Family Tree

I got a call a while back from my cousin Janie (well my cousin's daughter actually). She's been putting together the Claber family tree and wondered if I'd like a look. Mary Claber was my Grandmother, Dad's Mum. The tree is interesting and Janie's gone back a long way.

It got me started on my family tree which branches into Bentley and Andrew and then goes back to Bradbury. Susan and I had worked on a lot of this when I was over there one winter (pre 1996) and I will always remember AC helping us and the phone calls to Harold Bradbury. The horror of discovering that an ancestor, Norris Bradbury, owned the land that became Tandle Hills and gave it to the people for a penny. "Tandle Hills is our land," AC told us. Lordy what it would be worth these days!!!!

That family tree ended up scribbled on the back of a flattened out Cornflakes box and I looked after it for many years until I gave it to Joanne when we went last year. Very different to the current tree which is on ancestry.com.

It's interesting to find out about people you didn't know. For example my great grandfather, Thomas Claber, was a self actor minder which meant he watched the self acting mule, a multi-threaded spinning machine. He was killed at Gallipoli in June 1915. On Mum's side, on of Grandad's brothers was Harry Andrew. There is not much information about him but searching the records, there is a Harry Andrew who was killed at Flanders Field who seems to match. I wonder if it is him. Part of me thinks no, because surely Mum would have told me. I wish she was here to ask.