Picturing our ancestors lives.

[C_W]

My Gt Gt Gt  Grandfather was married twice. He had fifteen children. Five with his first wife, ten by his second.

Of the fifteen children four were daughters and eleven sons. All his daughters and two sons died before the age of four. Nine sons reached adulthood.

I think of the sad picture, the tiny coffins and tears that must have been shed with these common happenings our ancestors had.

[coombs]

I often envisage what it was like when my 3xgreat grandfather set sail from Liverpool to Philadelphia in 1886 to join a daughter in Penna. The 2 week voyage, he returned to England for about a year then set sail again in April 1892 to America, this time for good, never to return to England. Ironically his 2nd crossing was 20 years to the month before the Titanic disaster. Also my 3xgreat gran's first cousin worked on The Olympic as a steward for many years.

[C_W]

I too had  2 x grandparents who sailed to New York, America in 1876 on the SS  Denmark
 I have imaged their voyage....

They sailed with five children. The oldest about nine, the youngest only a few weeks old.
Hardly any facilities, no disposable nappies, etc etc.....

After about two years my gt gt  grandfather died, and my gt gt grandmother brought her children back to the UK.
This time alone.

[coombs]

Coincidentally that ancestors grandfather was in Ireland in the army from c1771 to 1775. They sailed from there to America in 1775. 63rd Foot. I can picture the 2 months he spent at sea.

[clairec666]

My 3xgreat-grandparents and their children crossed the country from Wiltshire to Essex in the 1850s. I have no idea how they travelled or how long the journey took. Then in the 1870s the two eldest sons and their families sailed to New Zealand.

It's not just their journey that I can't relate to today, but the thought of setting off into the complete unknown, and leaving family, probably knowing you'll never see them again.

[jaybelnz]

So far I haven't found any ancestors who were transported to Australia!  But a slight and remote  possibilty with one who may have been, and who may have come to NZ after getting his Ticket of Leave, I believe there were quite a number after that.

I shudder to think what it must have been like in "The Hulks" while waiting for their transportation, possibly for as little as stealing a load of bread to help feed their families! Their life aboard ship when they finally got on their way, and the life they had ahead of them, must have been pretty awful!

However, I would actually be quite happy to know that any ancestor of mine had been transported, after all, those men and women that survived it all helped to form the huge backbone of Australia, and also NZ to a lesser extent!  They're part of the history of the country we call Home, and we need to be proud of them and all that they achieved!

[coombs]

My great, great grandfather was born in Colville Place in St Pancras, just a few hundred yards from Oxford Street. Now what is modern day Fitzrovia. He was born in February 1860. I must have walked down Colville Place several times. And in 2007 the Aussie TV show Neighbours filmed a scene just round the corner on a rare London filming shoot. (I met Jason Donovan in 2014, talking of that show).

That ancestor had a father born in Soho and a mother born in Shoreditch, cannot get more London than that, West End and East End. William Thomas Coombs and Clara Emma Auber. They wed in 1856 but knew each other for over 10 years as his brother and her sister wed in 1845 in Paddington. Maybe in 1854 or 1855, William and Clara were both single, step siblings and decided to date.

[IgorStrav]

I have looked for years for my 'travelling in work' greatx3 grandfather Richard Cork (1812, Stone, Kent) with his family in the 1851 Census.

I know that he was in Pyrford, Surrey, on 23rd February 1851 for the baptism of his son, Stephen, who was born just before close by in Wisley.  He would have had his family with him, wife Jane, daughters Sarah (14), Jane (9), sons Richard (10), Daniel (6), James (3) and babe in arms Stephen.

However, they cannot be found in the 1851, despite a great deal of searching.  The family were in Seal, in Kent, for the baptism of their next child in 1853, and I know lived there for some years.

So, in the 1851 it's likely they were living/travelling in a tent or a caravan or a wagon, somewhere on the edge of habitation, between Surrey and Kent, with mother, father, 5 children and a baby.

Can't tell at this distance what the weather might have been like - but I can imagine what March/April in Kent is likely to have been....camp fires, cold, wet, windy - a horse to look after, too?

Even worse than the hovels in London for the rest of my family?

[coombs]

Blimey I have found another ancestor sibling who was a convict. Thomas Tanner born 1802 to Thos and Susan, have his baptism. Sent to Australia in 1827, shoemaker. I can picture his life as years ago I went to Wollongong and that is where he ended up. What a coincidence, going to a town in 2007 to do a skydive over a town an ancestor sibling lived in.