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Genealogy Author unknown
Going on a trip?The following story has two versions - a Maurie Roy version and a Gus Roy version When they lived at 104 McLeod Street, Cairns, there was a vacant lot next door on the corner of Florence Street. Growing on it was a grass with long reedy stalks up to a metre high that is found in tropical areas. Being on a corner, pedestrians were in the habit of taking a short-cut diagonally across this allotment. It wasn't far from the centre of Cairns - an easy walk. Indeed, nowadays, 104 McLeod Street is shops and part of the shopping heart of Cairns. [see Roys in Cairns] Their father (Sam Roy) used to come home at about the same time every afternoon - using the short cut. Maurie and Gus decided to tie some of the grass reeds together across the path at about the time "the old man" was due home. Now this is where you get two versions of the result. Maurie version: They caught the old man who tripped over the grass flat on his face. Trouble was, he knew who was responsible and came looking. Gus version: They inadvertently tripped up a couple of nuns who were using the short cut. Or... maybe they did this more than once?!! Bruce Roy Roy-Royer-RoyesI found a family tree based around the marriage of William Glenn Roy to Alice Madeleine Royer. With my parents' Roy-Royes marriage in mind, I dropped Bill a friendly line, adding that, when referring to our families, hardly anyone uses Royeses as a plural of Royes thus leaving a certain amount of confusion when speaking of the Roys and Royes. Bruce Roy Raising children"It takes time to raise about 25 children. I know, I have two myself. That's plenty. Mine are twins, though. Both of them. They're awfully cute. I can't think of their names. They don't come when I call them anyway." --Victor Borge The children's inheritance"I want my children to have all the things I couldn't afford. -Unknown When I'm An Old Lady©Copyright April 1991 and Author -- Joanne Bailey Baxter, Lorain, OH
When I'm an old lady, I'll live with each kid, ![]() Grave stonesComedian Spike Milligan's grave at St Thomas's Church, Winchelsea, East Sussex I knew
On the grave of Ezekial Aikle in East Dalhousie Cemetery, Nova Scotia: In a London, England cemetery: In a Ribbesford, England, cemetery: Anna Wallace The children of Israel wanted bread And the Lord sent them manna, Old clerk Wallace wanted a wife, And the Devil sent him Anna. Ruidoso, New Mexico, cemetery: Here lies Johnny Yeast Pardon me For not rising. Memory of an accident in a Uniontown, Pennsylvania cemetery: Here lies the body of Jonathan Blake Stepped on the gas Instead of the brake. In a Silver City, Nevada, cemetery: Here lays Butch, We planted him raw. He was quick on the trigger, But slow on the draw. A widow wrote this epitaph in a Vermont cemetery: Sacred to the memory of my husband John Barnes who died January 3, 1803 His comely young widow, aged 23, has many qualifications of a good wife, and yearns to be comforted. A lawyer's epitaph in England: Sir John Strange Here lies an honest lawyer, And that is Strange. Stowe, Vermont: I was somebody. Who, is no business Of yours. Lester Moore was a Wells, Fargo Co. station agent for Naco, Arizona in the cowboy days of the 1880's. He's buried in the Boot Hill Cemetery in Tombstone, Arizona: Here lies Lester Moore Four slugs from a .44 No Les No More. John Penny's epitaph in the Wimborne, England, cemetery: Reader if cash thou art In want of any Dig 4 feet deep And thou wilt find a Penny. On Margaret Daniels grave at Hollywood Cemetery Richmond, Virginia: She always said her feet were killing her but nobody believed her. In a cemetery in Hartscombe, England: On the 22nd of June - Jonathan Fiddle - Went out of tune. Anna Hopewell Enosburg Falls, Vermont: Here lies the body of our Anna Done to death by a banana It wasn't the fruit that laid her low But the skin of the thing that made her go. Owen Moore in Battersea, London, England: Gone away Owin' more Than he could pay. Winslow, Maine: In Memory of Beza Wood Departed this life Nov. 2, 1837 Aged 45 yrs. Here lies one Wood Enclosed in wood One Wood Within another. The outer wood Is very good: We cannot praise The other. On a grave from the 1880's in Nantucket, Massachusetts: Under the sod and under the trees Lies the body of Jonathan Pease. He is not here, there's only the pod: Pease shelled out and went to God. Ellen Shannon in Girard, Pennsylvania Who was fatally burned March 21, 1870 by the explosion of a lamp filled with "R.E. Danforth's Non-Explosive Burning Fluid" Harry Edsel Smith of Albany, New York: Born 1903--Died 1942 Looked up the elevator shaft to see if the car was on the way down. It was. In a Thurmont, Maryland, cemetery: Here lies an Atheist All dressed up And no place to go. in an old German cemetery: "Here lies an awful liar, his tales were really trying Death did not reform him, here he is still lying" Seen in the porch of the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Bishop's Lydeard, Somerset, England a panel to the memory of John Geal, vicar from 1714-1733. He asked to be buried under the first flagstone of the porch, saying: "My parishioners have tried unsuccessfully to walk over me while I am alive; they shall not be denied this pleasure when I am dead." RootsWeb Review 14 Sep 05 Gustava Gumersinda Gutierres Guzman Here is resting my dearest wife, Tomas Jimoteo Chinchilla Here rests |
City slickersGrandma had a chuckle when she picked up grandchildren Caitlin and Ben from Laidley [SE Queensland] and ferried them to nearby Rosewood Golf Club. I didn't realise just how much they were "city kids", she writes. Between Grandchester and Rosewood there is a lot of country. Caitlin, 4, asked: "What's with all the rainforest?" When I asked her to repeat her query she wanted to know why there were so many trees. We took in the cows and horses and then we passed a large group of bee-hives which I pointed out to them and explained that that was where honey came from. Caitlin: "I've got honey at home and it doesn't come from any bees." I explained that it did - from hive, to bottle and bucket, to shop.... and went on to explain the similar process that gives us milk. Ben (aged 6) had been very quiet, taking all this in, but then from behind me comes the query, "Grandma, where does water come from?" and I explained that it came from the sky, ably assisted by Caitlin who agreed and said that God sent it down. A relieved Ben then said, "So water doesn't come from any animals, does it, Grandma?" Mandie (Roy) Bloomfield Speaking of grandmothers...You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother. Albert Einstein Family twistMany many years ago when I was twenty three,
written by Dwight Latham and Moe Jaffe No menI was doing family tree research at the Salt Lake Family History Library -- against a "brick wall" and leafing through books to kill time while waiting for a friend. I found the following in a book of wills. A woman had requested that all the pallbearers at her funeral be female, no men, because: "They wouldn't take me out when I was alive and they aren't going to take me out now!" Thanks to Karen Sanders in YES! YES! YES!
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Obnoxious brother | Please Gogh |
Israeli astronaut uncle | Itza Gogh |
Cousin who's a priest | Alter E. Gogh |
Grandfather from Yugoslavia | U Gogh |
Cousin who bleached his clothes | Hue Gogh |
Cousin from Illinois | Chica Gogh |
Magician Uncle | Wherediddy Gogh |
Mexican cousin | Amee Gogh |
Nephew who drove a stagecoach | Wellsfah Gogh |
Birdlover uncle | Flamin Gogh |
Well connected sister | Leg Gogh |
Ballroom dancing aunt | Tan Gogh |
Spanish dancing niece | Fandan Gogh |
Limbo dancer cousin | Howlocanya Gogh |
Niece who loved disco | Go Gogh |
Little bouncy nephew | Po Gogh |
Dizzy aunt | Verti Gogh |
Fruit-loving cousin | Man Gogh |
Entrepreneurial cousin | Waiter Gogh |
Cousin died on honeymoon | Watterwayter Gogh |
Racing car driver cousin | Indy Gogh |
Indy Gogh's sister in blue | Indi Gogh |
Spendthrift cousin | Ezicumezi Gogh |
Jolly aunt | Merry Gogh |
Merchant sailor brother | Car Gogh |
Australian cousin | Ding Goh |
Australian contortionist uncle | Bendy Goh |
Snail-eating French cousin | S. Car Gogh |
Russian half-brother doctor | Dr Shivar Gogh |
Psychoanalyst nephew | E Gogh |
Chiropractic granduncle | Lumbay Gogh |
This list adapts elements of several versions
appearing over the years in RootsWeb Review
A colleague tells me of his brother's experience in writing up the family tree - a family from the early days of white settlement. When their aunt found out about his project, she said, "Well, you will be interested to know that one of our forebears was
As the research progressed, what came out was:
And the bit about the will is a mystery - though it tends to add weight to the suggestion that he went off freely with "the blacks"!
Once you would not dare admit to a convict in the family tree and reinterpretation of the story was required. Nowadays a convict is a badge of office!
Bruce Roy
Uncle Arthur was a great yachstman in his time, but when he died in his late eighties his beloved yacht had been somewhat neglected. The family decided that the most appropriate thing to do was to scatter Uncle Arthur's ashes at sea from his beloved yacht. So they cleaned up the olde ship and slapped a coat of paint on her, and headed out to sea.
Now scattering ashes at sea is a tricky business, as any one who has done it will tell you. There is a better than even chance that the wind will whip the ashes all over the place, including over the mourners. And this indeed happened in Uncle Arthur's case. There was distress for some as they sought to disentangle Uncle Arthur from hair, mouth, eyes, makeup and/or clothing.
But the real quandary arose from the fact that the coat of paint was still a bit tacky and Uncle Arthur had stuck determinedly to his beloved yacht.
What was the respectful thing to do? It hardly seemed right to sand him back once the paint had dried. Should they put another thick coat of paint over the top of him? Should they leave it as is so that Uncle Arthur - who was after all a very practical, down to earth (pardon the pun) person himself - provided a non-slip surface? Should they simply sink the yacht? What was the respectful thing to do??
Adapted from A Kangaroo Loose in the Top Paddock by Lachlan Ness (a pseudonym of Rev Tony Lang, former Australian Army Chaplain)
It has been a busy week for the many friends and well-wishers of the late Lawrence Noel Perry, who lived his 86 years to the full, says his son-in-law, Brad Nicholson, of Billinudgel. This matter came to our attention after Brad placed this notice in Saturday's classifieds:
''Sadly missed by his five wives
Died on Monday
Laid out on Tuesday
Cremated on Wednesday
Remembered on Thursday
Celebrated on Friday''.
Sydney Morning Herald Column 8, 11 July 2011
An article on thinking in accents when searching census records reminded me of the time I found my Aunt "Johnnie" in the census in South Georgia in the 1920s. She is listed as Johnnie Analyzer Gay.
This one had me stumped until I asked my 94-year-old great-aunt Esther BLIZZARD about it. She said her name was Johnnie Anna Eliza. But with the south Georgia accent and the habit of replacing the trailing letter "a" with an "er" sound, it was spoken as one word -- "analyzer."
RootsWeb Review 1 Feb 2006
Joe,
I always enjoy your column and hate to be a nit-picker, but I have to honour the Scottish part of my ancestry. Sean Connery doesn't speak with a brogue -- that's what the Irish speak with. The Scots speak with a burr.
--Susan
Susan,
Well, if he's got that burr under his kilt that would explain the accent.
--Joe
Clean Laffs, 18 Jul 2003
One would be in less danger
From the wiles of the stranger
If one's own kin and kith
Were more fun to be with.
Ogden Nash, "Family Court"
"Gus" came to the 2004 School reunion for Blackheath and Thornburgh College in Charters Towers, North Queensland, with family stories about his great grandmother. She had reportedly been murdered, beaten to death, and the body stuffed into a barrel. Two men had been accused but were acquitted. And... he added with that false sense of embarrassment that reveals an exciting, sordid element in the family story... she was the madam of a brothel.
A relative had failed to find the grave at the Charters Towers cemetery on The Lynd Road, but Gus had a contact who claimed to have succeeded! And sure enough, there it was. Merely a grave number embedded into a block of concrete (once the dirt had been removed), but tangible evidence of her existence.
Now off to the Court House to see if there were any records of the trial. No, not in Charters Towers. Try The Northern Miner. Being such a sensational event, it would surely have been reported in its pages. No, their records did not go back that far but James Cook University had them, and so did the local family history society.
Gus contacted the latter and soon had the newspaper articles. But having told half of Charters Towers of his family's sordid past, it was a little deflating to find that she was just an old lady who fell down a step - one that consisted of a trunk to help get from one floor level to another. She was alive when found and could verify that she had not been pushed or beaten. Gus even found the house and the offending step.
Family research can be so disappointing sometimes!
Reading an online family tree that contained information on one of my lines, I made a shocking discovery. Martha, a Quaker girl, had the misfortune to become pregnant by her second cousin James, who, upon hearing the news, eloped with someone else. Martha reported the sad circumstance to the Quakers and both Martha and James were DISMEMBERED!
I do hope they were actually only EXCOMMUNICATED.
Nancy Jones
RootsWeb Review 28 May 2003 Vol 6 No 22
[RootsWeb Review's Note: One could be formally DISOWNED for marrying someone who was not a Quaker, having a child too soon after marriage, or various other offences. See: "Quaker Marriages"]
Found the following on an old Tennessee death certificate:
Cause of death: CARRANOVER.
I thought it must be a really strange disease, until I realized that three words had been run together and that the person worked for the railroad.
Jan McClintock
RootsWeb Review 13 August 2003 Vol. 6 No. 33
An addition to the unusual occupations found in the censuses is one for my great-great-grandmother, Peggy Riley GRESHAM.
The 1880 census of Polk County, Georgia shows William Collins Gresham, (son of Josiah Gresham), and includes William's 86-year-old mother. The enumeration looks like this:
Followed by their children and then his mother:
I always laugh at her occupation "worn out." She had given birth to 18 children, although she had only raised five of them, but I can empathize with her and I only had three.
Nadine Wilson
RootsWeb Review 16 Jul 2003 Vol 6 No 29
While researching my family in Moorland Township, Michigan in the 1870 census I came across an interesting occupation:
Marilyn Young
RootsWeb Review 9 July 2003 Vol. 6 No. 28
I have been searching the 1880 U.S. census for possible parents for the wife of my great-grandparent's sibling, when I came across this entry that caused me to laugh out loud, much to the startlement of my pet poodle.
Listed in the household of Lewis PIERSOL, 59 of Pennsylvania, a farmer, was his mother -- Sarah PIERSOL. Her occupation was listed as: "Ever Lasting Talker."
Barbara Chaffin
RootsWeb Review 2 July 2003 Vol 6 No 27
Perhaps some resentment towards a ne'er-do-well brother-in-law is reflected in the 1880 Jefferson County, Indiana census where David HUNTLEY is shown boarding with his sister and her broom-maker husband, but David's occupation is listed as "does nothing."
Steve Frevert
RootsWeb Review 27 Aug 2003 Vol 6 No 35
A few years back I was working as staff at our local Family History Centre and assisted a lady in searching a census for her family. She came to me with a question about the occupation for one of her family members in West Virginia. He was listed as a "tippler."
I looked through three dictionaries, including Black's Law Dictionary, before I gave up and reluctantly told her what I knew before I started -- that a "tippler" is "one who drinks to excess." She was less than overjoyed that her ancestor was officially listed as a drunk.
Fast-forward to a few weeks ago as I was watching a show on the educational TV channel. It was comparing the modern mining equipment to that used last century. It showed the current machinery used in West Virginia to bring the mined coal out of the mine, then showed how the coal used to be pushed out manually in carts on rails and dumped out large piles of to be loaded onto trains.
The narrator said that the men who pushed the coal carts out and tipped (emptied) them were called TIPPLERS. I hope that lady was watching the same show!
[Editor's note: Harry Tootles Mining Dictionary shows:
"Tipper or Tipplers -- An apparatus for emptying tubs onto the 'screens' or down a shute [chute] into a wagon or boat."]
Onnie Ferris
RootsWeb Review 28 December 2005, Vol. 8, No. 52
While driving in Pennsylvania, a family caught up to an Amish horse-drawn carriage. Attached to the back of the carriage was a hand-printed sign that read:
"Energy efficient vehicle:
Runs on oats and grass.
Caution: Do not step in the exhaust."
Sonny Vanderpool
RootsWeb Review 15 Oct 2003
Owner/Source | Bruce Roy |
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