More pictures from the past

Our Cousin Domini has sent me some pictures of her family - parents and siblings.

Domini "rock and rolling with a family friend in Greece in 1956

Domini is the eldest child of Mary Josephine Guilfoyle and Michael Wilson. They married in 1944.
Mary Josephine is the Daughter of Charles Seymour Aaron Guilfoyle and Mary Breen who married in North Wales in 1914.
Charles Seymour Aaron Guilfoyle is the youngest son of Charles John Guilfoyle Seymour and Elizabeth "Bessie" Nathan.
" Aaaah" I hear you say, "That's the connection".

Domini and Anthony

 Yes, it is and if you are really interested I can send you a PDF version of the family tree and you can see for yourselves the convoluted twists and turns of these branches. I hope some of you take me up on this offer

Mary Josephine, charleston girl

I am hoping that Domini will find time between her travels to tell us more about her and her family. She has children, but she hasn't given me details yet - not that I am pushing you understand, but I am just .............. curious, yes that's it I am curious. I am NOT being nosey I just want to make the family tree more complete OK?

Mary Josephine with Domini

 Can you see any family likeness? I can, but I could be just wishing it. There is a certain bone structure that seems to shine through. Until now I have assumed it comes from the Bessie Nathan side but now I realise that I need to know more about the Guilfoyle side. This means tackling the Irish roots and I simply don't know where to start.

Wedding picture of Michael Wilson and Mary Josephine Guilfoyle 1944

 I believe Charles John Guilfoyle was born around 1850, give or take a year or two. Official registration of births didn't begin in Ireland until the 1870s and my searches for the baptism of a Charles John with a father called Daniel have not found anything but that could be because of several reasons
a) I am not looking in the right place
b) Catholic registers have not been digitised for every parish in Ireland.
c)I am useless at finding stuff

Tim and Anthony

Tim, Domini, Deidre, Anthony at Blarney Castle

With a bit of luck something will allow me to find a small kernel of information and that will open the flood gates.
Enjoy the pictures and let me know if you want a copy of the family tree

Photos from 1976

I am just going to name the people in each picture. From left to right in each picture

First Row: Peter Gibbon, Michael Smith (seated), Mark Smith (seated), Alan McDade (tiny child in blue top
Next Row: Richard Gibbon (blue sweater), Brenda Baggott (Yellow top), Debra Cox nee Baggott (red top), Muriel Baggott, Louisa Duckham, Pat Duckham with Gareth Duckham in front of her, Joan Gibbon nee McDade with Kerry Gibbon in front of her, Phyllis Gibbon with Rhona Gibbon in front of her, Fred Gibbon.
Back Row: Leonard Baggott, Peter McDade, John Duckham, Bernard Gibbon, Dennis Gibbon, Russell Gibbon

 Louisa Duckham with Gareth held tightly in front of her, Richard Gibbon, Peter Gibbon Debra Cox nee Baggott with Mark Smith racing across in front of her, Andrea Roberts nee Smith with Alan McDade in front of her, Michelle Jones, Kerry Gibbon, Matthew Jones, Sarah Jones, Hilmer Carlson with Mary Carlson nee Gibbon in front of him

 Front row: Michael Smith in the go cart. Mark Smith, Gareth Duckham, Kerry Gibbon, Rhona Gibbon
Next Row:Marjorie Gibbon, Louisa Duckham, Pat Duckham, Ann Macey nee Gibbon, Yvonne Jones nee Carlson holding Matthew Jones, Phyllis Gibbon.
Back Row: Debra Cox nee Baggott, Leonard Baggott, John Duckham, Russell Gibbon, Mary Carlson, Dennis Gibbon, Hilmer Carlson, Joan Gibbon nee Dwyer, Richard Gibbon

 Richard Gibbon with Mark Smith on his back, Peter Gibbon, Andrea Roberts nee Smith with Alan McDade on her shoulders, Debra Cox nee Baggott, Sarah Jones, Michelle Jones

 Joanna Graham nee Jeffries, Val Jeffries nee Gibbon, Paul Carlson

 Back row: Paul Carlson, Ann Carlson nee Pinnell, Colin Carlson
Front row: Mark Smith, Peter Gibbon, Andrea Smith

 Michael Smith, Richard Gibbon, Mark Smith, Andrea Roberts nee Smith

 Seated Peter Gibbon, Michael Smith, Richard Gibbon, Andrea Roberts
Standing The shoulder of Ann Carlson, The back of Bernard Gibbon, Marjorie Gibbon

 You should know these faces by now

 Standing: Ann Carlson, Joan Gibbon nee McDade, Marjorie Gibbon, Ann Macey nee Gibbon

 The look on my face says someone is not behaving

 Peter blowing out the candles for his 12th birthday

 See that blue and white china? it all got smashed when the dresser fell over in their new house

Richard Gibbon, Paul Carlson Andrea Roberts nee Smith, Michael Smith, Mark Smith, Peter Gibbon.

These pictures have been hiding in an album in Peter's home for the last 40 years and now, with today's technology we can all share them. If anyone has any other pictures of these two days could you consider sharing them with us. If you have any family group pictures I would love to see them too and then to share them here and in the newsletter

Memory Making - to the next Generation

Last night we attended a Promise Ceremony. Miss Boo made her Promise as a Girl Guide. This was made even more special by the fact that her Mum is the Guide Leader for the Company and this unit was started because there was nowhere for the girls to go when they were too old for Brownie Guides.

 I was so proud of both of them.

 It was made even more poignant by the memories this evoked. You see Waaaay back in 1975 when Andrea was ten She moved up from Brownies to Guides and was thrilled to be leaving me behind. I was an assistant leader for the Brownies.. Two weeks later I had a phone call from the District Commissioner telling me that if I didn't take over the Guides then it would close.
Andrea was distinctly annoyed by this but my good friend Viv agreed to help and we had an arrangement that I would be the one to talk to her daughters and she would talk to mine. As the Leader I was the one to stand in front of them while they made their promise.

 There was home made cake! Made by Andrea and really delicious. Trefoil shaped because of the Girl Guide badge. and a perfect shade of Guide blue

Seeing Miss Boo Standing beside her mother helping her and watching as she made her promise meant that all those happy times at meetings and at camp came flooding back. So special. So proud of my Girl Guides

Some pictures of New Cousins

This is so exciting. Allow me to introduce our newly connected cousin Dale Reed HERLING, and his family. Dale is the son on Harry Lewis Edward Holder. He is married to Evelyn and they have a daugher Wendy. 

Evelyn Herling, Dale Herling, Kevin Krause, Wendy Krause

 It is through Wendy and the marvels of Ancestry DNA that we have connected. Wendy is married to Kevin KRAUSE and they have a daughter Breanne.

Breanne Krause

 More beautiful ladies connecting to our family. I think I have worked this out correctly to see where the generations connect Dale is the same generation as Travis, Roxanne, Renaye, Pat (Alice's daughter) and me! So Wendy is the generation of my children and .............. well you get the picture.

Wendy Herling Krause, Breanne Krause, Keving Krause

And what a delightful picture this one is. I am sure that our other newly connected cousin Kesha and the rest of that branch will be thrilled to know that this family continues to expand.
On behalf of all your cousins spread across the world I would like to say Welcome Dale and family, we have found you and we don't intend losing you again.

Holding in my hot little hand

I have pictures of our newly connected cousins. There will be more but just this one will have to do for now

Let me introduce you to Kesha and her husband David with their oldest daughter T, daughter L. and youngest son D2. There is an eldest son D1 too. I am reluctant to name children on this open access intarwebby thingy.

Anyhow, Isn't this a fabulous picture and aren't we lucky to have such good looking relatives? I am so excited and can't wait to get an edition of the Gazette out to everyone because ...... wait for it ..... there ought to be a drum roll here

I have a copy of Bessie Hope's autobiography - yup, in my hot little hands as we speak. Well lying next to the keyboard really but you get the gist of it yeah?

I am delighted to tell you that she inherited the lying gene and I can't wait to share it with you all. There are ten handwritten pages and I intend transcribing them and serialising it in the gazette. I also have copies of the pictures from the scrap book - and now, perhaps we can get to the bottom of the picture of what looks like a football team. More of that in the gazette.

For now let's just sit and be thankful for this here intarwebby for connecting us to Kesha and her lovely family and bringing our strange and disfunctional family together.

Another newly connected Cousin

First a picture of being eight years old and living by the sea. Isn't that just wonderful? Seeing my Grandson Matthew thoroughly enjoying himself dashing in and out of the water, just amazing.

 Then we move on to Wednesday morning when we stopped in Morrisons in Rhyl for coffee and to say cheerio to Patricia and Ela. We spent Tuesday afternoon and evening with them and we simply never stopped talking. I am sure that Patricia was wondering why I kept on staring at her. It is because she looks so like Cousin Pam in Australia.

We came home from North Wales and I sat down on Saturday to go through the emails stacked up in my inbox. To my absolute delight there was a message from someone called Kesha Pugh. She says she is a 4xgreat granddaughter of Bessie Nathan. She has seen the scrapbook that Bessie Hope was given that belonged to Bessie Nathan and says she has lots of information about family stuff.

A pause while I connected the dots and she has to be descended from Alice and her daughter Pat. I don't think Alice had any other children but I am open to correction. If the number of greats is correct then Kesha has two more generations between her and Pat so that puts her on the same generation level as........................... my head hurts now ................. my great grand children Anwyn, Bleddyn and Alma. I hope for pictures.

Just before we went away I connected with Wendy Herlinge Krause who is descended from Harry Edward Lewis Holder. She was away from home when we connected and she will be bringing me up to speed with her family story and I hope for pictures.

Don't you all just love this family? Just when you think the tree is nearly sorted a new shoot appears and we haven't gone back that many generations yet. I must make a concerted effort to find stuff about the siblings of Bessie Nathan AND find out more about the Irish family connection and Charles John Guilfoyle.................... That should be really exciting LOL

Getting those stories collected

Ann, Cousin Sandy and Emily

We have all heard the "family stories". You know the ones about "OH Gran was an actress" or "we have a Spanish Jewess in our family" or even "Well Grandma Bessie was married about five times I think". The time has come for those little snippets of our history to be gathered together. I think I will be finding a way to get the PDF files of back issues of the Gibbon Gazette uploaded somewhere.
Do you remember that Cousin Colin gave us a website and we did diddley squat with it? UHhuh, well we could have had a place where we could dum put all such things and also upload pictures. Instead we all waited for someone else to do it. Seems like it is going to be me but some of you younger ones had better consider stepping up because I am 70 - nearly 71 and half of my first cousins are older!!!

In the mean time I will just say that Cousin Roxanne has connected us to a new member of our family. Descended from Bessie Hope Seymour and Harry Holder. There will be more details in the next Gazette. I'll just say that her name is Wendy and she lives in the Pacific North West.

What I need you all to do is to get out the old photographs and see if you can remember any stories that your parents told you about them. Then you contact me - email, messenger, facebook or even that old fashioned thing called the telephone. My email and my phone number are both on the back of the latest gazette.

So go on! What are you waiting for? you tell me and I'll write it.