Introduction

This blog began life as a repository for my family history research. But it has grown into much more and now holds stuff I have written for a range of purposes. I have arranged these writings under four broad headings :

Ancestor Stories. 

From my parents' generation backwards, there are stories here of generations close and distant, of relatives you may have known and loved, or family members you are meeting for the first time. These are just snippets of the thousands of stories that comprise the mosaic of their lives. In telling these stories, my hope is that in some way that person comes to life for you, or perhaps returns to new life in your memories of them. Family History research is never complete, and consequently there will always be more stories to research and tell. Keep checking!!!

Battlefields Tour 2024. 

This is a different type of writing, where I reflect on my experiences, my emotions, my learnings during a memorable tour in October 2024 of the Western Front battlefields of the Great War..

A Life in Pubs. 

A series of memoirs where I look at our family life through the lens of my own experiences growing up in a succession of pubs in city and country NSW. I'm not so much interested in talking about my own life - although inevitably there is much of that - and my real focus is my family and particularly my parents. If I am honest, it's my attempt to more deeply understand lives that I took too much for granted when they were still with us. Part of the gift of aging, is the time it now affords me for reflection, particularly on the things that matter, and in this reflection seeing perhaps more than I had previously realised. The poet T.S. Eliot expressed this well, in his famous aphorism : "the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time".  And for the first time I talk about my years in Religious Life.

Creative Writings. 

Some of the prose and poetry I have written over the years, purely for a creative outlet.

Returning to Ancestor Stories, I must acknowledge my own debt to the painstaking and detailed work of others. Paul Box and Maree Woods have given us a magnificent legacy through their research on early Cleary family history, and I have provided a link to Maree's published work, in my post "A garage in Murrumburrah". Joan Dawes has similarly illuminated the Daws / Dawes story, and Basil Toohey first alerted me to his pioneering research on our convict ancestor John Toohy / Toohey. Each of these family researchers has provided me with the springboards I needed to dive deeper into  our family stories, and then add my own findings and musings.

I hope you find enjoyment, and, better, satisfaction and your own personal meaning, in coming on this writing journey with me.

Ross. (June 2023. Updated November 2024)

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