Old Circumforaneous Blog

Here are all my previous blogs, mostly covering our caravanning around New Zealand and Australia and some post-caravanning adventures. The first 3 have been transferred to a new Blog heading. So have some family history stories. If I can work out how to delete these I will do so!

  • 52 Ancestors …… Week 50.

    Topic: “You Wouldn’t Believe it” Just once this year I’m writing about my husband’s family instead of my own. One of their surnames is Arkle, which always fascinated me. Christopher Arkle 1816-1896 and most of his family arrived in NZ from Northumberland in 1861 but nothing was known about his antecedents. One Christmas after dithering… Read more

  • 52 Ancestors …. Week 49.

    Topic: Family Recipe I have in my possession a wonderful old cookery book, hand-written with hundreds of recipes and household hints and also knitting patterns. It has marbled end papers and would at one time have been a handsome book but is now falling to pieces. It belonged to my maternal grandmother. Edith Lillian “Lily”… Read more

  • 52 Ancestors …. Week 48.

    Theme: Troublemaker. One definition of Troublemaker is ‘Someone who thrives on conflict’. That would be my Great grandfather Frederick Wentworth Wade, a barrister and solicitor. He was born in Dublin, Ireland on 23 September 1838 to schoolteacher Robert Wentworth Wade and his wife Annie Gibbons, who were married clandestinely (without parental approval) in Dublin by… Read more

  • 52 Ancestors – Week 47.

    Topic: “This Ancestor Stayed Home”. Coming from eight separate lines of emigrants who arrived in Australia between 1806 and 1879 from Ireland, Scotland and England (plus one mysterious ancestor with possible Prussian/French blood) I cannot think of an example who “stayed at home”. All the women seemed to have been adventurers to a greater or… Read more

  • 52 Ancestors …. Week 46.

    Topic: ‘This ancestor went to market…” Henry Prendergast was my Great Great Grandfather. Born in Tuam, Galway in 1813, he emigrated to Adelaide, Australia with his wife and nine children in 1854. It is not known what he did in Tuam before emigrating but once in Australia he soon became the first shopkeeper in the… Read more

  • 52 Ancestors – Week 45. Topic – Spirits. War and Peace.

    (Unfortunately I was unable to complete Week 44 -Topic: Spirits). My Great Great Uncle John Lyle 1789 – 1822 was born in Paisley, Scotland and died of yellow fever in Jamaica. At that time he was Colour Sergeant in the 91st Regiment of Foot. The son of a weaver and farmer, he was initially a… Read more