Today marks the fourth and final week of the National Family History Month blogging challenge for 2017... each week the Blogging Challenge has a suggested theme, based on a book by an Australian author.
This week, we have the title..
Power Without Glory by Frank Hardy.
Courtesy of TROVE
The characters in the story are barely disguised depictions of personalities of the time, an interesting list of some well known and others not so well known, at least in the beginning.
List and further details courtesy of Wikipedia
Courtesy of Trove - Frank Hardy on the left..
details of photo ... please click to enlarge.
Families are very much the same - some become well known, some work quietly in the background. If someone were to look through my family tree, without reading any of the notes or having any idea of who the people were, they would all seem pretty much the same... ordinary people.
They might note that there are some naming patterns, they might see that they appear to have come from a number of different countries, just by their names.
If they went on to read the basic facts, they might even notice that my earliest known ancestors lived fewer years on the whole that did those of the last few generations.
What they won't see, without delving further, is just what these many generations have achieved, often in stark contrast to their original expectations.
Take, for instance, a young Irish girl, born in Dublin in about May 1774, to father, Patrick, mother unknown.
This is just one blog post I have written about her, in conjunction with cousins.. As do many of our family, I have great admiration for Bridget, who was my fourth great grandmother. She was from a family who found themselves in trouble with the law. Her father, mother and two brothers, which is all we know about those in her family, were caught and tried for stealing. Her mother and brother were sent to America, Bridget and one brother, Patrick, to Australia, and her father was hanged in front of Kilmainham prison..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilmainham_Gaol
https://stairnaheireann.net/2016/11/30/kilmainham-gaol-dublin-2/
"Patrick Eslin (father of Bridget)
The Eslin/Heslin family achieved notoriety around Co Dublin for their involvement in stealing linen and calico from bleach-greens over a period from at least 1788 until 1792.
Patrick was hanged in November 1789 for 'robbing Mr Clarke's printing yard at Palmertown'. The Freeman's Journal reported that: "Yesterday at one o'clock, Hasler (sic) condemned at the last Quarter Sessions for robbing a bleach-green of some linen, was hanged in the front of the prison at Kilmainham. The unfortunate man, who was near sixty years old, behaved himself with great composure and penitence. He begged of the surrounding multitude to pray for him, and after being launched into eternity, expired without a struggle. This principally arose from the dexterity of the county hangman, who is remarkable for his adroitness in giving his subjects for mortality an easy exit - the very reverse of the practice of the New Prison, whose wretches have been seen expiring twenty-seven minutes in torture. One son of the above convict, concerned in the crime for which he suffered, though condemned along with his father for death, has been reprieved for transportation. Another of his sons remains for trial, in the same prison, on a capital charge. Sensible of the situation of his family, into which the father had probably led them, his departure from life must be accompanied with tenfold anguish, if susceptible of any degree of human feeling." from "A Nimble Fingered Tribe" - Barbara Hall
We haven't been able to trace her mother and brother in America as far as I know. Bridget was convicted in July 1792, in Dublin, for stealing calico off the drying green. There are many descendants of Bridget and many of us have been working together to find out all we can.. the following is courtesy of Bev Woodman, one of my Hobbs Cousins...
Bridget was tried in July 1792 in Dublin Ireland and was then transported to Cork by ship to await transportation aboard the Sugar Cane. The ship sailed on 13th April 1793 so she would have been in custody for about 9 months waiting to sail. She was only 18 years old but at least had a friend or relative, Mary Hughes on board with her, along with Joseph Kearns who would have also been known to the family. Bridget's brother, Patrick, was aboard another ship of that fleet, The Boddingtons, but whether Bridget knew this or not is unknown. Unlike Robert's trip, all aboard the Sugar Cane arrived on the 17th September 1793 in good health with the loss of one life (execution) on the trip.
Never-the-less Bridget was only 18, her father had been executed, her mother and another brother (John) had been transported elsewhere and she and Patrick were now in a new colony just over five years after it had been first settled. Things would have looked so alien, I can only feel that she felt scared and frightened at what lay ahead of her. At this stage we can only guess that she was either sent to the Female Factory at Parramatta or to the farms at Toongabbie, however sometime possibly in in late1795 she met Robert Hobbs and their first of nine children was born (registered Sydney) on the 19th September 1796. All other children after that were born in the Hawkesbury area, most of them at Pitt Town.
I often sit and think what they may have felt, initially elated that the trip was over, scared about the prospects for spending the rest of your life in a strange alien place. Sailing into Sydney Harbour they would have seen nothing but bushland , with strange trees and huge rocky outcrops, strange birds with strange sounds, strange beasts (kangaroos), aborigines quietly observing this strange sailing vessel and the white people on board, and on arrival on shore, looking aghast at the primitive conditions that they would have had to accept in their daily life. They were plunged into a society primarily made up of the military and convicts - and they would have been plunged into the middle of the worst of society, all battling to cope with their own nightmares. Hopefully for Bridget some kindly person gave her a roof over her head and helped her through these first couple of years until she married Robert.
What is known after that is that she lived the rest of her life with Robert, raised nine children, lived and laboured at Pitt Town on their own land and died in on the 25th October, 1843, four and a half years after Robert who died on the 23rd February 1839. They are both buried together in Pitt Town Cemetery although there is no mention of Bridget on Robert's well preserved head stone. We should all feel very proud of what this couple endured and that they fought hard to survive and raise a family in the harshest of conditions. * Courtesy of Bev Woodman, Hobbs cousin
Bridget married Robert Hobbs, a fellow convict, at St. Matthews Cof E, Windsor, NSW, on Oct 30, 1815. By that time, they already had eight children, the last being born after their marriage.
Both Bridget and Robert were granted their freedom and were accepted as respectable members of the community. Today there are hundreds of descendants...now that is both glory and power.
Bridget's Certificate of Freedom
I have written about my Greek grandfather's life a number of times... let me take you back a little further to his father, Haralambos (Harry) Catsoulis, born in or near Potamos, on the small Greek island of Kythera/Kythira. I have no dates for him. I do know that he married Maria Fardouly and that they had five children... Eleni, Panagiotitsa (son), Stavroula, George born about 1873 (who migrated to California, America in 1903), and Theodore Haralambos Catsoulis born 21 June, 1878, in Potamos.
Theodore (Theo), my grandfather, married Chrisanthe Coroneo in April 1904, in the Holy Virgin Church, Potamos.Potamos- Church of the Virgin Mary of Illariotissa
Chrisanthe, born on May 12th, 1882, was the youngest child of Konstandine Coroneo and Stavroula Megaloconomos' 10 children. They were Eleni (b 1854), Theodora (b 1856), Spero (Sam b 1858), Menas (Mick b 1865), Stamatico (b 1868), Marigo (b 1869), Yannis (John b 1874), Kosma (Con b 1877), Panagioti (Peter b 1879) and then Chrisanthe.
I know that Panagioti (Peter) migrated to Australia and stayed in Perth, Western Australia, having arrived in Fremantle. He and his family lived in Money Street, Perth, which is where one of my Aunt's, Nita, was born on March 17, 1914.
Others came to Australia and it's likely that I actually met some of them when I was young, but my Dad had a funny way of claiming relatives. They were his parents' relatives or his, nothing to do with me... so I never really worked out who was what. After my grandmother died, on January 2nd, 1965, we rarely saw any of the Greek families from NSW. We visited a lot of families when she was with us, but as to whom were relatives or friends, I simply don't know as yet.
Here are a few family stories...
GREAT EXPECTATIONS INHERITANCE BEAUTIFUL EYES
Theo and Chrisanthe had eleven children, but only raised nine, as one was stillborn, and one son lived only till 13 months. Their children had eleven between them... and then the next generation increased the family by eighteen, the following generation has added many more and the youngest of the next generation is one, with another babe due very soon.. My grandparents would be so proud, family was everything to them. Papauli (grandfather) always said that Australia was the land of plenty and a wonderful place for raising families - so long as you worked hard, you would reap the rewards... He never looked for power, but he sure would think our family had found glory in all the generations that have followed.
* My Greek grandparent's family details came from my grandfather's notebooks, kept for many years, which were passed to my father. He copied these details for me some years ago.
