Digging up the Past

Since meeting my two distant cousins I have set myself the task of tracing all of our mutual relatives and it has not been as easy as I imagined.

I assumed that it would simply be a matter of contacting my fairly close cousins and asking them.  I have found that it is not so simple; I first have to convince them that I would not be broadcasting their most intimate affairs to the wide world.  And one of my second cousins has flown so low under the radar that he is almost impossible to trace.  He has a name which should stand out in any search and certainly others with the same name appear with alarming regularity  -  but not him.

Knowing his name and the first given name of his wife I have been searching through the social and family entries in the main South Australian newspapers which are progressively being archived, scanned (badly) and posted on-line.  People are encouraged go to the site and correct the rather garbled print which is correctable in a sidebar with the actual scanned copy to refer to.  It is fun to do and I have tended to correct the entries pertaining to my own family when I do a search.

Anyway, I found an engagement notice among the BMDs which gave me the name of his wife and his wife's father which enabled me to search further to the wife's death notice which has given me the children and the one grandchild, along with the spouses of the children and the date and two places where the wedding took place.  I am not sure which one is correct.  They were both on the Social Page (Very Adelaide). 

One was a report of a pre-wedding party which gave one location and the other was a report of the wedding itself along with a photograph which placed the ceremony in a different church.  I have listed both and maybe one day I will find out which one it was.  I could purchase a copy of the marriage certificate but he is a second cousin and it doesn't really matter much in the total scheme of things.  And it is a hassle to prove who you are and that you have a right to buy a copy of the certificate.

I have recovered from the 'flu just in time for the hot weather.  Two days ago the temperature suddenly shot up to 36 degrees centigrade after a series of very cold, wet days and it was a bit of a shock to the system.  But nice not to have to rug up any more.

However, my cats are now  moulting their winter coats, there is black fur everywhere and the little girl is vomiting on my best Persian carpet.  Always a thorn amongst the roses.