BJNL's GENEALOGY

When my mother-in-law died, my husband inherited a box of items that belonged to his mother, Shirley, and before her, to his grandmother, Winifred (Winnie), and his great grandmother, Emma. You can read about Shirley, Winnie, Emma and the treasure box in my post Our Treasure Box . Amongst other items in the box are postcards written to ‘Winnie’ from ‘your brother Jack’ . These postcards are particularly intriguing because, as far as I have been able to ascertain to date, Winifred didn't have a brother called Jack. Nor did she have a brother called John; Jack being a name commonly used for those called John. So, who was Jack? Only one of Jack’s postcards was posted as a postcard. The rest would have been sent to Winnie by envelope. All of them were sent home to New Zealand during the First World War. One of them has a photograph of Jack in uniform. From this we can infer that Jack was away from New Zealand on active service with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF). This in

 When my mother-in-law died, my husband inherited a box of family treasures. The box contains a collection of photos, postcards and other family-related items. Photo ©Jane Chapman 2022 Most of the items in the box belonged to my husband’s mother, Shirley, his grandmother, Winnie (Winifred), and his great grandmother, Emma. Emma Mumford (Born Veale, previously Darcy), Shirley Coop (later Chapman) and Winifred 'Winnie' Coop (born Darcy - Lambton Quay, Wellington, New Zealand about 1935 Emma Emma was born Mary Emma Veale on 26 September 1873 at Kyeburn in Central Otago, New Zealand[1]. During her childhood, her father was a miner at the Kyeburn Diggings. Later, the family moved to the West Coast.  Emma married her first husband, William Darcy, on 4 May 1893 at Reefton on the West Coast[2]. Emma and William had been married for a little over 5 years when, on 5 July 1898, William died from a cerebral inflammation following measles[3]. Emma found herself widowed with two children, Wi

Do you ever find yourself taking a particular liking to one of the relatives in your tree? I do. One relative I have a bit of a soft spot for is Richard Lang. I wrote about Richard in an earlier post Loyalist - Rebel - Justice of the Peace: Richard Lang (1744-1816) . DNA evidence suggests that Richard's parents, Robert Lang and Millicent Myrick, are my 5th Great Grandparents. I am confident that William Lang and Martha ‘Patsy’ Adams are my 3rd Great Grandparents. The question is whether the connection from William to Robert is via Richard or one of Richard's siblings. I wrote about this in my post Relationship to Richard Lang - What Does the DNA say? In my working research tree, Richard has been placed as my speculative 4th Great Grandfather. He has been there for some time now while I have scrabbled around, off and on, looking for evidence to justify the placement. Certainly, a lot of other people’s family trees have him there. However, that doesn’t make it right and, in re