Gunning Historical Society Blog Making Family Connections

Post afternoon tea with Edith and John Medway at Crookwell

Shared Ancestors, Living Relatives

By Garry Norman Smith (Images by Garry and Malia Smith)

The research sources you use for your family history are many and varied. While little can match primary sources such as historical documents, eyewitness accounts, diaries and family photographs, it is the fortunate face-to-face meetings with people who share a family story that are arguably most valuable.

Contributing to the Gunning and District Historical Society (GDHS) Blog has brought several personal contacts. These contacts extend and enrich the research I have done on my Alchin family in Gunning, Dalton, Jerrawa, Crookwell and other places.

Morning or afternoon tea is such an enjoyable way to talk about family connections, such as I was delighted to do with newly-found cousins John Medway and Edith Medway (nee Clark) at Crookwell in late 2017. I uncovered, thanks to Edith – the real family historian in her family - several family links. This brought a new interest in the Bayley family, the Wheatleys, Waters and, of course, the Medways.

Edith Medway is a family-history gem; she has written two valuable books – Byalla, Bialla, Biala and Darby Murray’s Flats. She takes a keen interest in local historical features and their preservation. Her cemetery and graveyard tours are worth the effort. Edith has more to teach me and I am sure I can support her own family-history efforts; let’s hope so.

Coffee, Tea, Beth Aglio and Garry Smith at Castle Hill Library

The GDHS Blog has also helped both Beth Aglio and me. Beth has personally expressed the opinion that family history is more tangible through sharing it with historical groups. When we met and subsequently, both Beth and I have realised how our ancestors lived, how they worked and who they married. 

Being a guest blogger has meant an expanding universe of family names. Beth and I were able to resolve the mysteries of early deaths, marriages and common places of residence in the district around Gunning. Beth’s connections include the Pollard, Brown, Thorn, Holgate, Southwell, Wheatley and Alchin families.

Beth, Edith, John and I are, as Beth puts it, living connections. Thanks to the GDHS Blog.