Lilian's Tree

Alex Daw has set us another great challenge for Family History Month. Week 1. Who do I think is the most respected or impressive member of my family tree? This is this week’s prompt but I’m taking a slightly different tack and going with an ancestor named August.   My great-grandfather, August Frederick Conrad JASPER was born, not in August to be given that as a name but in December! 3 December 1846, to be exact, in Heidenoldendorf, Germany. His parents were Toens Simon Herman Christoph JASPER and Wilhelmine Friederike KESSEMEIER. August was baptised on 13 December 1846 and then nothing about him until he arrives in South Australia on 29 March 1876, on the Dilbhur, having left London on 29 December 1875. Listed as a brickmaker, aged 29 years. Looking at the passenger list he and one other were listed as brickmakers. He again proves to be elusive, with nothing until a small newspaper article in 1880, where he has taken his employer a Mr Sampson to court for back wages ...

Eveline Maud JASPER, born 3 April 1885, died 4 October 1932.  Born at McDonaldtown, in Sydney, Eveline was the first child for Isabella Mary Ann VAUGHAN and August JASPER, her three younger siblings all died very young.  She married Arthur GALBRAITH on 30 December 1908, at St Stephen's, Newtown. They would have 10 children. But what of her childhood? I can assume that she attended Erskinville Public School, as it was the closest to her home. I know she was a dressmaker, Mum told me that. Did she work for a firm or do it from home? Questions that I have no answers for. I do know that she made her own wedding dress. Was much loved and missed by her children.  The photo, above was taken of a family outing to Katoomba, in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. Her wedding day. Eveline's legacy; 10 children, who all lived to adulthood and married, 22 grandchildren and 35 great-grandchildren.

When we research our ancestors, we look at the certificates and see an address but what does it tell us?  Sometimes useful information, sometimes, not.  It doesn't tell us what the buiding was like, how many rooms, how much it was worth or who owned it. Interesting information, that would make that address more 'real' to us. With the advent of Google Street View, we can often see the street or house mentioned and this gives us something tangable, for our research but that is now, not back then. These past couple of weeks, I have been searching the City of Sydney, Rate Assessment Books and finding descriptions of some of the places my ancestors called home. (link to the City of Sydney website  https://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/    look under the Learn tab) Now my great-grandmother, Isabella Mary Ann Jasper, nee Vaughan, was born in the Domain Terrace, in 1847. The Domain Terrace is still in use, today, it runs between the Mitchell Library and the State ...