Family history

  5/52 Branching out Emily Mary Godlee. 1888 - 1927 Miles Franklin in All that Swagger speaks of ‘Orchards of family trees’. Certainly I belong in an orchard. There are many trees, hundreds of branches. The Godlee Tree, rooted by the sea in Suffolk spread broadly across London and Sussex.   The Australian branch broke away when John Godlee migrated to Adelaide in 1838, established itself in South Australia, growing seven more branches: Mary Rickman Burnett, Arthur John, Charles Burwood, Frederick Oscar, Alfred, Charlotte Lucy and Theodore. I am fruit from Theodore’s branch. This story follows Emily Mary from   Charles Burwood’s branch, a branch which was  severely pruned like an espaliered tree, only allowing limited shoots to develop. Emily Mary was my first cousin, twice removed.  That is to say Emily was my grandmother’s cousin.  Charles Burwood Godlee and Emily Kent married   ‘by special licence’ in the Police Station at Venus Bay, South Australia. It was said to be ‘of special li

 4/52 Curious Mary Amelia Guy 1819 - 1896 Mary and Charlotte arrived in Adelaide in 1839 on the Java . Mary married John Godlee and her older sister, Charlotte Guy, was a witness. Their brother Joseph also came to Australia, but when? Was he also at the wedding?   Did Mary know John Godlee already? They had both come from Lewes, he the year before. Were they sweethearts in Sussex? Had they had a falling out? Perhaps he had asked her to marry him and she had knocked him back. Heart broken, perhaps, he fled to Adelaide and then she had regrets and followed him out? Or perhaps he had not asked her to marry him but she chased him to Adelaide? Or perhaps it was all arranged: he came out to Adelaide to get settled before she joined him. John was a Quaker but by marrying Mary, an Anglican, he was disowned by the Quakers. Did they migrate to Australia to avoid all the unpleasantness that involved?   Or perhaps they did not know each other in Lewes. Mary, Charlotte and Joseph came out to Adel

 3/52 My Favourite photograph Hazel Mary Godlee 1897 - 1982 My grandmother saved letters and I am in the process of transcribing them. I became obsessed with finding out about the people who appear in the letters, close and distant family and friends. This photo was amongst files of photos and is referenced by a 1925 July letter and it was exciting to see these women, who I had met in the letters. My great aunt, Aunty Mary, (Hazel Mary Godlee,) is the third from the left.   Charlotte Godlee, my great grandmother, writing to Mary, says:   ‘The girls brought home a good snap of Miss Kentish, also the one of you four in aprons. Do you remember Misses Kentish, Bignall, Amy and you? ‘   The women in this photo are all characters who appear frequently in Charlotte’s letters are as follows: on the far left is Amy Carver, the Physical Director of Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA) in Adelaide and then, in 1926, in Queensland. She would have organised activities like dancing, bush

  My Best Find: 2:52   Ann Jane Roberts 1853-1910. Samual Roberts and Jane Morris are both very common names in Wales and it is difficult to be sure if I have the right ones. Was Samual an ag lab ? a man servant? a warehouseman? Or all of these at various times? Did he move to Liverpool in 1841 and return to marry Jane in Abergeli, Conwy?   Did Jane and Sam Roberts move from Wales to Liverpool to make a better living in 1851 with their seven year old girl, Elenor? It is a characteristic of this side of the family to be shifting house, shifting jobs and to be generally unsettled. Was it a hand to mouth existence? Either way, their second child, Mary was born in 1851, after the census had been taken and a third child, Ann Jane was born in 1853.   Ann Jane Roberts was my great grandmother. She was a great discovery because my grandmother never spoke of her. I didn’t know I had Welsh ancestry and it is thrilling to learn that. She had a complicated life and it took a lot of detective wor

  Foundations 1:52 The first prompt for 2022 is Foundations.   I am the foundation of my family tree. It begins with me and goes back exponentially: my dad, Ted Jackson, his dad, Frank Jackson and his mum, Grandma; my mum, Mary Wibberley, her dad, Grandpa, and her mum, Dari and so on and so on. The tree branching out on either side: the Bridlington Yorkshire family, mariners; the Princes from Liverpool and the Roberts from Carnaevon; the Wibberleys from Derbyshire, the Bests from Devon, the Hunts and the Hobbs from Wiltshire and the Rickmans from Sussex. We get to Peter Godlee and Margaret Burwood, the Quakers in Southwald. I look at my life today in Forth, Tasmania in 2022, and I see the threads passed down from my family. If I take a day, today, the 2nd of January, I can look at all the strands that are my inheritance.   Firstly, this: writing: Family History. Sarah née Godlee Rickman, my 2nd great aunt, compiled the Rickman/Godlee family tree and one of her nephews or nieces,  my fi