Accentuate the Positive 2015 Geneameme

Once again Geniaus has invited family historians to reflect on their past year’s achievement through her Accentuate the Positive Geneameme.  Here’s my reflection on what I have achieved genealogy-wise in 2015.

An elusive ancestor I found was . . . where my 3^rd great grandfather, John William Rae, was born.  His marriage certificate, death certificate & his son’s (my direct ancestor’s) birth certificate simply stated his birthplace as Ireland.  I took ordering birth certificates for all of his children but, just as I’d hoped, it listed his birthplace on his first child’s birth certificate – Belfast, Ireland.  Now if only I could find his immigration record!

A precious family photo I found was the same as A geneasurprise I received.  I visited my paternal grandmother this year to see what she could tell me about where her Rae ancestors were from.  While she firmly believed that they were from Ireland, she wasn’t able to help me any further.  She gave me many of her photos during this visit but the real surprise came a few months later.  My father had been to visit her & gave me a photo from her.  This was a photo of her on her wedding day.  Standing on one side of her was her paternal grandmother, Emma Guyatt, & on the other side was her new husband’s paternal grandmother, Catherine Curran.  As part of UTAS’s Introduction to Family History course, I researched Catherine & her teaching career last year which makes me treasure this photo all the more.

An ancestor's grave I found was also another geneasurprise I received.  I don’t really use Facebook for genealogy, but someone I know told me to have a look at the Family History Group of Bathurst’s Facebook page as there were some Curran graves on there that had been restored.  I was hugely surprised to find that they were the graves of my 3^rd great grandparents!

A newly found family member shared a photo of a ring that was passed down to him & which apparently belonged to my 4^th great grandfather, Carl Heinrich Vonthien.

A genealogy conference/seminar/webinar from which I learnt something new was pretty much everything I watched / attended but the AFFHO Congress in Canberra really stood out.  I still need to catch up on the speaker’s papers!

While I don’t think I’ve achieved much in my own personal genealogy research over the past year, I do feel like I have contributed to the genealogy community by volunteering to help transcribe records online.  This year I took part in FamilySearch’s Worldwide Indexing Event again.  I also helped to index / transcribe the WW1 Nominal Roll for the Australian War Memorial.  The Prosecution Project is something else that I’m involved in, entering data from historical court records.  While I have helped transcribe records for Ancestry & FreeBMD before, they were quite onerous.  The Prosecution Project & the WW1 Nominal Roll were straightforward, making it easier to transcribe greater amounts of information.  Hopefully I’ve been able to ‘pay it forward’ in a small way during 2015. J

HSP105 Introduction to Family History at UTAS

Well, it was a busy two months spent doing the Introduction to Family History course (UTAS) over the Christmas holidays, but I got to learn a lot about the experiences of teachers in early NSW (1881 - 1933).  For our third assessment task we were asked to write a research report. I decided to research my 2^nd great grandmother's teaching career.  

Catherine is one of my favourite ancestors.  She is the only teacher among my direct ancestors &, being a teacher myself, this makes me identify strongly with her.  Some drop of teaching blood must have been passed on through Catherine to me!  She is also the daughter of an Irish Famine Orphan who came to Australia as part of the Earl Grey scheme.  She also seems to have been very close to her children; several of her children lived with her throughout their lives, or in the second house she owned next door to her own, & after the sudden death of her son (my great grandfather), his widow & young son (my grandfather) came to live with Catherine.

I had three main aims:

• In which areas & schools did Catherine teach?
• During what time period did she teach?
• What was her life as a teacher like?

I was able to discover that Catherine Curran (nee Whitelock) started her career in 1881 at the age of 14 ¾, when she began her training as a pupil teacher.  She also attended Hurlestone Training School, a residential training school for women, from 1886 - 1887.  She was promoted to, or ‘instructed to act’ as, Mistress of Greta Infants in 1890.  She taught at Greta Infants from 1890 – 1892, Milltown Infants (which was later renamed South Bathurst) from 1892 – 1908, and South Goulburn Infants from 1908 – 1920.  The majority of her career was spent teaching in the Bathurst area before she was appointed to Arncliffe West Infants in 1920.  Catherine retired from teaching in 1931, the day before her 65^th birthday.

Looking through the documents in school files at State Records NSW showed me what her life was like as a teacher / mistress of Infants.  There was such a range of documents that she filled out, from recommending whether a teacher in her Infants department should be granted sick leave to liaising with the Department of Education about the need for more furniture or repairs to the school.

I researched the history of education in NSW & learnt about how teachers were trained, teacher-pupil ratios & class sizes, teacher examinations, & the promotion system & school inspections.

I was able to access digital copies of the education curriculum from 1905 – 1928, which gave me an idea of the curriculum Catherine would have taught.

The following blog posts / websites helped with my research:

• Cass, Pauleen. "Beyond the Internet Week 6: School Administration Records." Family History Across the Seas. Blog post, https://cassmob.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/beyond-the-internet-week-6-school-administration-records/ Accessed 10 January 2015.
• Hicks, Shauna. "Week 26 - School Records in 52 Weeks of Genealogical Research in 2015", Shauna Hicks History Enterprises, Family & History. Blog post, http://www.shaunahicks.com.au/week-26-school-records-in-52-weeks-of-genealogical-research-in-2015/  Accessed 10 January 2015.
• McCreadie, Margaret. "The Evolution of Education in Australia", IFHAA Australian Schools. Blog post, http://www.historyaustralia.org.au/ifhaa/schools/evelutio.htm/ Accessed 30 January 2015
• Riley, Carole. "Researching Schools in NSW," Genealogy in New South Wales Blog. Blog post, http://heritagegenealogy.com.au/blog/researching-schools-in-nsw/ Accessed 10 January 2015.

I feel like I have gotten to know Catherine so well through this research report.  As a bonus, I have copies of multiple documents that she hand-wrote as well as her signature.  I also now know that she was known as Kate, not Catherine.

Trove Tuesday

After reading other geneablogger's Trove Tuesday posts, I was inspired to find something new on Trove.  Searching for articles about the European Hotel in Bathurst, I came across a mention of my 2nd great grandmother, Catherine Curran, nee Whitelock.  I knew she was a teacher from electoral rolls but I knew nothing else about her teaching career.  I found this hard to read but I'm pretty sure I have it transcribed accurately now.

Source: The Bathurst Times (NSW : 1909 - 1925), Saturday 14 January 1922, page 4

"Mrs C W Curran, of Arncliffe, has been spending a couple of weeks in Bathurst.  She has been accompanied by her youngest son and only daughter and has been the guest of Mr C Ledlin, of the European Hotel.  Mrs Curran is a wonder.  She has been in charge of one public school or another since she was 21 years of age, and even prior to that was mistress of the infant department at Bathurst South School.  She now has charge of Arncliffe.  During her long and active association with the Education Department she has been a keen music enthusiast.  Incidentally she married and contributed to the nation ten fine young Australians, nine of whom are still living and making good.  Her eldest son is 25 years old, and, unless one knew the family, one would never believe that Mrs Curran answered grandmother to at least three children."

This article was published in The Bathurst Times on 4 January, 1922.  Thank you Trove :)