About this blog

                                          
By blogging, I hope to store all my assorted family stories in one place where my family can read and enjoy. I also have extended and very scattered family around the world and have trouble keeping up correspondence with them all; this is for them as well.
I would also like to pay tribute to the incredible women who have shared their memories and helped with my family history journey. As a child, my Nana Hamilton led me through her family photos from Ireland on wet afternoons. I admired her strength of character and work ethic; she taught me to cook and ran a vineyard for many years after her husband died; she grew up in an inner city tenement with no farming knowledge. My Aunty Marj, her daughter who, knew everyone and how they were related. She enjoyed a joke and lived life to the full. Her cousin Kaye Hamilton was a genealogist and became my friend and research buddy. 
When sorting through her mother's belongings, my mother found her birth certificate in a different name than the one she had used all her life. She rubbed her hands with glee and said there must be a good story here! And there was one; sadly, she died before all was revealed. Mum's aunt Sylvia gave me photos and notes from the Spooner side. Mum has one sister, Lylia, who loves to talk about the family and her memories; I enjoy my visits with her; she is the last living aunt from both sides, and after her, I am the eldest living relative.

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Nanna's story

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