A painting of Jean Gaspard Weiss

Living here in Germany, we are about an hour's drive from Mulhouse in France. The other day I took the opportunity to visit Mulhouse, and start ticking things off my family history bucket list!

First thing on the list was to visit the Musée Historique to see the painting of Jean Gaspard Weiss, my 4x great grandfather. The museum staff showed me where the painting was, as I asked about it, and then I told them that he was my great great great great grandfather, which was met with an exclamation of great surprise! They told me all about him, all stuff which I already knew of course! But it was amazing to see the painting in real life. Today when I Skyped my family back in Australia, I compared the faces of his descendants with my photo of the painting. Yes, there are similarities, even taking into account that it's not the best painting I've seen of him.

I also walked across the square to the Temple St Etienne, where Gaspard Weiss' father was a church musician. It was amazing to think of him in there, playing, over 200 years ago.

So there's plenty more for me to see and do in Mulhouse, but I'm saving those for another time. There will be plenty of opportunities.

Mary Ann Wilkey and her links to Casino

Mary Ann Wilkey, who lived in Burwood, a suburb of Sydney, died in Casino, a town in Northern NSW. I had never been able to work out why she was there - it was an unlikely holiday destination for a widowed 76 year old woman, if, in fact, people actually took holidays in those days...

Last night I was searching Findmypast for information on the Wilkeys when I came across Mary Ann Wilkey's probate summary. From memory, when I tried to access this record in person at NSW State Records, it was missing, so it was good to have the details summarised.

Mary Ann's will requested that all her real estate properties (four of them) be sold after her death, and that the proceeds of the sales be distributed equally amongst her living children. She also provided some money for Ellen Wilkey (named as Helen), the widow of her son James Arthur Wilkey, and directed that the rest of her belongings be given to her youngest daughter Elizabeth Elsie. She named her son Charles and her son-in-law James Hall (husband of daughter Elizabeth Elsie) as executors of the will.

It was when I got to the section of the probate record stating that Charles and James were made executors that I made a sudden exclamation, startling my husband. It recorded that James Hall was a shopkeeper, in Casino. I'm guessing that it was very likely that Mary Ann was visiting her daughter Elizabeth Elsie in Casino when she died.

It's not the sort of information that changes much, but I'm glad I've finally solved that puzzle!

Adolph Mondientz and his theatrical career

According to her death certificate, Caroline Beringer was born in Frankfurt. Dying in 1896, aged 38, she was born in approximately 1857. Her parents were listed as Adolf Mondientz, painter, and Charlotte Volker.

I have not yet been able to find a birth record for Caroline, nor a marriage record for her parents. However, FamilySearch has two possible records for siblings of Caroline's: Johann Ludwig Mandientz was born to Adolph Mandientz and Charlotte Eufemia Arnoldine Voelke in 1849, and christened in 1850 in Iserlohn, Westfalen, Preussen, Germany, and Adolphine Franciska Mordientz was born to Adolph Mordientz and Charlotte Euphemia Arnoldine Voelker in 1848, and christened in 1848, in the Evangelical church in Cleve, Rheinland, Prussia.

Ignoring the different spelling of names, which could be explained by illiteracy or transcription errors, I wasn't at all sure if this really was all the same family, because of the vastly different locations across Germany - Frankfurt, Iserlohn and Cleve aren't really close to each other, and I generally assume that in those days people didn't move around too much, considering there were no cars, and getting around took a lot longer than it would now. I had to find something that suggested that the family might have moved around a lot. The best way to find that needle in a haystack was to find out all that I could on the family.

I searched FamilySearch for all the German records I could possibly find on the Mondientz and Volker/Voelke/Voelker families, using wildcards and every possible name variation I could think of. I stay away from the user submitted genealogies on FamilySearch because I never know what those users have based their records on - I need concrete evidence, not hearsay. Here's what I found:

Surname	Christian name(s)	Event date	Father	Mother	Place of event
MONDIENTZ	Louise Emily	born 10 Dec 1865, christened 13 Dec 1865	Adolph MONDIENTZ	Anna Catharina GEURTS	Crefeld, Rheinland, Preussen, Germany
MONDIENTZ	Friedrich	marriage to Frieda KONCZEK, 11 Apr 1916 (born on 15 Feb 1892, Crefeld)	Georg Friedrich MONDIENTZ	Auguste PUNGS	Evangelisch (Militärgemeinde), Freiburg Breisgau, Freiburg, Baden
MANDIENTZ	Johann Ludwig	born 28 Dec 1849, christened 12 Jan 1850	Adolph MANDIENTZ	Charlotte Eufemia Arnoldine VOELKE	Iserlohn, Westfalen, Preussen, Germany
MORDIENTZ	Adolphine Franciska	born 22 Sep 1848, christened 10 Oct 1848	Adolph MORDIENTZ	Charlotte Euphemia Arnoldine VOELKER	Evangelisch, Cleve, Rheinland, Prussia
VÖLKER	Gottlieb	marriage to Anna Barbara BECHTTOLD, 11 Jan 1875 (born on 11 Jun 1844, Cleve, Westfahlen, Germany)	none listed	Charlotte Euphrosine Arnoldine VÖLKER	Frankfurt (Main), Hessen-Nassau, Preußen, Germany

So what can we surmise from that? Adolph and Charlotte had at least three children together - Adolphine Franciska, Johann Ludwig and Caroline Mathilda. Charlotte had a child, Gottlieb, before she married Adolph, possibly as a single mother, or perhaps Adolph was the father but just not listed because they weren't yet married. If I could see the original record for Gottlieb's birth it might have an annotation on who the father was thought to be - I've seen that before. Of course, because I am in Europe, I can't actually get access to the microfilms of the originals through the Church of the Latter Day Saints, but would probably have to find which archives the actual originals are held in and travel there to see them. As for Friedrich Mondientz and Louise Emily Mondientz, I needed more evidence to connect them to my Mondientz family.

Google was the next step. A google search of Mondientz brings up many listings of people currently alive with the surname Mondientz, but I needed historical records, and the best option for that is Google Books. And Google Books revealed some listings for an Adolph Mondientz who worked in the theatre in Germany. I decided summarise the information I found, interlinked with the known events for my Adolph Mondientz, to see if they matched up at all:

Year	Place	Event	Source
1848	Mühlheim a. d. Ruhr	Hr. Mondientz: Dekorationsmaler und Theatremeister. As a performer: Mondientz, Väter, Intriguants und Charakterrollen.	Almanach für Freunde der Schauspielkunst auf das Jahr 1848, Volume 12
Sept 1848	Cleve, Rheinland, Prussia	Birth of daughter Adolphine Franciska	FamilySearch
Dec 1849	Iserlohn, Westfalen, Preussen, Germany	Birth of son Johann Ludwig	FamilySearch
1850	Dortmund	Hr. Mondientz: Inspicient und Dekorationsmaler. As a performer: Mondientz, chargirte Rollen, Väter.	Almanach für Freunde der Schauspielkunst auf das Jahr 1850
1856	Cleve and Arnheim	As a performer: Mondientz, Väter und Bariton-parthieen.	A. Heinrich's Deutscher Bühnen-Almanach, Volume 20
1857	Coblenz	Hr. Mondientz: Inspicient. As a performer: Mondientz, bedeutende Aushülfsrollen.	Deutscher Bühnen-Almanach, Volume 21
about 1857	Frankfurt	Birth of daughter Caroline Mathilda	Caroline's death certificate
1859	Offenbach	Hr. Mondientz: Inspicient. As a performer: Mondientz, Komische Charakterrollen, Intriguants.	Deutscher Bühnen-Almanach
1860	Düsseldorf	Hr. Mondientz: Souffleur der Oper. As a performer: Mondientz, zweite Väter und chargierte Rollen.	Deutscher Bühnen-Almanach, Volume 24
1861	Düsseldorf	Hr. Mondientz: Inspicient des Schauspiels. As a performer: Mondientz, zweite Väter.	A. Heinrich's deutscher Bühnen-Almanach, Volume 25
1862	Crefeld	Hr. Mondientz: Inspicient. As a performer: Mondientz, Väter und chargirte Rollen. Kinderrollen: Marie Mondientz.	Deutscher Bühnenalmanach, Volume 26
1864	Crefeld	Hr. Mondientz: Inspicient, Dekorationsmaler. As a performer: Adolph Mondientz, Väter und chargirte Rollen. Kinderrollen: Fanny und Emma Mondientz.	Deutscher Bühnen-Almanach, Volume 28
1865	Crefeld	Hr. Mondientz: Inspicient, Dekorationsmaler. As a performer: Mondientz, alte Diener. Kinderrollen: Fanny und Emma Mondientz.	Deutscher Bühnen-Almanach, Volume 29
Dec 1865	Crefeld	Birth of Louise Emily Mondientz - I don't know that she's actually a relation, but the place fits... perhaps Adolph had been widowed and then remarried and this was another daughter?	FamilySearch
1866	Crefeld	Mondientz, Inspicient.	Ferdinand Roeder's Theater-Kalender

So, this would explain why his known children were all born in different places. Not sure why he moved so much though - unless he had itchy feet!

Caroline's death certificate said that her father was a painter. Was this his day job, and theatre was his hobby? A hobby in which he could use his skills from work, as a dekorationsmaler (decoration painter)? And who were Marie, Fanny and Emma Mondientz? Were they his daughters? Younger sisters? Nieces?

Searching through Google Books, I found one other useful item, in the "Intelligenz-Blatt der freien Stadt Frankfurt, Part 4", p.1346:

Danksagung
Der Unterzeichnete fühlt sich gedrungen, allen Denen, die ihm ihre Theilnahme bei dem Trauerfalle, der ihn betroffen, auf so wahrhaft menschenfreundliche Weise beweisen, insbesondere auch den resp. Mitgliedern des Frankfurter Stadttheaters seinen herzlichsten, tiefgefülhtesten Dank auszusprechen.
Bockenheim, im Oct 1858.
A. Mondientz, Mitglied des Bockenheimer Sommertheaters.

Roughly translated, this Mr A. Mondientz from the Bockenheim Summer Theatre is offering his heartfelt thanks and appreciation shown to him on his recent bereavement, particularly by the members of the Frankfurt City Theatre. Who died? I am guessing it was his wife Caroline. This would then fit with Adolph remarrying (to Anna Catharine Geurts) and having another daughter, Louise Emily, whilst working in Crefeld in 1865.

So, if we assume this is my Adolph Mondientz, and I think there is enough circumstantial evidence to make a case for it, it is interesting that Adolph's grandson (via his daughter Caroline Matilda), George Augustus Beringer, was in the silent movies in America, although he went by the name of André de Beranger. It always seemed an occupation quite unlike any of his other relatives, until we learn of his Grandfather Mondientz's apparent passion for the theatre, and then it doesn't seem nearly so unusual.

The portrait of Gaspard Weiss and family

The Musée Historique in Mulhouse has a portrait of Gaspard Weiss, his wife Marie, and their eldest child, Charlotte. It is a pastel, and the family has always believed it to be by Sir Joshua Reynolds, the celebrated English portrait painter. I've never been sure of this - the portrait is unsigned, and it is done in pastels, which Reynolds did not usually use.

I decided to do a bit of research to see if I could come up with an informed opinion on the likelihood of it being by Sir Joshua Reynolds, though I'm by no means an art historian!

The portrait is below. I have no access to the full artwork in colour, so I'm showing the available partial colour one (from the CD of Weiss's music), plus a black and white image of the full portrait.

According to information on the back of the frame the portrait is thought to have been painted in England in about 1777. Charlotte, the daughter in the photo, was born in June 1776 - the child in the artwork would definitely be around 1 or 2 years old (though how they managed to get her to sit still for a portrait is beyond me!) which fits well with that date.

Would Gaspard Weiss have moved in circles which might have allowed him to sit for a portrait with such a well known artist? In a word, yes. Weiss had patrons, students and acquaintances who would have had contact with Reynolds. Through Lord Abingdon, who was one of his students, he became acquainted with Lord Cholmondeley (who also became a student) and Lord Wentworth. Weiss dedicated flute compositions to all three of these men. Reynolds had painted Lord Cholmondeley as well as portraits of members of both Lord Cholmondeley's and Lord Wenthworth's families. Additionally, Angelika Kauffmann, who had bewitched Weiss in his younger years, became very good friends with Sir Joshua Reynolds upon her arrival in London. It is possible that any of these people could have made an introduction for Weiss with Sir Joshua Reynolds.

Did Reynolds actually use pastels? Jeffares in his Dictionary of Pastellists before 1800 (Online edition) observes that Reynolds did not seem to like using pastels, but then goes on to give details of his pastel works, though many of them appear to have been studies for oil artworks. The only image of a Reynolds pastel that I can find online is Head and Bust of a Woman (see below), held by the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., which in comparison is a very simple work, though it happens to be done in similar colours to the portrait of the Weiss family. Comparing the two, it certainly isn't inconceivable that the same artist might have done both - there is something about the way the eyes are worked that is quite similar.

To compare other artworks of Sir Joshua Reynolds completed around the same time, there are a lot more options to consider.

Reynolds' portrait of Charlotte Grenville, wife of Sir Watkins Williams Wynn and her children (above), held by the National Museum Cardiff, is an oil, completed around 1778. It shows Lady Charlotte reclining with a book, while three of her children play at her feet. Lady Charlotte and Marie Weiss share a similar bored, unseeing gaze (to my mind anyway), and even their profiles appear similar. There is drapery hanging from the lefthand side in both paintings also.

The above portrait The Strawberry Girl, from The Wallace Collection, is an oil completed around 1772-3. While the overall tone of the painting is a lot darker than the Weiss family portrait, the lighting on the actual subject is similar - how the shadows fall etc.

Diana Sackville is an oil, completed in 1777, held by the Henry E Huntington Art Gallery. Despite the completely different background for the two paintings, the colour palettes are similar, as is the lighting.

So I've picked out some of Reynolds' paintings which definitely show some similarities, but it wouldn't be a proper assessment if I didn't compare the Weiss family portrait with the work of some of Reynold's contemporaries. I chosen the major portraitists of the day, including Thomas Gainsborough, Sir Thomas Lawrence and George Romney. George Romney wasn't working in pastels during the period the Weiss family portrait was painted, so we can count him out straight away. Thomas Gainsborough did use pastels, but most of his pastel works have not survived as he apparently didn't fix them.

Gainsborough's pastel portrait of Caroline, 4th Duchess of Marlborough, completed in the 1780s, while beautiful, is of a completely different style to Reynolds' Weiss family portrait. It is done much more in the style of a sketch drawing rather than a painting, with quite a bit of hatching. The colour palette is also very different, with the duchess being rendered in a very white/grey palette, giving her an almost ghostlike appearance.

Sir Thomas Lawrence's pastel portrait of Dr Banks Esq, completed in 1784 is also a very different style to that of Reynolds', and to be honest, is much more amateurish - Lawrence was quite young still in 1784.

So, although it is not an entirely comprehensive study of English portrait painters in the 1800s, I am quite content to consider that the pastel portrait of Gaspard Weiss, his wife Marie, and their infant daughter Charlotte was actually done by Sir Joshua Reynolds. If you are more of an expert on these things than me I'd love to hear your opinion!

I've moved...

Things have been a bit quiet here for sometime, but there's a really good reason for that. We've moved. To another country. On the other side of the world. 

We've moved from my beloved Sydney to a small country town in Germany! No, I don't speak German, but I'm learning, and being immersed in the language now will help. 

We moved here for my husband's work. It's all very exciting and daunting, but there's been so much organising and packing and stuff to do that my family history research had to go on the back burner.

So, I'm not sure what moving here will mean for my family history research. I'm no longer able to visit Australian archives, but we're also quite close to some important places from my family history - the closest being Mulhouse in France, where my Weiss ancestors are from. I can't wait to take a trip over there to visit the Mulhouse city archives and have a dig around for information on Gaspard Weiss and his relatives. 

I'd also love to visit the part of the Rhein Valley where my Beringer ancestors are from, close to Frankfurt and Weisbaden. 

I'm not sure that we will have much opportunity to travel to the UK at all, but if we do, I would love to spend days in the UK archives. 

So that's what's been happening with me, and we'll see how I go with my family history research here!

Some useful French websites for Family History

I have a little bit of French ancestry, so I have done a bit of digging in French genealogical resources. And I want to make it clear right now: I do not understand French, but have been generally able to navigate these websites, with the help of Google Translator. So if I can do it, anyone can!
Firstly, here are some French words that may be helpful as you research French family history:

French	English	French	English
mariage baptême naissance décès décédé enterrement église cimetière maire mairie	marriage baptism birth death deceased burial church cemetery mayor Town Hall	père mère frère sœur fils fille grand-mère grand-père oncle tante	father mother brother sister son daughter grandmother grandfather uncle aunt

The websites you might find useful will depend on where your French ancestors lived. Mine were from Haut Rhin (Upper Rhine), Alsace, and also from Paris, so that's what I'll be focusing on here.
Paris
The most useful online genealogical resource for Paris that I have found is the Archives Numérisées de Paris - the Paris Archives. The Paris archives have three sections of material - the État civil de Paris, civil vital records for Paris, (mostly 1860-1902), Sources Généalogiques Complémentaires, additional complementary resources, such as military records (1875-1921) and children assisted by the Seine (1742-1913), and Documents Iconographiques, maps (nineteenth century) and photographs related to urban planning (1860-1940). Of these records I have made the most use of the État civil de Paris. These records have tables of decades for each category of vital record - births/marriages/deaths, and then also the individual records themselves, which are listed in chronological order. The biggest problem is that you need to know which district to look in, though if you are patient, you could try all 20 districts! Use the decade tables to find the exact date of the event, and then look for the actual record itself. Below is a excerpt from the 1873-1882 marriage table for the 17th arrondissement (district) of Paris:

Taking the record for Salomé Weiss (no known relation to my Weiss family), from 4 November 1873, this is what it looks like:

This is where, if you don't understand French, it becomes slow and painstaking/painful as you transcribe it and run it through Google Translator! The record gives details of the groom, his occupation, his age, where he's from, his parents, the bride, her age, where she's from, her parents, etc. and then also lists a number of witnesses (if you're lucky some of them are identified as relatives) and then their signatures, along with the mayor - it's a civil record after all. These records can contain a wealth of useful information! Here's some of it in a bit more detail:

Haut Rhin (Upper Rhine)
The most useful online genealogical resource for Haut Rhin is Archives Départementales du Haut-Rhin - the Departmental Archives of the Upper Rhine. If you go to the Services section, there are four different types of record you can search: the Ancient and Modern Archives (Archives anciennes et modernes), the Contemporary Archives (Archives contemporaines), Postcards (Cartes postales), and Vital records (Actes d'état civil). Although there is a chance you might find something of interest in the first three sections, you'll most likely get the most useful information from the vital records. You can choose the place to search, and then search the decade tables or births, marriages, deaths, publication of marriages, or a register of the names of Jews. The information is quite similar to what you get in the Paris archives.
There are quite likely plenty of regional archives across France which hold similar records available to access online, but this is just a taster of the ones I have used.

The character of Auguste Naudin

I have written about Auguste Naudin (Augustus Theophile Naudin) before - he was the first husband of my 2x great grandmother Frances Turnbull. However I've been doing some more digging on him, and have uncovered a new source of information on him - the notes from a voyage of the Allier, a French steam ship taking troops from France to New Caledonia in 1878-9. After stopping in at Java along the way, people aboard the ship started coming down with some kind of illness (malaria/typhoid/smallpox) with 21 deaths occurring before they reached Cooktown, Queensland on 9 Feb 1879. The captain of the ship begged to be allowed to stop in at Cooktown, so they were allowed to stay on the north shore where there had previously been a quarantine station. The ship stayed there for several weeks until the quarantine was lifted and they were able to continue on to New Caledonia.

Notes on the voyage written by C. Milleret, entitled "Une Épidémie a Bord" were published in La Revue Hebdomadaire in June 1895.

"Vendredi 14 fevrier. En même temps que les provisions est arrivé à bord un particulier mal vêtu, autorisé, comme représentant de la municipalité cooktownaise, à s'installer chez nous en qualité de "surveillant". C'est un Français nommé Naudin. Ses fonctions sont d'une utilité contestable. Je ne nous vois pas essayant de forcer l'entrée de la rivière ou allant nous promener à terre incognito. Il y a un dessous, Naudin est un pauvre diable venu en Australie pour y chercher fortune. Après avoir tenté d'infructueuses expéditions en Nouvelle-Guinée, essayé plusieurs métiers confinant, je le crains, à la traite ou à la piraterie, il s'est échoué à Cooktown où il meurt de faim, peu s'en faut. Pour lui trouver une occupation, en même temps qu'un salaire lucratif et ne coûtant rien à la bourse des contribuables australiens, on n'a rien imaginé de mieux que cette place de surveillant dont les émoluments demeurent, comme de juste, à la charge des surveillés. Tout le temps de la quarantaine, Naudin sera nourri à la table du carré et recevra, au compte du gouvernement français, une demi-livre ou 12 fr. 50 par jour." pp.101-2.

Roughly translated (and no, I don't speak French, so its quite rough and possibly inaccurate - I welcome suggestions) this says that Naudin arrived, badly dressed, with provisions, as the authorised supervisor of the quarantine. They weren't at all sure that he'd be of much use to them - "of questionable usefulness". He was a Frenchman, who came to Australia to seek his fortune, and after trying some unsuccessful expeditions to New Guinea, where he tried several jobs, bordering - they feared - on trafficking and piracy, at which he failed, he returned to Cooktown, nearly dead from hunger. So that he wasn't employed at the expense of Australian taxpayers they gave him this job of supervisor of the quarantined, fed and paid for by the French government, at a half a pound or 12 francs 50 per day. Much of the narration doesn't mention Naudin, but the entry on Monday March 10th was a gem:

"Ce Naudin est un vrai type. Sur ses nouveaux appointements, il s'est fait envoyer toute une garde-robe. Ce n'est pas trop tôt. Il a usé toutes nos vieilles culottes. Si le quart de ce qu'il nous raconte est vrai, ses mémoires auraient du succès. Quelle mine pour Boussenard ou Jules Verne!" p.239.

The rough translation: "This Naudin's a real dude. On his new salary, he is getting an entire new wardrobe - not before time though - he's used all our old pants. If a quarter of what he says is true, his memoirs would be very successful. What a wealth of material for someone like Boussenard or Jules Verne!" And, at the end of the period of quarantine on March 18:

"La garde de police qui surveillait le camp est levée... Naudin aussi est licencié, "pour cause de suppression d'emploi". Sans rancune, nous lui offrons de conserver son couvert au carré jusqu'au départ définitif; avec empressement il accepte." p.240.

Translation: The police who guarded the camp have finished up. Naudin was also dismissed because of job cuts. There were no hard feelings, they offered to pay him until they departed, and he eagerly accepted.

Perhaps its a little harsh but Naudin comes across as a badly dressed fast-talker, full of stories, always out to make a buck. It's worth noting that he had previously been married, in NSW, to Charlotte McMunn, and left her with their three young children, to follow the gold rush to Queensland. He never returned, never divorced Charlotte, and then married his second wife Bridget Murry (also known as Frances) on 14 February 1877, with their first child born in December that year. Which means that it is quite likely Naudin was off galavanting around New Guinea looking to make his fortune while his poor wives were at home with their children, waiting for him. And again, while he was off supervising the quarantined Allier at the expense of the French government. Of course, it must be said that this was probably the norm for the time. I get the impression he was looking for adventure and didn't like being tied down to one place or family for too long. So that's a little bit more about Augustus Theophile Naudin and his character. 

Finding Thomas J Thompson

Thomas J Thompson was married to Mary Ann Wilkey, the sister of my great grandfather, James Arthur Wilkey. Mary Ann was born in 1864 in Canterbury, married Thomas in Burrowa (Boorowa) in 1885, and died on 29 April 1937 in Bankstown. They had seven children (I think), and lived in Railway Parade, Thornleigh in 1906 when their eldest daughter Ada died, aged 20 (SMH, 23 July 1906).

Apart from knowing where he was married, and where they lived when Ada died, I could find nothing on Mary Ann Wilkey's husband Thomas J Thompson. Nothing on his birth, no date of death, nor where he was buried - he wasn't buried with Mary Ann, who was buried at Rookwood Cemetery with her parents, John and Mary Ann Wilkey. I suspected from family death/funeral notices, including his own wife's, that he had died before her, but had no actual proof.

I searched and searched. I didn't know what he did for work, so that didn't help. Days later, it suddenly occurred to me that I knew that Thomas and Mary Ann's daughter Ada was buried in Rookwood as well - perhaps if he wasn't buried with his wife then maybe he was buried with his daughter. BINGO!

Thomas John Thompson was buried in the Methodist section of Rookwood Cemetery, with his daughter Ada May. He was interred on 1 July 1911, and the record notes he was 49 years old. From his date of interment I could look more accurately for a death record, and from his age at death I knew he was born in about 1862. I was completely unprepared for what I found in Trove (Barrier Miner, 1 July 1911):

An utter tragedy, compounded by the fact that Mary Ann's own father, John Wilkey, had died earlier that year (15 Jan 1911), and one of her brothers, James Arthur Wilkey, had been killed in another freak accident four years earlier. I can imagine Mary Ann at home, getting dinner ready, waiting for Thomas to get home from work, the time getting later and later, until there was a knock at the door...

However, putting aside the awful story of Thomas' death, I also learnt that Thomas was born in Victoria and was a bricklayer. I don't know if he was a bricklayer all his life, or just did different labouring jobs over the years. I've had a brief look at the Victorian BDM, but there's a few candidates that could be Thomas' birth (though only as Thomas Thompson - there's no Thomas J or Thomas John Thompson in the right range of years). I'm too cheap to go looking through them all, and I'm not sure I'd be able to work out which one he was anyway.

So that's a little about Thomas John Thompson. Not much, but more than I knew before.

A trip to Mt Kosciuszko

Way back in 1936, when Mt Kosciuszko - Australia's tallest mountain, at 2228m/7310ft - was still spelt Kosciusko (it was changed by the Geographical Names Board of NSW in 1997 to reflect the correct Polish spelling, named after General Tadeusz Kosciuszko), Uncle Les and Auntie Gen took a trip there with Auntie Gen's uncle and aunt, Norman and Mary Macindoe.

They travelled in a 1920s soft top Austin tourer (I think) and they must have been freezing!

They stayed at Hotel Kosciusko. Below is a photo of Uncle Norman and Aunt Mary in front of the hotel (though I actually think this may be the back of the hotel).

They spent a day walking to the summit of the mountain, and although Auntie Gen looks well rugged up, I love that her Uncle Norman is in a three piece suit and tie! The one shown in the photo below is the original cairn, which has since been rebuilt.

Despite the fact that they have rebuilt the cairn at the summit of Kosciuszko, the Seaman's Hut is still standing (here's a link to a recent photo), and looks like it hasn't aged since the following photo was taken. I still can't work out what a seaman would be doing up there on the mountain though!

Uncle Les and the YMCA

I've written a little about my great uncle Les Davis before, here and here.

Leslie Alfred Davis (1903-1977) was married to my grandfather's sister Gen, both pictured in the photo above. Family legend has it that he entertained the troops during World War II. I had assumed that this meant he was enlisted in the Imperial Forces (which he didn't), and research shows that he never travelled overseas with the armed forces. However he did spend time at Evans Head, NSW, during the war. Careful examination of photos of Uncle Les in uniform at the time show it was a YMCA uniform.

Searching the internet for information on the YMCA in Evans Head during World War II has been rather fruitless, and contacting the YMCA brought no help at all - perhaps they don't actually have an archivist? Going through Uncle Les' photo album this morning, it suddenly occurred to me to look up Trove - I'm not sure why I didn't think of this before! I found a number of useful articles:

		GUESTS AT the Civic Hotel in- clude Mr. and Mrs. Les Davis, of Sydney, who are spending holidays here. Mr. Davis was formerly at- tached to Evans Head R.A.A.F. Station as Y.M.C.A. Welfare Officer, and will be remembered here as a compere of concerts.
Northern Star, 17 Feb 1945	Northern Star, 26 Apr 1945	Northern Star, 29 Jan 1947

So this shows what Uncle Les was doing in Evans Head during World War II - he was the YMCA Welfare Officer attached to the RAAF base there. From what I can tell, as a YMCA Welfare Officer he supported service personnel stationed in Evans Head, presumably through the provision of recreational facilities and other services to assist in maintaining morale. The photos below show Uncle Les in his office, and also in the YMCA Recreation Room at Evans Head, with some RAAF airmen.

ANZAC Day 2014

Today is ANZAC Day, a day observed in Australia and New Zealand to commemorate all those who served (or are still serving) and died in wars, conflicts and peacekeeping operations. ANZAC is an acronym that stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. Naturally, on a day like today my thoughts turn to my great great uncle Allan Wickham, who was killed in action at the second battle of Bullecourt, France on 3 May 1917. Although I don't like war, I am proud to honour him and all those like him who made the ultimate sacrifice in war, by fighting and dying for their country.

The photo above is of my son, a member of the Australian Air League, laying a wreath at the local ANZAC Day Parade two weekends ago. I was proud that he marched in honour of those who fought and lost their lives for their country, and doubly proud that he was chosen to lay a wreath.

The Smiths

I've recently been working on some Smiths. I've done some research on Smiths before, but they were on the maternal side of my family. These Smiths are on the paternal side - Susanna(h) Smith married James Ball at Hoxton St John, Hackney on 16 April 1835.

The surname of Smith can be an appallingly difficult one to research, especially if you have a John Smith and a Mary Smith in the mix, which happen to be the names of Susannah's parents. Helpfully, Susannah's parents made my research slightly easier because they were apparently great fans of alliteration and gave all their children names beginning with 'S' - Susannah, Samuel, Shadrach and Sarah, and possibly also Seth and Salina. I don't remember where I found the names of Seth and Salina, but I'm leaving them here as possible children because their names do start with S, but do be aware that they may not be correct. I have not been able to find any concrete evidence for their existence.

This Smith family seems to be from around the Bedford/Bletchley/Leighton Buzzard area. I have not actually been able to find any birth/baptism records for them. According to the records I have found, Samuel was the eldest child, born in about 1802 in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire (from the 1851 English census). Next was Sarah, born in about 1808, in Bletchley, Buckinghamshire (according to the 1851 and 1861 censuses). Shadrach was born in about 1811 in Bletchley (1851 census). And according to her immigration records (upon immigration to Australia in 1857) and the 1851 census, Susannah was born in Bedford, Bedfordshire in 1815.

John Smith was noted as a linen weaver from Leighton Buzzard on the birth record of his grandson James William Ball, (son of James and Susannah Ball née Smith). The record does not state whether John Smith was actually still living at the time of the birth in 1837. Certainly John and Mary are both recorded as dead when Susannah immigrated to Australia in 1857.

One of the reasons why it has been difficult to find information on the family is because at least all the children in the family were non-conformist in their religion - I don't know if their parents were. Although some of James and Susannah Ball's own children were baptised in the Church of England, some were not - James William Ball's birth is found on a non-conformist register. Immigration records list the denomination of the Ball family as "Independent", which is also known as "Congregationalist".

Susannah's unmarried brother Samuel was living at 16 Beaumont Square, Mile End Old Town in the 1851 English census and his occupation was "Minister of Religion (Independent) and Lecturer".

Shadrach lived with his wife Elizabeth just down the road from Samuel at 2 Beaumont Square. As far as I can tell, they had no children. Shadrach was a printer according to the 1841 and 1851 censuses, but he did much more than that according to the death notice his sister Susannah placed in the Sydney Morning Herald on 31 Aug 1860:

I don't know this for sure because I haven't yet managed to access any Congregationalist ministers records, but I am guessing Samuel may well have worked at the same church that Shadrach attended - the Mile End Congregational Church.

Sarah was a governess who married later in life, aged 40, to a twice-widowed man, William Griffith Marsh - I'm guessing she was governess to his children. I have not been able to find a record for their marriage apart from in the civil records, and it is my hunch that they married in a Congregationalist church and their marriage is buried amongst the non-conformist records. I have not found any records for Sarah having any children.

Susannah Ball née Smith (1815-23 Oct 1871) is buried in Rookwood Cemetery in Sydney, NSW. Sarah Marsh née Smith (c1808-Mar 1864) is buried in Abney Park Cemetery, a non-conformist cemetery in Hackney, in the same plot as her brother Shadrach (c1811-31 May 1860), and his wife Elizabeth. I've not yet been able to work out when Samuel died, but it was before Shadrach, and he is not buried in Abney Park Cemetery.

A family heirloom - a hand embroidered doily

I was given this embroidered doily after the death of my great aunt - it had been embroidered by her mother, my great grandmother, Ellen Paterson Wilkey née Macindoe (1876-20 Apr 1967). I treasure it because of my own love of embroidery, and have it framed and hanging on the wall in my bedroom. One day, when I meet her in heaven, my great grandmother may well ask me why I stuck it on the wall in a frame instead of using it!

The other day I was looking through some books on Antique Pattern Library, and was stunned when I came across the pattern! There is only one small difference that I can find in the way my great grandmother stitched it compared to the pattern and I'm quite convinced it is the pattern she followed. The pattern is from a DMC pattern book, Drawn Thread Work, edited by Thérésa de Dillmont, and was published in about 1895. This definitely fits within the time that my great grandmother might have been stitching.

Why do I think this is significant? I'd been told of my great grandmother's sewing skills, but finding the published pattern shows me that ordinary women stitched these designs - it wasn't mass produced in a factory somewhere. She was definitely talented - it's not an easy pattern!

How I am related to the embroidery thread company DMC

My sister and I are accomplished embroiderers, and I have been aware for some time that there was a good chance we were related in some extremely distant way to the founders of the embroidery thread company DMC. Last night my sister and I were talking about it, and she challenged me to work out exactly how we were related. I thought it would take ages. Happily it didn't!

DMC (Dollfus Mieg and Company) is a company that was founded in Mulhouse in 1746 by Jean-Henri Dollfus, an artist, Jean-Jacques Schmalzer and Samuel Koechlin, both businessmen. When it was founded the company was known as Koechlin, Schmalzer and Company. It was run jointly by Jean-Henri and his brother Jean Dollfus, and towards the end of the century Jean's son Daniel took over running the company. Daniel Dollfus married Anne-Marie Mieg in 1800, and added his wife's surname to his own, to become Daniel Dollfus Mieg. The company was given the new trading name of Dollfus Mieg and Company - D.M.C.

So how am I related to DMC? Jean-Henri Dollfus, one of the company founders, was the great grandfather of the wife of my first cousin 5x removed. To put it in a way that is hopefully slightly easier to comprehend, Jean-Henri's great granddaughter Sophie-Louise Dollfus married Médard Baumgarten, who was the nephew of my 4x great grandfather Gaspard Weiss.

So every time I sit down to sew with some DMC threads I will now be able to bask in the glow of my familial relationship to the company that made the threads!

The Baumgartens in France

The other day I discovered that the Archives Départementales du Haut Rhin has birth, death and marriage records from 1798-1892 available for viewing online, arranged by town. They are civil records, not parish records, and contain quite a lot of information, often the dates of birth of people getting married, their parents' names and occupations, names of witnesses, if and how they are related, etc. Fantastic! Although considering they are written in French perhaps I should say "Fantastique!"

I've been looking through them and have managed to increase my Weiss family tree quite a bit, but the most interesting part has been finding all the Baumgartens.

Early on in my research on the Baumgartens in Mulhouse I was warned that "Baumgartner" was the name of a longstanding bourgeois family in Mulhouse, and perhaps that's who my Baumgartens were. From my research I have found that all my family in Mulhouse were actually Baumgarten, a totally distinct family from the Baumgartners, although they were sometimes misnamed as Baumgartners.

I already knew that Marie Baumgarten had moved to Mulhouse from London (where she was born) with her Mulhousien husband Gaspard Weiss. Her sister Lucinda Worrall Baumgarten had also moved there at some stage, and married a local Paul Blech, as had their brother William (often known by the French form, Guillaume, in the French records), who had married into one of the big bourgeois families by marrying Anne Catherine Schlumberger.

Trawling through the birth, death and marriage records for Mulhouse, I found three instances of a witness to three separate marriages, one Frédéric Baumgarten. There was even a record of his son Jean marrying. Interesting. Definitely Baumgarten, not Baumgartner. He was a dessinateur - a designer. I take that to mean he was associated with the rag trade - which was huge in Mulhouse - and designed prints for fabric. There was a Frederick in the English Baumgarten family, a brother of Marie, Lucinda and William's. He was born in about 1762, and baptised at St Andrew's Holborn, Middlesex, England on 20 May 1762. According to the listed age of the Frederic Baumgarten in the Mulhouse civil records, his age matches up with a birthdate in 1762. I think it is therefore reasonable to assume that the Frederic Baumgarten in the Mulhouse records is the brother of Marie, Lucinda and William.

Something I realised as I went through years of records was that some people were unable to write and just made their mark on the page. None of the families I am related to were in this category. Clearly, being from the bourgeoisie, they all could read and write. I'm not trying to claim any superiority here, just making the comment that there clearly were class differences, and my Mulhousien ancestry was quite obviously not from the lower classes.

I did discover one other intriguing thing whilst looking into Frederic Baumgarten and the Baumgartens in Mulhouse in general. I was Googling "Baumgarten" and "Mulhouse" in Google Books, and in one of the references to Lucinda Baumgarten and her husband Paul Blech (Maisons, villages et villas d'Alsace du Sud: études d'architecture et d'histoire by Louis Abel, published 1994 by the Société savante d'Alsace), it noted "Ce Paul Blech à son tour, épousa, en 1787, Lucinde Baumgarten, la fille de Frédéric." Why did it note that she was the daughter of Frederick (his full name was Samuel Christian Frederick Baumgarten)? Was he known in Alsace? Did he spend some time there? I haven't found anything else that refers to him in Mulhouse, but I wonder...

Gaspard Weiss was married twice!

It had been right there under my nose (in his autobiography, though in my defence it is in German and French), but it was only the other day that I realised that my 4x great grandfather (Jean) Gaspard Weiss remarried after the death of his first wife (my 4x great grandmother) Marie Baumgarten.

On 25 November 1800, two years after the death of his first wife Marie, Gaspard Weiss married Judith Risler, daughter of Jean Risler and Marguerite Lauttenbourg, in Mulhouse. She was aged 59, he was 61. Unsurprisingly at their age, Gaspard and Judith produced no children. They were together until Gaspard's death in 1815. It's nice to think he had someone to share his life with again after the death of Marie.

Edited on 22 March 2014 to add:
I found a copy of the marriage certificate today in the Archives Départementales Du Haut-Rhin, and although it is handwritten, in French, I've worked out that his brother-in-law Paul Blech (married to his late wife Marie's sister Lucinda Worrall Baumgarten) was one of the witnesses. It would be interesting to know if other Baumgartens had attended the wedding, apart from Lucinda. Of course, I'll never know that!

The other interesting thing I noted was that Gaspard signed the marriage certificate using German script, using the German variation of his name - Caspar Weiß. I have only ever seen him sign his name as Gaspar(d) Weiss before, quite legibly in normal English-style lettering. I wonder if after Mulhouse reunited with France in 1798 whether he became "more German" and emphasised his German heritage. Below is a comparison of his signatures, the first from his marriage to Marie Baumgarten ("Gaspar Weiss", aged 36), the second on the death certificate of Marie ("Gaspard Weiss", aged 59), and the third at his marriage to Judith Risler ("Caspar Weiß", aged 61). If I didn't know it was definitely him I would dismiss the third signature as by a totally different person!

A bit more information on the Beringers' mill in Rauenthal

A distant relative got in touch with me the other day, who is descended from another branch of the Beringer family. She is descended from Katharina Beringer, who is my 3x great aunt. Katharina's half-brother Adam Beringer is my 2x great grandfather, the one who emigrated to Australia in 1884, with his wife Caroline and brother John Valentine (also half-brother of Katharina).

Previously the only information I had for Katharina was that she was born in Rauenthal on 13 July 1845, and had her confirmation in Rauenthal on 23 July 1862 when she was 17 years old. Now, having contact with her descendant, I know that Katharina was married to Philipp Kneip on 13 April 1868 in Rauenthal. I also now know that what I suspected was true: Katharina (and her husband Philipp) managed the Lochmühle (a water mill) in Rauenthal after the death of Valtin Beringer, Katharina's father, in August 1867. In 1871 the Lochmühle was then passed on to Georg and Karoline Koch, as noted in this post.

Katharina and Philipp Kneip had seven children, the first two, Mathilde and Josef were born in Rauenthal (11 November 1868 and 19 March 1870 respectively), the next two, Robert and Adam, born in Schierstein (5 October 1871 and 4 Dec 1873 respectively). After that the family moved north, with quite a bit of time spent in Dillenburg apparently.

It is interesting to note that although Katharina and Philipp were married in April 1868, they were "together" before that as Mathilde was born in November of the same year. If Mathilde was carried to term, conception would have been in about February of that year. She was made legitimate by the marriage of her parents before her birth.

So the question remains: Why did the extended Beringer family give up the mill? The Kneips didn't stay long in Schierstein - Philipp's brother was apparently already running the Grorother Mühle there, but perhaps they stayed with him while they worked out their next move...

Many thanks to my relative for her assistance with the Kneip family information.

A Google books snippet view teaser

I was researching on Google Books last night and I have possibly found something relevant to my Baumgarten research. The only problem is that the book in question is only available with snippet view and I can't see everything I really need to in the relevant section. Grrr! I'm going to have to see if I can borrow the book from somewhere - all I need to see is pages 13 and 14!

I was trying to find info on Samuel Baumgarten's German ancestry and it occurred to me to search "Baumgarten" and "Usingen" in Google Books, as Samuel's father Johann Nicholaus Baumgarten apparently had links with Usingen. If you're researching you need to have patience to trawl through lots of irrelevant information to find the little gems - on page 4 of the search results I found "Die Lehrer des Kreises Usingen" by Rudolf Bonnet, written in 1965. It referred to a Johann Nicholaus Friedrich Baumgarten. The title of the book roughly translates as "The teachers of the circle Usingen". Hmmmm... Samuel Baumgarten's father was a teacher...

So, the snippets I can read:

[page 13]

31. Baumgarten, Nicholaus, aus Sachsen, † 1754, Kantor und strumpffabrikant zu U. Sohn: Johann Nicholaus Friedrich; s. Nr. 33.
(31. Baumgarten, Nicholas, from Saxony, † 1754, Cantor and stocking manufacturer to Usingen. Son: Johann Nicholaus Friedrich, see No. 33)

32. Beckmann....

33. [impossible to read in the snippet, but refers to Nicholaus Baumgarten's son Johann Nicholaus Friedrich Baumgarten, as noted at 31]

[page 14]

40. Klein, Johann Philipp. * I. 3.10.1762 † Katzenelnbogen 30.10.1832 (sein Vater zuletzt Lehrer zu Heftrich). Vom 21-23. Lebensjahr S. I.; ½ Jahr dem Kantor Baum-.... [unable to access the rest in snippet view]
(40. Klein, Johann Philipp. * I. 03.10.1762 † 30.10.1832 Katzenelnbogen (his father last teacher to Heftrich). From 21-23. Age of S. I.; ½ years the cantor Baumgarten...) - it's possible that this doesn't refer to a person named Baumgarten, but maybe a place...

So what I think it is saying is that Samuel Baumgarten's grandfather was named Nicholaus Baumgarten, he was from Saxony, died in 1754 (which could fit with the dates known for his grandson Samuel Baumgarten - c.1729-1798) and was a cantor and made stockings - presumably men's stockings. That he was included in a book about the teachers of Usingen suggests that maybe he taught singing, related to his role as a cantor. His son Johann Nicholaus Friedrich Baumgarten was probably also a teacher, considering he is noted in the book also. This fits with previous information I have found on him.

I've not seen Samuel's father's name with "Friedrich" included in the middle names before, which could lead us to think he was a different person altogether. However, considering Samuel himself had "Frederic" as a middle name - Samuel Christian Frederic Baumgarten - it does suggest it could well be his father after all.

So, does anyone have access to this book? I'd be forever grateful...