting more and more lost and hungry even though I managed to catch a couple of mice in the parks. One day when I was nearly starving a kind lady offered me some milk and food so I just decided to trust her for a couple of weeks. She hadn’t seen any of the posters my family had put up in the shops so she didn’t know to ring them and instead she called the pound to come and get me.

I’m lucky I’m so handsome because they tried to find my home by ringing all sorts of people. Even though they had my picture on their wall they didn’t realise it was me, because my face looked a bit less ginger in that photo. None of the people they called were my family and they went home looking very sad. After I’d been there nearly 2 weeks,  they called Mum and told her they just might have me, even though they couldn’t find my microchip…I think it must have fallen out. Was I big cat? Had I been desexed? Yes, what do I know about girls?! It’s not as if I’d run away just to chase some girl. Mind you, I liked to have met the girl cat who’s missing from near here and who looks a lot like me…she looks nice.

Of course I look smug -I’m home!

Mum arrived at the pound and she told me her legs were shaking all the way there and she kept praying it would be me. When they took her into the cat room we just looked at each other but after she opened the door and leant in, I gave her my favourite head-butt of affection. We both knew I was going home! The ladies from the pound and PAWS were so excited they had tears in their eyes.

Ever since we got home I’ve been so happy to be here. I can’t get enough pats and cuddles and keep sitting as close as possible to my family and purring and purring. I even like the grandchildren now.

I don’t want to be aloof any more, I’ve had my fill of adventure. When either of my family sits down I jump straight up and join them for a cuddle. I even sleep on the end of the bed now and if I feel lonely I can go up and ask for more pats. Mum says my eyes look a bit different now – of course they do! I saw some scary stuff out there in the wilds of the suburb.

I’m done with my mid-life crisis, I just want to be safe at home. Every now and then I look out at the courtyard but it’s a scary world out there, and inside everyone loves me. You’d think I was a celebrity the way my family has turned into the paparazzi and take my photo at every turn. And everywhere my parents go people are just so thrilled that I made it home safely – and so am I.

Mum wants to get in on the act now, but I don’t mind because we’re such good mates.

Mr Cassmob & I are so grateful for the kindness of all our friends and the random strangers we bailed up to ask about Springer. The TELAF people were fabulous in keeping Springer’s photo in the missing list for people to see and the RSPCA, PAWS and the pound were all responsive to our requests for follow-up. We’re eternally grateful to have our boy back safe and sound and especially thank the unknown lady who looked after him in Holtze St as well as the PAWS ladies at the pound who called us to come and look. People have been so kind. 

(Thanks to Geniaus for the guest post idea).

Even though I had some photos which suited this week’s theme, they just didn’t seem to have a thread to draw them together – other than one of us reading the newspaper. I had decided I would pass on this theme, when a related sub-theme came to mind. It just didn’t occur to me until this morning that the event in question would commence

.

1988 was Australia’s Bicentennial year, celebrating 200 years of white settlement and Australia as it’s come to be today. From an Indigenous point of view it was certainly contentious and perhaps was also a turning point in the debate about the impact of settlement and colonisation on the country’s indigenous peoples.

Sydney Harbour, Australia Day 1988

Overall it was a year full of events and celebrations for those so inclined, starting with the arrival of the Tall Ships. On Australia Day the huge display of Tall Ships, sailing boats and large navy vessels cheek-by-jowl in Sydney Harbour was thrilling and the day culminated in one of Sydney’s iconic  fireworks display.

A view of the Expo site from a hot air balloon, early 1987.

In Brisbane, the event of the year was World Expo 1988. Starting on 30^th April, early autumn, it last an exciting, interesting, and fun six months. Brisbane turned on its best winter weather full of sunshine and clear blue skies and the westerly winds didn’t turn up too soon. I remember that we’d planned only to get a multiple-entry pass for financial reasons given we had school fees etc to take care of. Then someone (who??) talked me into the merits of a full season pass. It was a fantastic decision because it meant we could come and go as we pleased, for as long or as short a time as we liked.

Opening Day of Expo was a crush and a buzz of happiness.

Expo was held on the south bank of the Brisbane River, clearing a huge area, and most unfortunately displacing many of the poorer people who lived in the area. It had been the dry dock area and I recall that my great aunt lived there with her son, for a while after a stroke.

And here’s the link ! A statue “reads” the newspaper at Expo.

The morning Expo 88 opened the crowds were packed densely at the gates, but full of anticipation. There was a surge of excitement when the gates opened, but It really didn’t matter when you went, there was always so much going on and so much to see. The Canadian and New Zealand pavilions rapidly became high-demand venues, so if you walked past and there was no queue you didn’t miss a chance. We loved the Nepalese pavilion, now preserved in the South Bank Parklands. Everywhere there were fun statues in poses which suited their location (many have been resited around Brisbane). Taking family photos near them became everyone’s hobby.

I had to include this one of Mr Cassmob’s parents with the statues-great newspaper reader themselves and her hat echoes that of the woman’s.

Mr Cassmob’s aunt, moi, and DD2 and 3 outside the Oz pavilion.

There were concerts at the river which attracted huge crowds, and parades in the streets. Our older two then-teenaged daughters would sometimes go on their own to meet friends on a weekend after school or their part-time work. It was great because you knew they were safe.

There were street performers to entertain, footpath artists and a wondrous array of objects, even an original copy of the Magna Carta, to enjoy in the pavilions. Brisbane had never seen the like before. Even if our daughters had missed out on our travel gene (unlikely!), this certainly ensured that foreign lands captured their imaginations. Youngest daughter and I would often visit on the earlier evenings of the week while Mr Cassmob was studying, then he and I would have a date night later in the week.

The Nepalese pavilion had delicious sweets and samosas if I remember correctly.

There it is!

Each of the countries represented had their own food stall and there was such variety to choose from. Unfortunately I didn’t get to enjoy this so much because it coincided with a fun period on a rigorous food elimination diet: potatoes and beans anyone?

One of the events at Expo was the Irish release of the Australian-Irish convict register on computer. On it I discovered information for my expat friend in the USA who was also researching Gavins but not my mob.

There really was something for everyone with so much entertainment and new experiences. It became a great place to catch up with friends and family and I was so pleased that we stretched the budget to a full pass for each of us. It was a great investment and we surely got our money’s worth.

We were there on opening day and it was such fun as our eyes popped with all the new sights and experiences. We were there on closing day and it was so sad: no surprise that youngest daughter had her face painted with tears. In the words of the Seekers’ song “The Carnival is Over”. Expo 88 had been a six month festival that had captured hearts and changed Brisbane forever.

There was much public debate as to how the site should be used and eventually it became a public parkland with a large pool. Adjoining the Brisbane Performing Arts and close to the Art Gallery, Museum and State Library it adds a different dimension to the city.

You can buy earlier series of the Aussie WDYTYA online.

Are you enjoying this season’s Australian Who Do You Think You Are (WDYTYA)?

I certainly am – I even think this may be their best yet.  The background researchers have done a great job and the individuals we’re following seem to really care about what happened to their families in the past.

James Tanner from Genealogy’s Star was recently bemoaning (rightly!) discussing his experience with helping a friend get started with their genealogy. There does seem to be a tendency for new genealogists to want to wander an orchard full of genealogical data, plucking off whichever fruit appeals to them, or looking for a specific tree called “the Smith Family”.

Certainly the downside of programs like WDYTYA or Ancestry’s advertising, is that they make it appear as if information drops from the skies or is just there for plucking from the trees like ripe fruit. No wonder we’re seeing a proliferation of incorrect and ill-considered trees on public web sites.

Of course, there were probably always some trees full of errors (some of the old patron submissions on the IGI, for example), but they used to be hidden in someone’s cupboard rather than out there for the next quick-fix “researcher” to incorporate into their own tree. I guess there’ll always be those who want to be rigorous with their research, “doubting Thomases” who want the proof and nothing but the proof (me, for example), and those who are happy to rely on “but my family always said…..”.

WDYTYA does make it look easier than it is, and deceptive in how you can research: when was the last time you were taken into the compactus (plural? compactii?) of an archival repository to collect your documents? Yes, right, never!

And yes, newspaper articles are plucked as if from that same magic research tree without reference to Trove, which all Aussie researchers have come to almost take for granted. I have to remind myself that once we were finding at least some of the same information by laborious scrolling of microfilms for pertinent dates or events, or by taking advantage of indexes equally laboriously compiled by volunteers from various family history societies.

What I don’t find myself doing (at least not too much!) is talking to the screen during WDYTYA as I do through “Who’s been sleeping in my house” saying “use Trove”,” look up the BDM indexes”, “check the electoral rolls”.

But returning to last night’s show on Michael Caton (of The Castle and “tell him he’s dreaming” fame), the show made me think about two things pertinent to my own family history:

1. My Denis Gavin may have left off his work as a carrier after he ceased employment at Binbian Downs, not having the funds to set up his own “rig” but equally he may have been impacted by the encroaching impact of Cobb & Co. This is a thought I’ll be pursuing in future research.
2. Michael’s ancestor had links to the (in)famous bushranger Thunderbolt both early in his career but also near Tenterfield in the early 1860s because of the gold rush. They didn’t mention this was at Tooloom, only that it was near the Queensland border. However I have evidence that my George Kunkel was working as a pork butcher on the same goldfields. I wonder if he ever sold meat to Thunderbolt? Just one of those irrelevant and silly thoughts –but the fact remains he was working in the same area at the same time so would have been very familiar with the stories of Thunderbolt’s activities.

The other amusing diversion was that during Caton’s visit to Cunnamulla, there was a background sign about the Cunnamulla Fella, the eponymous country song, and apparently also the name of a local festival!

 Have any of the recent WDYTYA shows made you re-think any aspect of your family history?

You can see my response over here on my Tropical Territory blog.

A couple of years ago my husband and I were able to visit London and actually spent some time sightseeing rather than just doing family history. One of our “discoveries” was the joys of the Borough Markets. Now I’m sure this is old hat to my English readers but what a great time we had looking at all the produce, much of it so different from what we have here, and definitely fresher than a lot we get. The colours and the arrangements were just gorgeous and so photogenic. It was also incredibly cold that morning too, so we actually drank a mulled wine and followed up with a curry at some ridiculously early hour!.

At the Borough Markets

Now I’m not vegetarian – I’m one of those food hypocrites who likes to pretend their meat just appears on Styrofoam trays in the supermarket. But even I couldn’t resist these images of freshly delivered critters. My foodie daughter has no such qualms -she’ll happily look at young lambs gambolling in the field and think how delicious they’ll taste.

Paddock to plate.

I know rabbits can be a pest, and they certainly are here having been imported for hunting by nostalgic British settlers, but they are oh so cute, as well as delicious when cooked. I have a delicious homemade Italian rabbit ragu at a restaurant I like in Brisbane whenever it’s available, and I’m in town.

Ditto the ducks with their gorgeous heads still vibrantly coloured. Peking Duck anyone?

Not only did we have a fabulous time at the markets we were able to have an interlude visiting the adjacent Southwark Cathedral, St Saviour’s, where Mr Cassmob’s ancestors were married. One of the ushers looked appalled when I said it had a modern feel, I suppose quite rightly given its age, but what I liked about it was its simplicity of line.

I can feel a series of photos coming up about our travels on my Tropical Territory blog once I get through the April A to Z challenge.