The picture above is of my great great grandparents, John and Mary Stacey, and probably their 4 youngest children.
Their youngest son George was born in 1882 so that would date this photograph mid to late 1880s.
I will start my thoughts with John and Mary who are the maternal branch of my family.

Sunday 26 May 2013

Telegrams

It is not often people receive telegrams now but at one time they were a quick way of passing on news, good or bad, to family and friends.  These days nearly everybody  has a phone and we can talk to people on the other side of the world via the internet so telegrams have become a thing of the past or are sent as a nostalgic novelty.

I found some telegrams among mum's papers after her death.  The four below were sent  to her and William from friends and parents to congratulate them on their marriage in 1945.  William and Kathleen were  in the army during the second world war and towards the end of the war they were both stationed in Liverpool which was where they met.  They both lived on Rodney Street, Kathleen at number 60 and William at number 75.



This is a copy of their marriage certificate.


This is the telegram received by William when I was born.   At that time he had not been demobbed from the army and was stationed in Surrey.  Kathleen was living with his parents in Cheshire and I was born in their house on 23rd January 1946.  William's sister Nora sent the telegram, not sure if it confused him or not but to me it reads  as though he had two daughters.  The omission of that clever little apostrophe!


Sunday 19 May 2013

Emigration to Australia

As I wrote in a previous entry my parents emigrated to Australia in 1967. After mum's death my brother and I were going through her papers and found the following documents. 

The first is the identification document they were issued with, instead of a passport, which allowed them to enter Australia.  They went on the assisted £10 emigration package.



In 1995 mum applied for Australian Citizenship.  Not sure why she waited 26 years before doing so. 


 This is her receiving the certificate after, I presume,  swearing an oath.