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I recently came across a digital copy of a photo of my paternal great-grandparents - which makes me very happy! I’ve cleaned it up a little to make the details clearer. I think I’m close to a date for it and possibly the occasion, but it would be great to see whether the experts agree with my estimate.

John (Mar 1852-1949) and Mary nee Brickley ( Dec 1853-1901) were married in Glasgow in 1874 and migrated to Australia in 1883.
 
I’m thinking this photo may have been taken to commemorate their 25th wedding anniversary in April 1899 when they would have been living in Sydney where John was a train driver. John would not necessarily have been fashion conscious, while Mary (a cotton weaver before marrying John) would have made her own clothing. They would have been 47 and 45 at the time. Sadly, Mary died (probably of appendicitis) barely two years later in June 1901.

Peter

Posting this here to catch the  eyes of as many as possible.

If you are even vaguely interested in this software please read my update to Gadget’s post in the Tips sub-board, here:

http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=752815.new;topicseen#new

The guts of it is that this once very expensive software, free for the last year or so, may not be free for much longer.

Peter

The badge below is about 1.3 inches in diameter and features a picture of my uncle, Richard John Beattie (1920-1980). Uncle Jack never married, his life somewhat destroyed (mentally/emotionally) by his WW2 experience. I find it hard to tell his age in the photo, doubting that he could have looked so fresh-faced and bright-eyed after the war. When I knew him - late 1950s until his death - he always looked old (but I was very young).

Jack lived in Newcastle (Australia) most of his life, with a brief period in Sydney after the war, before returning to Newcastle in the 1950s.

Any ideas as to his age in the photo?  Or of where and when or for what purpose such badges were produced? (And, as always, if you wish to have a play with it, please do.)

Cheers, Peter.

Something for a wet day… or for bored restorers.

On February 11 this year I found out that a photo I had long had amongst my mother’s effects was of my great grandfather and his five daughters. It needed restoring. I then discovered that my laptop, now three years old, had a dodgy copy of Photoshop Elements (version 6). So I scanned the photo and started learning the program, beginning my first restore on February 12.

Of course now I’m addicted. I have to have a daily fix.

The original photo and one of my many attempts at a restore are posted below.

While working on the photo I looked for clues to the date, the occasion and the place. 

James died in August 1910. The girl seated on the extreme right of the photo was called Zillah - because her older siblings were named alphabetically and the mother died giving birth to Zillah (May 21, 1899). (Oh, and Zillah was the thirteenth child - key Twilight Zone theme!)

Despite looking like a sultry teenager, Zillah must have been much younger. James died when Zillah was only 11 years old.  And you can see from her size, and her bow and pigtails - as opposed to her sisters’ pompadours - that Zillah was only a kid. I’d estimate - from her size and from comparing her looks to photos of one of my own granddaughters at a similar age - that Zillah was only about 7 or 8 in the photo, thus dating it to around 1906/7.

Are there any other clues to in the photo? What was the occasion? I have details of births, deaths and marriages of her family members and none occurred during the likely time of the photo. But they had many cousins where they lived (Patrick’s Plain - now Singleton - in New South Wales) all from large families, so it could have been a cousin’s baptism, marriage or funeral.

And what about the things James and Zillah are holding? Is it a church sheet of some sort in James’s hand? A title deed? No, too small for that. I can make out “8 8” I think on what looks like the back of the card (?). And in Zillah’s hand, is it a school writing book - but didn’t they use slates in those days? To my eyes it also looks like an old autograph book - but that doesn’t really make much sense - or does it? What would be the occasion for those items, for everyone being all dressed up and the photo being about the father and the girls? After all, James also had 7 surviving sons in the 1900s.

I was going to pose the allocation of a date as a question for Rootschatters, but a few days ago, after dismissing family events (BDMs) for a likely date, I started googling around with the idea that perhaps they were having their picture taken before heading off to some show or other - an opera or a play perhaps.

I thought, was it possible to find out what shows were put on in Singleton in the late 1900s. Were shows put on in Singleton? Indeed, was it possible to find out when and where and what shows would have been on in Australia in the late 1900s?

Amongst other things, I came up with a play called “The Squatter’s Daughter”, which had debuted in Melbourne in February 1907 before going to Sydney, then touring Australia over the next three years.

How appropriate, I thought. Could “The Squatter’s Daughter” give the answer to a photo of a farmer and his daughters? Could that play have been performed in Singleton? Hardly likely… although Singleton perhaps loomed a little larger back then than it does these days. Or maybe the family had travelled to Newcastle - not that far away - to see a show.

I took to Trove (the Australian newspaper archive) and had a “You-bloody-little-beauty!” moment when I found an article in the Singleton Argus for Saturday 16 November 1907. This is how it starts:

“ ‘The Squatters’ Daughter.’
“To-night, at the hall of the Mechanics’ Institute, a realistic drama, with the above title, will be produced by William Anderson’s famous dramatic organisation…”

In 1907 “The Squatter’s Daughter” was the most successful Australian play to date. Co-written by Bert Bailey under a pseudonym, it was later made into two movies. (Of course Bert Bailey himself went on to even bigger things, being best known as Dad Rudd, star of the many “On Our Selection”/“Dad and Dave” plays and movies.)

So it is quite possible the photo was taken in Singleton on 16 November 1907 before the Beattie family went on to the Mechanics’ Institute to see this renowned play. The items in James’s and Zillah’s hands, perhaps a program/playbill and an autograph book, may have been theirs or they may have been the photographer’s props, but they certainly provided clues.

An Invitation to Play:
Below is the original photo and below that one of my many restore attempts.

There is nothing on the back and the only thing I can make out on the front is an “A” and a possible “T” or “F” in the bottom right corner. But, thanks again to Trove, I found there was a photographer named A F Saunders of John St, Singleton, who operated there from July 1900 and into the 1920s. Saunders advertised almost daily in the local news section of the Singleton Argus, often right under stories or advertisements for shows being presented at the Mechanics’ Institute.

Ain’t it wonderful how they come alive again when you find out more about them!

Please feel free to have a play with either image if you wish. James was brown haired and blue eyed. I don’t know the girls’ colouring.

Cheers, Peter.

First, the family lore:

John and Mary McGregor’s daughter Ellen was said to be the last of the family born in Scotland. When the family emigrated, they first went to NZ to visit (Mary’s brothers) relatives before going to Australia. They finally went to Australia where James was the first of the family to be born there.

Now, the facts:

John McGregor (1852), a train driver, and Mary Brickley (1853) had the following family in Scotland: Alexander Brickley (1874), William (1877-1881), Mary Bruce (1879), John (1880), William Brickley (1882).

John and his family travelled from Glasgow to Plymouth, England where they left for Australia on 6 June 1883 on the Steamship, ‘Chyebassa’. Their passage was paid for by a new development company, headed by George (Russell) Drysdale (grandfather of painter [George] Russell Drysdale). They arrived at Cooktown, Queensland, Australia on 30 July 1883 and disembarked the next day at Cleveland Bay (Townsville) before travelling by bullock train to the Pioneer Sugar Plantation (now the Brandon area near Ayr, Queensland) on the Burdekin River. While John helped in setting up the steam driven sugar cane mill and teaching the locals, Ellen/Nell was born on 25 February 1885.

John started work in Sydney on 1 April 1885 for NSW Railways.

They then added to the family in Sydney:
James (1887), Peter Brown (1889), Robert (1890-91), Robert (1892) and Donald (1894).

Perhaps this is what happened: They visited New Zealand after John started work in Sydney and before James was born. And, recalling what happened, someone probably said something like this: “James was the first born here after they went to New Zealand.” Which fits the facts but also could be misinterpreted as the family lore sequence of events described above.

Or could they have gone while John was still working at the plantation? Or is it feasible they went between Ellen’s birth (25/2/1885) and John starting work in Sydney (1/4/1885)?

I can find records for ships and passengers for voyages from England to either Australia or to New Zealand but not between Australia and New Zealand.

Does anyone know if such records exist and are accessible?

Any assistance greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
Peter