A dive into the memory box

Glorie and Jess looking so very happy

I am still trying to solve all of the unknown from our family history. Due to having hit the wall for the moment, I decided to rummage through the box that contains all of the memorabilia and see if I could find any clues to use to go forward. I go side tracked looking at my Aunty Bertha's correspondence and photo box. I did come across two letters to my mother from one of the brothers. His name was Wilfred Welch and at the time of the writing he was complaining as he was in hospital. At least this shows that he wasn't killed in the first world war. He was married to somebody named Betsy.

The box contains two bags. One made of plastic squares and leather bits in between. The bag is about 30cm by 40cm. It feels great to hold. All of the items have the most divine aroma. This is due to my grandmother storing her favorite soap in one of her bags. It is a good tip if you are thinking of storing stuff for future generation. Throw in your empty perfume bottles and a new unopenned soap that you use. In this way your smell can be shared.

Here is the first black bag.

The black 1920's bag

Label on the inside

The toggle on the side of the box

This is the second bag in the box. It is extremely old and fragile.

to show the workings of the bag

I added thing from my mother when she moved to heaven. The is her project box. She didn't finish these cloths. I think it is a nice memory.

While I was having a look I came across my husband, mother and maternal ancestors. If they can make it into the memory box, they can certainly make it onto this page.

The Otto family

The next was a piece of writing that Jess had written with all of the Families information. good enough to be shared.

 Well that is today's delve into the memory box.

What did you think?

Crone Photos found

All of the photos of Fritz and Mary were quite gross, I found these they are much better.

Mr FAA Crone

Mary Crone

The back of the photo stated "Mary at 42"

This is then a photo of Aunty Bertha

Just a quick update on photos.

What do you think; leave a comment!

Emma had sister named Rebecca

Emma Rogers.. mythical creature and grand grand... we still do not know how many, had a sister named Rebecca. Before we get into the tale of Rebecca, I just need to add that looking into ancestors is quite a sad experience. These poor people that are our ancestors certainly did not have an easy life.

This little investigation started when I spotted an anomaly on Robert Rogers timeline.  See if you can see it.

If you didn't spot the problem, it is due to you being a nice person. If we look at the year 1816, we have the Marriage to Sarah Newman happening in June and then the birth of Rebecca. Either this is the earliest recording of a extremely prem baby surviving or the ancestors were rocking it in the 19th century.

After having a bit of a snigger, I though it would be pertinent to see when Rebecca's birthday was. It was at this point where the strangeness increased exponentially. I found a birth record for her

But the mothers name was Elizabeth. Her birth date is in January. If we take it that her mother died, during child birth, then her father managed to get her a new mommy by the time she was 6 month old. This may not be her, as I see a Baptism of her when she was 11. Who knows what that was all about.

She gets dragged off to the savage lands of Africa where she watches her baby sister die on the way over from England. She then gets to grow up on with the settlers which could not have been an easy existence.

At 17 she gets married on the 14th  of January to Jacob Trollip to and by the end of the year she has a baby. Way to go on the spreading the genetics. Jacob was also a passenger on the same boat that sailed in 1820. He too was a child. He was 8 years older than her so a whole 23 when they got married.

A year later her father is killed during a savage attack. " in Military Action, 6th Frontier War (1834 -1835) [Hintsa's War]"

Jacob Trollip

Then less than a years later she is dead. Oh what a waste. Though sharing her genetics she probably could not keep her mouth shut, and hence she was the only women killed during a Xhosa attack. It seems she was defending her husband. This too is how we would all behave. I heard something that I think cover it "you can do anything with just 20 second of intense braveness!" 

Here is what the one site said about it "Description: stabbed by natives" . I found another "the Sixth Frontier War of 1835, in which Rebecca ROGERS, wife of Stephen TROLLIP's brother, Jacob, was killed defending her husband." and lastly "Rebecca ROGERS, + Elephant Fountain 14.5.1835. She was killed by marauding Xhosa" and lastly "they spared the lives of the women and children, only one settler woman, Mrs Jacob Trollip, being stabbed to death."


This may be a picture of the man she defended, I hope he enjoyed his life! He looks like a little ray of sunshine! I found this "He was stabbed and killed by Xhosas - died 21.2.1859.".. so it was just delayed!

I found the quote that describes her death. The interesting bit is that it mentions her father , Robert Rogers as well.

Hockly's 'Story of the British Settlers of 1820'
mentions Alexander FORBES in his chapter on the Sixth
K* War of 1835

'The first victims of the native rising were naturally
the traders in K*land, living isolated and
defenceless among thousands of natives. Amongst these
traders murdered in the first few days were the
settlers R. HODGES, Robert ROGERS, George ILES, James
WARREN, Wm. HOGG, __ BUDDING, John STANFORD, R.
RAWLINS, J. EDWARDS, James KENT and Alfred KIRKMAN.
Settler-farmers who perished in the first week of the
invasion while defending their homes and property
within the Colony itself were Thomas MAHONEY, Robert
CRAMER, W.H. HENDERSON. A. FORBES, John SHAW and John
BROWN. To the credit of the natives it must be
mentioned that even in this initial mad rush, as well
as in the later stages of the fighting, they spared
the lives of the women and children, only one
settler-woman, Mrs. Jacob TROLLIP, being stabbed to
death.'


I know the language sounds bad, but, that is how it was written. The place actually was named that!

She did manage to have a child and from this she seems to have a few people in her direct line.

I hope that this can be a bit of a remembrance to her. 

Farm info

Some fun info found this week. I found a text file that has the names of all of the children:
robert
jim
wilfred
hector
Jessie
glorievienna

so exiting and then the following lines:
Smalfontein farm bethlehem
fredrick august crone

I was all excited as I had a new link to follow. So after finding a map of Orange Free State farms, I found Smalfontein. I knew that The Crone's owned Loch Athlone and Smalfontein seemed to be next door. I was so amused as the Welch's were obviously the Crone's neighbors. I decided to try and prove this before looking like a total doofus. Well just as well. The farm actually belonged to the Crone's.

Where the Welch farm is remains a mystery. I am sure it was closer to Harrismith as all of the official documents are from there.

Here are all the Documents that I have found about the farm. The top photo is the homestead.

The rest are all part of my investigation.


And finally here is what I am still looking for. This is the Welch homestead and the other picture is the entrance to the farm. I may need to do it by finding the mountains that I have seen in other photos.

Anyone with any memories or a OUIJA Board please share. I can remember the one visit to the cousins where their father spoke about a group that he had visited, where a man had been taken over by a Vietnam soldier and was speaking of his experiences.  Us children were tucked away in a bedroom, but, it left an indelible sound byte memory. I am sure I could pass a recall test on it and it was at least 40 years ago. so anyone speaking to our ancestors, just slip in the question... Ha ha just playing.

 These are farms around Bethlehem. Here is the link

This is after the old man had died and they had been moved into Mary's name.

Hope you have enjoyed this weeks episode of Where is your family?

Here are the links to the large pictures. Map1   Map2   Map3   Map4   Map5

Once again write a comment! They are fun and easy to do !

A tale about Jessie and Glorie

If I am going to some sort of organisation, I will probably need to use my words to communicate.

So Jessie was part of a large family. There was her and her sister Glorevienna, and a whole lot of brothers. I don't know where she fitted into the sequence of children. Maybe I will eventually know this as well. Here is her birth certificate.

And there we have the parents names of James and Henrietta Susanna. I am surprised as the story goes that she only married when she was 41, not due to her being a difficult person , but, rather being a heart broken one due to not being allowed to marry an Afrikaans boy she had her eye on.

Aunty Glorie was Jessi's youngest sibling. She is the one connection that I had with my grandmother who died many years before I was born.

Aunty Glorie one christmas

I knew Aunty Glorie and she was a little old lady that came to our house at least once a week and had tea and told stories. She had the bluest eyes. She wore a neck brace as she had problems arthritis of the spine? She used to smoke Rothman cigarettes and always kept her lighter tucked into the box. She had a bit of a hang up that she had been brought up to be totally defendant on men. Both she and Jessie were brought up to be princesses. It is so sad that they were not able to pursue a career.

Both of these sisters we widowed at an early age. At least Glorie decided to survive, unfortunately Jessie did not. I think it was too hard for her to try and look after herself. Poor lady.

Well back to Aunty Glorie and the tales she told. All of the tales she told where really out there. She loved telling stories about the farm where there was a lake that was so deep that nobody had ever see the bottom of it. She even had a story of a fish coming to the surface with a luminescent lantern attached to it's head. I have seen those in pictures, but, I really did not think that they were found inland. 

The other stories were of her brothers. These boys used to go out on the farm to do things (cattle horses whatever). They had a cottage that they stayed in when away from the homestead. She said that once a week one of the boys would make a pot of oats, which they would throw into a draw, and then cut slices off this for their meals. In this day and age it seems strange for all of these people to have been so inept.

Part of the tales were that when the boys were out there they encountered large gas fire balls that would chase them to the cottage and then bounce around and over the cottage. She told these tales frequently, always in soft tones, just in case the fireball came to find her. She inferred that these were live entities of either alien or spiritual origins. A lot of her life was being amazed and bemused about the spirits that surrounded her. Possibly from having lost so many siblings. She had two children named Meryl and Arthur. Sadly neither of them had children to pass the tales onto. I was given her name, Glorievienna, as a second name, so in a way I am reminded of her. She was kind to my mother and her brother when their parents died. 

What a hard life these farmers knew. There seems to be very little glamour! These photo are from a 100 years ago so it is not that bad.

Glorievienna Janet Davison 1910. 

Please leave a comment, it would be fun to hear what you think.

Crone Page

Oh what a depressing family that I belong to. So the Crone portion came over from Germany, after having a family who he abandoned. He them married a women, who was either a bigamist herself  or she just happened to be married before. He seems to have had my grandfather when he was 41 and he was dead by the time he was 59. Well I suppose they did have at least a 20 year marriage and produced at least 4 kids. Just so depressing seeing all of these dead people. No longevity in this page. How sad. Well here are their photos and stuff.

This is a photo of my grandfather. This is the machine, I think a thrasher that he went around with and earned money during harvest. He far more enjoyed the evening where he could normally be found in pubs, playing the piano and being generally extremely popular. He died at 50 so he never did have to grow up.

There was also a younger sister name Georgiania. I will look for her picture.

Here is another picture, once again looking like a little ray of sunshine. What depressing genetics came from this side.

Here is part of a family tree that has been compiled. It goes right back to the 13 century, where it starts with a farmer that ran away from one of the Scandinavian countries, probably abandoned a wife and many children there as well. 

Mousley Page

These are the Crone's Here name was Mousley to start off with.

There was also a younger sister name Georgiania. I will look for her picture.

Here is another picture, once again looking like a little ray of sunshine. What depressing genetics came from this side.

She did live in a pretty good house.

Here is part of a family tree that has been compiled. It goes right back to the 13 century, where it start with a farmer that ran away from one of the Scandinavian countries, probably abandoned a wife and many children there as well. 

Here are the documents I found out about his wife. She was a Mousley and this is from the Family bible.

Once again a bugger up. They certainly were crappy information keepers. I like the way that she made herself 2 years younger. Not subtle but all you need to do is scratch out the old year and give a new one.

Here is her first marriage certificate. I wonder what she did with him.

This must have been her brother as they seem to have shared a wedding. Here is a link to the farm that they still run.

Madrid farm

Here is a bit of history, I think the George that signed as a witness here was then killed 3 years later. Though the maths does not add up. The other thing of course is the originality in their name choice. Having looked into this stuff for a bit I get the horrid feeling that there were a batch of clones that were sent out to each corner of the colonies with all the same people just cloned and then when they reproduced, they just kept their stupid names going.

so this is GB Mousley who was 37 in 1900. He was married to Susan. This must have been a brother to Mary and Charles.