This was an interesting post from a few years back that we thought you'd enjoy again.

An interesting little read on our shelves is the book 'Til death us do part : causes of death 1300-1948.

As the author Janet Few says in the introduction, “One thing that all but our most recent ancestors have in common is that they are dead.”

This small but fulsome book discusses the many possibilities of our ancestor’s deaths. The cancers and heart disease that end our lives today were much more difficult to diagnose until the twentieth century and the lifestyles of our ancestors made them less prone to contacting them. Instead, they could look forward to famines, epidemics and infectious diseases.

http://www.traveldarkly.com/plague-pits-london/

Few describes the different kinds of plague that could be experienced and their symptoms’…hard dry boils, particularly in the groin or armpits and it normally took three days to die.’ A range of preventatives included what was known as a ‘tuzzy muzzy’ , a bunch of herbs to warn off the bad smells, and urinating on a mixture of yarrow, tansy and feverfew, and then drinking the strained liquid.

The Seventeenth century plague doctor www.medievalists.net

Work related diseases led to the demise of many of our ancestors. Tuberculosis, also referred to as consumption, phthisis, decline or the white plague, was a product of urban poverty, poor nutrition, and work conditions. It was very infectious, with late teenagers often the victims.

Occupations determined certain ailments in their workers. Examples are: knife grinder’s asthma, Mad hatters’ disease (mercury poisoning, which was often contracted by those working in the hat industry), and fossy jaw (caused from ingesting phosphorous; the disease of the match girls).

The names of these diseases are intriguing in themselves. Summer madness, also known as St Anthony’s fire, Sacred fire or Invisible fire, because the skin turned black as if burnt, was common in times of bad harvest when poorer quality crops were eaten.

The green disease, or chlorosis, also known as the virgin’s disease as it was prevalent in teenage girls, was blamed on tight corsets and studying too hard with matrimony frequently prescribed as a cure.

War was responsible for the deaths of many of our ancestors, with the armed forces far more likely to die of disease than in combat. In the Crimean War only one in six casualties died in battle.

www.medievalists.net

Being a wife was a dangerous profession with between five and ten percent of all mothers dying in childbirth until the mid-nineteenth century. The list of options was grim: childbed fever, blood loss, and toxemia. Abortions were illegal and therefore dangerous.

In the days before Health & Safety, our ancestors drowned in wells, were burnt by open fires, fell off horses and ladders and suffered frequent bouts of food poisoning caused by a lack of refrigeration and the foraging for food in woods and hedgerows.  Although our health is better and we are vaccinated against the very things that blighted our ancestor’s lives, we do manage to die in ways they could never imagine.

Bridget Simpson

Some treat reads have come into the Auckland Research Centre of late and if they pique you interest, there are borrowable copies within the Auckland Libraries system as well. These are the kind of books that are nice to pick up and dip into at any time.

First up, the 1950s gets a look-in with “Life in 1950s London.”  An interesting decade between the second world war and the counterculture of the sixties.

It’s worth flicking through for the fabulous photos, and if you did happen to have been around at the time, reminiscing about life. How, for example, nearly everybody smoked, the growing popularity of sports like boxing and football, the rise in coffee drinking, and international events like the Billy Graham crusades. It would be interesting for those who remember the decade to compare how it panned out with life here in New Zealand.  This is one of a series on decades, and we also have the 1940s title.


Sticking with the UK, we have another fascinating read, “Beneath the Big Top.”


It’s a “social history of the circus in Britain” and is laden with all sorts of titbits, misdemeanour and fun, from the beginning of the circus up to the more recent spectacle of Cirque du Soleil. A fascinating chapter on the 19th century looks at the likes of Barnum and Bailey and on the trend of mysticism and spiritualism that was big at the time. The author claims writers Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Elizabeth Barrett Browning were followers of the spiritualism fad - a combination of magic and spirituality. And even royalty loved the circus. Queen Victoria was apparently so fascinated with Isaac Van Amburgh, the big cat trainer known as the “Lion King,” that she had a portrait painted of him with his cats. Naturally clowns, murder and debauchery, and the effect of television on the circus get a look in. A book to have a browse through when you feel like some light but entertaining reading.

Joanne Graves

Recommended read

Backwater by Joan Bauer (1999)

I have to say I am completely loving reading these YA (young adult) novels as part of our Summer Reads series. These are seriously smart books, great for kids and for adults and like the previous Greyhound of a Girl and Holes, Backwater is a true delight of a story. It’s funny, smart, emotional, with a great protagonist in Ivy Breedlove. In fact, I loved it so much, I ended up reading it all over again.

Told in first person, sixteen-year-old Ivy Breedlove is the youngest in a family of lawyers and of course is expected to study the law, even though she doesn’t want to. History is her love – and her Breedlove family history is what her brilliant legal father calls an obsession she is “totally enslaved” by.

She tells him:

“I could be on drugs, Dad. I could be smoking three packs of cigarettes a day. I could be-“
“Getting ready to study the law.” I could almost mouth the words. “When I was sixteen, Ivy, I had read every piece of literature there was to read concerning America’s great law institutions where fine men and women learned to love the law, learned to defend it to the death, learned to not take no for an answer.”
“Learned to bill by the hour,” I added, and Dad said that as God was his witness, a law education was the cornerstone of a successful, fulfilled life.
“You know, Dad, there are important people in this family other than lawyers.”
He coughed.
“What about Mercy Breedlove who lived in the time of the Woman’s Suffrage Movement and believed so strongly that women should have the right to vote that at seventeen she embroidered the front and back of a dress with Susan B. Anthony’s words of freedom: Men, their rights, and nothing more. Women their rights and nothing less. And she wore that dress day in and day out with everyone pointing at her, screaming at her to stop. That was long before anti-perspirant, too.”
“Embroidery,” Dad sputtered, “is not a proper Breedlove career.”

Ivy is writing a family history she hopes to have completed for her Great Aunt Tib’s birthday, yet the more she researches, the more she becomes fascinated by her family, from her late mother whom is barely talked about, to her mysterious Aunt Jo who has disappeared off the face of the planet. The story is about Ivy’s search for her missing relative, who like herself, eschewed the law to follow her own “unacceptable” passion. Yet it is also about learning more of her late mother.

Here Ivy asks her aunt if she remembers her own mother’s funeral:

“Do you remember your mother’s funeral?”
“Some parts.”
“I don’t remember anything,” I said. “I had this dream right after she died that I was on a mountain and birds were flying over me and I was standing in the tall grass that was wafting in the breeze.”
“You remember that?”
“I dreamt it.”
“No, you didn’t.”

And of course like any good teen novel, we have romance, and naturally all good boyfriends are called Jack. Says Ivy of her Jack, a hopeless mountain ranger (it’s set in New York’s Adirondack mountains), “Jack Louden might not be major ranger material, but in the boyfriend department, he redefined the genus.” Goes without saying, this book has a most wonderful ending.

Go here if you are interested in borrowing Auckland Libraries' copy.

Joanne

Recommended read

Holes by Louis Sachar (1998)

In this second post on young peoples’ fiction with a family history theme, I read the award winning novel, Holes  by Louis Sachar.

I’m not sure how it is I never really knew about this book before, when it’s been around for a while and has something of a cult following. This is seriously good fiction, with baddies, delinquent kids, a mystery, a curse, and a backstory to keep you guessing – the family history part of it. Whatever your age, child or adult, boy or girl, you should read this story. There’s a good chance you won’t be able to put it down.

Stanley Yelnats is our protagonist -  the loser kid we’ve probably all felt like at some time or another but poor Stan really does have bad luck, attributable to a family curse. He’s sent to a juvie camp out in the desert:

“A sign in front said, “You are entering Camp Green Lake Juvenile Correctional Facility.” Next to it was another sign which declared that it was a violation of the Texas Penal Code to bring guns, explosives, weapons, drugs or alcohol on to the premises. As Stanley read the sign, he couldn’t help but think, Well, duh!

Each day the boys must dig a massive hole - something to do with building character although if they find anything, they are given a day off. Hmmm. I won’t give anything away but a reviewer said that Holes is the kind of book that improves with each reading, showing you just how complicated it really is although as a read, this is simply a darned fine story that ties up at the end.  And there are nice bits, such as this at the end of a chapter after Stanley has taken the rap for stealing a bag of sunflower seeds:

He went over to his hole and to his surprise it was nearly finished. He stared at it, amazed. It didn't make sense. Or perhaps it did. He smiled. Since he had taken the blame for the sunflower seeds, he realized, the other boys had dug his hole for him.
“Hey, thanks,” he said.“Don’t look at me,” said X-Ray.Confused, Stanley looked around – from Magnet, to Armpit, to Zigzag, to Squid. None of them took credit for it.Then he turned to Zero who had been quietly digging in his hole since Stanley’s return. Zero’s hole was smaller than all the others.

Click here to grab a library copy though you might need to place a hold.

There are also formats from eBook to audio CD, and if the weather falls apart over the holidays, there’s the 2004 movie on DVD with young Shia LaBouef as Stanley.

Here’s the trailer. But go and read the book first!!

Joanne

Recommended read

A Greyhound of a Girl by Roddy Doyle (2011)

I’m on a bit of a mission at the moment reading kids’ books, courtesy of one of our leaflets here at Auckland Libraries recommending children’s fiction with a family history theme. What better way to share the reading love, after all, than to read the story for yourself. Even better, it’s a kid’s book so you can finish in an hour or so.

First up on my mish is this wonderful Roddy Doyle story, A Greyhound of a Girl. It’s a lovely story, pretty much about death.  Four generations of Irish women – 12-year-old Mary, her mother Scarlett, her dying grandmother Emer, and the ghost of her great-grandmother Tansey come together as Tansey (who died in her 20s) wants to see her dying daughter, Emer (now elderly.) It’s funny, emotional, witty, plenty of flashbacks chronicling the girls, and absolutely suitable for all ages so don’t just get it for your kids to read. Read and enjoy it for yourself -  especially if you love things Irish and great dialogue such as this:

“Well,” said Tansey. “I’m a ghost. It sounds a bit daft, but I’m the ghost of your great-granny.” She looked at Mary. “Are you surprised?” she asked.
“Not  really,” said Mary. “If you are my great granny then you have to be a ghost or something, like. Because she – you’ve been dead for ages.”

“Clever girl,” said Tansey.

“Prove it,” said Mary.

“Prove that you’re a clever girl?”

“No,” said Mary. “Prove you’re a ghost.”

And later on, the young ghost Tansey meets her ailing eighty-something daughter, Emer. Emer speaks first:

“I think I know you,” she said

“Good girl.”

“You’re my mother.”

“Yes,” said Tansey.

“Have you come to collect me?”

“Not yet,” said Tansey. “There’s no hurry.”

“But you’re dead.”

“I am.”

And even better…. If you’re travelling over the holidays, we also have an audiobook you can click here to borrow. Not a bad way to pass the time on the “Are we there, yet” trek!er the summer holidays and have fun reading, completing challenges, 

For summer reading fun, get the kids or grand-kids involved with Dare to Explore - Out of this world, Auckland Libraries summer reading adventure. Visit the Dare to Explore homepage for more information or join up at your local library.

Joanne Graves
Central Auckland Research Centre

I have recently been revising my talk on how to locate passenger lists for those of our ancestors who have just appeared in records here in New Zealand.

During the course of this preparation I have been using a variety of material available here in the library (Auckland Central) and one in particular I feel is worth mentioning as for a small work it is so full of useful information.

The booklet covers the period 1840-1970 and covers a lot of ground in its 64 pages.

On the back of the booklet Christine explains its purpose:

I am often asked how to find when an ancestor came to New Zealand. This set me off on an exploratory path a number of years ago putting together the different schemes, periods and times to find out just who the people were coming at the different time periods and why.
This booklet is designed to make readers think beyond the square to see what else was happening in the world that may have led people to New Zealand.

So, what sort of things are included?  The usual suspects of NZ Company, gold rushes, Waikato and Taranaki military settlers (Land Wars), assisted immigrants etc.  However, it is the sections on the settlement of particular places in New Zealand and schemes that brought immigrants to this country that are invaluable.  For instance, those who arrived due to the cotton famine in the UK, Small Farmers with Capital, Brogden’s Navvies, Moravian Settlement, Sedgwick Boys just to name a few.

I was particularly interested to read about Brogden’s Navvies. I now think this may be how relatives of my 2x Great Grandfather arrived and this has given me food for thought about further possible records to explore.

The booklet is indexed with a bibliography of material additional to those mentioned in the text.

Anybody who is interested in immigration records into New Zealand should find something of interest in this short work.  Perhaps worth considering as a Christmas present for the family historian in your family?

Migration to New Zealand: a guide for family history researchers by Christine Clement (published by Unlock the past, 2014, Australia)

Marie 

Auckland Libraries collection.

Bridget

Quackery Prevention
Pills & Potions at the Cotter Medical History Trust
By Claire Le Couteur
Otago University Press, 2014

This recent addition to the Central Auckland Research Centre's collection shares some of the bizarre and miraculous-sounding medicines sold in New Zealand before the 1942 Medical Advertisements Act restricted excessive advertising and false testimonials.

Medicine time in the Kindergarten, 1938  Sir George Grey Special Collections, AWNS-19381116-53-3.

Rather than gain a patent, manufacturers of the time trademarked their products in order to conceal their ingredients and method of production from competitors. When the 1904 government tried to curb their extravagant claims they were defeated by both the manufacturers and newspaper owners – who would have lost advertising revenue as a result.

Advertisement for Dr Ensor's Tamer Juice New Zealand Herald, 6 July 1911

Auckland Star, 1 April 1938

Wanganui Chronicle, 16 January 1907

Although the 1908 Quackery Prevention Act tried to restrict advertising, it too failed. It wasn’t until the 1942 Act that excessive claims had to be proved before being advertised, and fictitious endorsements ceased. Consequently, many remedies were taken off the market.

Fortunately, The Cotter Trust in Christchurch has a collection of these remedies whose history has been beautifully documented in this book.

Leanne

A few weeks back here at Kintalk, we posted a blog on the Bomb Girls of England, those women and girls who worked in the munitions factories in the English countryside during World War One.

In New Zealand, as in the UK, the manpower shortage meant there was also a significant shortage of workers to another most important part of the economy – the farms -  and that problem was solved by the introduction of  The Women's Land Service.

An estimated 4000 young women, most often townies, were sent to work on farms with a view to doing the ‘man’s work.’ For many, it was their first time on a farm and there was no getting around the fact they had to become jacks-of-all-trades, and do real, gritty farm work.  They docked lambs tails, learned to shear, harvested, sowed, baled fertiliser planted, drove tractors  – any farm work that needed to be done, they did it.  Despite this massive culture shift, the head of the Women’s Land Service described the young women as “a very fine type, not afraid of work and willing to learn.”

By accounts, many of the girls were good workers. Maybe too good as the article “Is It Jealousy?” in the Auckland Star (2 November 1943) suggested when the North Otago Farmers’ Union moved to employ the girls as domestic workers instead of farm workers. The article suggested the farmers wanted the girls to be taken down a peg, and condemned the move.

Click here to read more.

The Land Service was not a scheme without problems, however. Locals could resent the girls, conditions could be gruelling, wives were often suspicious, and the girls themselves could be subject to sexual harassment.

Sadly, inspite of their labour keeping the country going during the war years, their contribution was largely unacknowledged; they didn't qualify as service people so were unable to be members of the RSA. In fact the only group to openly acknowledge their contribution was Federated Farmers. The Land Girls held reunions for many years after the war, and in recent times were finally given some recognition - Certificates of Appreciation from the New Zealand Government.

For more about the Land Girls, check out Dianne Bardsley’s book “The Land Girls: In a man’s world, 1939-1946.”  There are borrowable copies available in Auckland Libraries.

Joanne

In the lead up to ANZAC Day, an intriguing selection of books related to both world wars have come on to our shelves here in the Central Auckland Research Centre.

In particular,  I've been drawn to books written about women and their roles in the war, and one such role in particular. An estimated one and a half million women took part, it was highly secretive and every day  they faced the threat of injury or even death – the job of making the ammunition.
“Bomb Girls,” subtitled, “Britain’s Secret Army: The Munitions Army of World War II” relates the real life stories of these girls and women, called up to the munitions factories during the labour shortage. The work was dirty and boring, the hours long. Because the factories were away from towns in the countryside, the girls were often forced to go miles away from home to live in hostels or lodge with strangers. But most of all, the work was dangerous. One woman recounts working on the production line with the bomb detonators, “picking up the detonator – half the size of an aspirin tablet –   with a pair of tweezers one tiny mistake, the slip of a hand, could be fatal. And if the munitions were to leave the factory incorrectly assembled, the consequences for the front line troops could be fatal, too.” Another relates working in what she called “nitrates” – soaking cotton in pans of nitric acid. “They kept a big barrel of water in the shed. This was because of the acid in case someone got badly burned. If that happened they had to throw themselves in to it to save their skin. But usually the acid just splashed you in the face and you’d have to run like bill-o to get the stuff on to your face to calm it down.”

And of course there was living with the day-to-day threat of being bombed by the Luftwaffe.  The Swynnerton, Staffordshire factory, for example, was targeted several times by the Nazis, albeit unsuccessfully.

Photograph from Bomb Girls, (c) Getty Images

Besides the fascinating stories, there are photos of the women at work. There’s Queen Elizabeth and King George at an ammunitions factory which must have given a much welcome morale boost to the workers, and there are photos of the girls and women themselves working with bombs and bullets.  Of added interest, the final chapter lists the munitions factories with detail, how long they operated, and what they produced.

Bomb Girls is by Jacky Hyams and there are borrowable copies at Auckland Libraries.

Book Review: 
Granny was a Brothel Keeper 50 Family History Traps by Kate Broad and Toni Neobard

Available at Auckland Libraries

This title has been added to our collection of family history aid books.  It is very cleanly presented and easy to read sprinkled frequently with humorous cartoons and  quips as well as anecdotes from the authors.  It could be of use to the beginner as well as the more experienced family historian as the authors mention many of the traps it is so easy to fall into.

It is also quick to point out that our relatives and ancestors may not have been as upright as we would like to think they were or have been portrayed as such to us by their children/grandchildren.

The short stories used to illustrate different traps are all true; some are bizarre – like the exploding wheelchair - but all have a touch of humour like the gentleman guilty of bigamy, he married five women in nine months, two within a matter of weeks of each other.  One wonders how long he was able to get away with it.

From page 97.

A companion volume is forecast for publication next year and is sure to be as interesting as this volume.

Books such as this are located in the 1 GEN AID section of the Research Centre.

Marie

With the ever rapidly approach of 2014 and the start of the WWI commemoration events it is perhaps timely that a book recently received in Auckland should be about New Zealand’s hospital ships.  It is titled The White Ships: New Zealand’s First World War Hospital Ships by Gavin McLean.  There is a reference copy in the Central Auckland Research Centre but there are borrowable copies throughout Auckland Libraries.

This book is very well presented with many photos of ships, crew and some records.  There is a list of their movements 1915-19 as well as what happened to them after the war.

Image from color plate, page c.4.

While I have not read this yet myself, I think that anyone with a connection with these ships will find it invaluable as a matter of interest or to add to their research.

Marie Hickey

This book on the “What’s new?” shelf  at the Central Auckland Research Centre caught my eye the other day  –  “Family Secrets: Living with shame from the Victorians to the Present Day” by Deborah Cohen.

The issues covered – divorce, illegitimacy, homosexuality, adoption, interracial children - barely raise an eyebrow today but they have been huge causes of distress in the past.

It’s a fascinating book to dip in to as it traces real people and gives an understanding as to why they did what they did – why adoptee parents feared their children finding out they were adopted,  the stories behind the “bachelor uncle”, the stigma of being a “bastard” child. A fascinating chapter is devoted to the children who disappeared – mentally disabled institutionalised boys and girls and how attitudes differed Victorian to early 20th century times.

The author concludes the book by discussing how getting all these “shameful” secrets out in the open has become something of a badge of honour, with the growing popularity of celebrity-featured entertainment shows like “Who Do You Think You Are?”  This is a book that may well provide breakthroughs for the family historian in the brick walls of their sleuthing - well worth a dip in to. "Family Secrets” is in the Research Centre under 4 GBR FAM but there are borrowable copies in the Auckland Libraries collection.

Joanne

Susan Soyinka has written a remarkable book on her search for the survivors of her mother’s family who fled Nazi Germany. A Silence that Speaks: A Family story through and beyond the Holocaust describes her 18-year search for those members of her mother’s extended family who were now scattered around the world.


Ref: Refugees flee as war between Germany and Czechoslovakia appears to be inevitable, 1938, Sir George Grey Special Collections

For someone who is searching for their ancestors, dispersed through war and tragedy, particularly with Czech Jewish ancestry,  Susan’s book is a goldmine with its sources of information and step by step descriptions of her search.

When she gives you her sources, Susan will say how this information was useful to her and with whom she spoke. For example: Czech District and Regional Archives. Research was carried out for me in the Uherske Hradiste and Vsetin District Archives, and in the Moravian Regional Archives in Brno by Martin Kocarik and his wife Sarka Kocarikova. Martin and Sarka work for a private company whose details are available at the Czech Family Tree.

One of Susan’s appendices is a Note on Czech Jewish genealogy, where she explains the network of archives the Czech Republic holds and the different Jewish records held. She has helpfully included a table showing the names of towns and cities in the Czech Republic, with their spelling now, and then, and the German form used during the Habsburg Empire.

Following her own search, the chapter in her book The Nazi machine in Austria contains different sub chapters with one headed Forms and standard letters used during Aryanisation, which explains, as an example, what a Request for approval of sale was. She also lists the Offices, departments and organisations involved in or dealing with Jewish matters, such as,  ‘the Office for the calculation of surcharges, who were charged with the task of working out the fee for the “dejewification” process’.

This book is a family history and a biography,  giving an insight into the workings of the Nazi regime in Austria which may help other historians struggling to piece together their own Jewish story.

For more helpful information on finding your Jewish ancestors, search the Auckland Libraries catalogue by the call number 1 GEN REL JEW for more resources held in the family history collection.

Regards

Bridget

Surnames, DNA, and family history by George Redmonds, Turi King, and David Hey

This title is a cross-disciplinary exploration of the links between surnames, DNA and family history, and also includes linguistics (for the history of surnames).

The majority of the book is dedicated to the history of surnames: their origins, distribution, linguistic changes, etc. There follows a comparatively smaller section exploring the ways DNA can contribute to surname and family history. A fascinating discussion on the derivation and meaning of some surnames is included, in some cases, taking issue with some traditional interpretations. (Well, fascinating for the person interested in etymology.)

When reading such a book, I always wonder whether there will be anything directly related to my family history. And, there on page 80, is my biological maternal grandfather’s surname! Alas, it is not one of the names studied in more depth, but it’s there nonetheless. It also quite thrilling to see references to names of people you know. Most of the names looked at in the book are considered uncommon, so it was surprising to have links to people you know, and not just famous people. Scanning down the surnames and by-names index, just in the first column, I personally know an Agnew, an Alfrey, an Allen, an Anderson, an Arnold, a Bathgate…

Some of the factors that influence the link between surname and DNA resonated with my family history. There are adoptions within (and without) my family. My step-grandfather was illegitimate and, to his dying day in his 90th year, always wanted to know who his father was. (This impacted on my uncles, too, as there was some fluidity between my grandfather’s legal name, and the one we all used, and he signed most legal documents under.) My maternal great-great-grandmother was nearly nine months pregnant on her wedding day, so it is possible that she did not marry the biological father. (My paternal side, which is of most relevance to my surname, obviously, is much less involved. So, I wouldn’t expect too many surprises if there was DNA testing of my brother and his male descendants.)

This is quite an academic read, meant for serious genealogists - for me, who is a dabbler, it was eye-opening. However, it did make me very grateful for the eclectic mix of subjects I studied at university, the most relevant to this book are: genetics, Middle English, linguistics, history, Latin. Thankful, also, for my interest in etymology. So, you have been given fair warning – this is not a light read for the weekend. It is, however, fascinating and absorbing.

Annie, Central City Library