Cruisin' with Nev

Dear cousins et al,

Sue Meekins and Colin very kindly hosted yet another get-together of the Thomas clan, family and friends on Sunday the 24th of February 2013 at Pier St.

Would you believe it is now 4 years since the previous Thomas reunion? That was held at Pier St 19th of April 2009. It is now 14 years since our first proper reunion at Kipling Ave in 1999.

As you might expect, a great time was had by all. This year we had 25 starters whereas we had 31 in 2009.

Sadly, since the last reunion, Uncle Ross Ragless and Kevin Meekins have passed on. This year some of our older family members and their children were unable to attend with other commitments at short notice. On the other hand, it was wonderful to see all Kevin and Susan Meekins descendants attend and the great interest shown especially by the younger members of our family was much appreciated.

As with previous reunions, the weather was near perfect, although somewhat warm and humid, but everyone was soon chatting and catching up at a great rate of knots. It was my very great pleasure to be able to present a new and reasonably up to date family tree chart, and to be able to deliver a short talk on the family history and provide some information about our family tree in ancestry.com. Unfortunately the warmer weather precluded a short visit we had planned to the family grave site at North Brighton.

Happy faces from 2009 can still be viewed on nevsbloggs.blogspot.com.au (Cruisin’ with Nev)

~~

AS ALWAYS, THANKS SUE AND COLIN FOR YOUR WONDERFUL HOSPITALITY!

~

Here are a few interesting facts:

Ancestors

I have managed to get detail all the way back to 1455 with certainty and at the same time I can put a bit of human interest on the story; you know lifestyle, where they lived, what work they did and so on. It is possible to go back even further but it is a bit speculative. For example, it seems the Thomas family appears to have come from Wales, but I may have to resort to DNA tracking to confirm that. As mentioned before, I don't want to publish anything that can't be verified from trusted records without putting a lot of caveats and cautions on it first.

Descendants

Sadly, all of the older, pre-baby boomer generation have now passed on. I really hope all of us treasure good memories and pass on news of the inspirations and good times. There’s nothing to be gained by dwelling on negatives.

On present review, the number of descendants of Grandfather Henry George Thomas ('Pop' Thomas or 'Poppa') and Grandmother Harriet Rose ('Nanna' Thomas nee Butler) was :

7 Children
14 G. Children (11 direct descendants, plus 3 step children)
15 G.G. Children (9 direct descendants, plus 6 step children)
12 G.G.G. Children (10 direct descendants, plus 2 step children)

We total 48 direct descendants, plus 11 step descendants. As the tree at present does not include the Loizi step children and their families, and there is a need to confirm the descendants of Ross Thomas, the above figures are indicative only.

The span is now 5 generations from when Grandfather Thomas was born in Australia (1888 or 125 years ago).

The latest 3 generations all have living members with the exception of one infant death and the recent loss of Kevin Meekins.

The baby boomers are now retiring and are in generally good health and comfortable circumstances. (Long may we continue to kick goals!)

Cousins

A cousin is a person with whom you share a common ancestor. First cousins have a common grand-parent, second cousins have a common great grand-parent and so forth. A child of a cousin is 1 x removed; a grand-child of a cousin is 2 x removed, etc.

Grandfather Henry George Thomas was one of 11 children. He was born in Australia to Frederick Thomas who migrated in 1857/58 as a wee lad.

Grandfather Frederick Thomas was also one of 11 children. He was born in Cornwall to Richard Thomas who actually migrated to Australia a little earlier (1854).

Most of Frederick's siblings stayed in Australia and raised families. I say 'mostly' because I know there was some early mortality and some went back to England.

It therefore follows we have many 2nd and 3rd cousins and beyond with our grand-parents having descended from large families. I haven’t fully mapped the previous generations and all the descendants but the cousins arising from our great great grand-parents Richard and Jane Thomas would number in the thousands. If we use the same multiplier effect, the number of cousins is in the order of 4,500 ! I think we could apply a conservative 10% error factor, but it is in the ball park.

In the last four years we have made contact with some of our distant cousins and they are looking forward to meeting you.

This probably explains why it has been relatively easy (please excuse the awful pun) for me to locate like-minded cousins researching common family roots.

ancestry.com

The genealogy data-base was given a dusting leading up to the reunion. It now resides in ancestry.com and is identified as the Thomas/Butler and March/Baldock family tree.

We have now been running family reunions for 14 years. In that time the kids have really shot up. David Condon-Thomas has gone from a babe in arms to an almost 6ft tall teenager!

The family tree has now been in development for about 35 years. It was first documented in a paper record but soon progressed to computers using a genealogy programme on my TRS80 computer. We moved to ancestry.com in 2012.

Of course there have been plenty of family get-togethers since 1999, so one way or another most of us have been staying in touch.

The proliferation of modern technology such as internet, mobile phones and social networking has really helped us stay together and in touch much more than ever before.

It was recently refreshed with the very latest information on who's who in the zoo but some exceptions were noted. I am still trying to get to a finished product but I will need your help.

For the future

The long term plan to make the information available to all has been realized with publication and free access provided via ancestry.com. As always, I still need to come back to some folk for more information.

With the family tree published on Internet, privacy of information is very important. This was flagged four years ago. We have been able to go to air in such a public space by virtue of strict controls used by ancestry.com and made available to the keeper of the family tree. As such the proposal to make the family tree available on CD has been set to one side until we can better gauge the need to provide easy access to an accurate and up to date data source.

With my genealogical research which has been running for such a long time, and with more Thomas family researchers coming on line, I have managed to gather quite a bit of detail which I am sure will be enthusiastically received by all who have Thomas roots.

Around October this year we are expecting cousin Delia to be in Adelaide and we are tentatively planning another reunion. We will circulate a firm date once we have confirmation on Delia’s movements and we are hoping for a big turn-out.

By October I hope to have a hard cover book on the Thomas / Butler family history available for family members to purchase. I hope you will support this project. While I don’t have a final price yet, I intend that all profits will go to renewing the lease on ‘Nana and Poppa’ Thomas’s grave at North Brighton (currently estimated to be $1525 for 25 years and currently expired). We are at grave risk (excuse the awful pun) of having the site reused so I hope you will support this project by ordering a hard copy of the family history once I get the details out.

Any final comments?

Regarding the blog or the reunion? That's up to you. Please leave something I can add to the family record.

Photo collection

Here are a few snaps from the day. Some of these have been used as profile pictures with descriptions in the ancestry.com family tree. Some folks are a bit precious about their image and these have not been included. (To future generations I can only apologise.) Anyhow, go check 'em out on ancestry.com. Sorry if you couldn't be there on the day to be included in this permanent record of family gathering. I sincerely hope we will be able to have the pleasure of your company next time around.

Charlotte

Riley

Isabelle

Jesse

Jake

Sue

Nyrell

Nathan

Click to download family reunion group photos - medium resolution 1280 x 690. About 310kb each.

High resolution originals available on request.

Dear cousins et al,

Sue Meekins and Colin very kindly hosted yet another get-together of the Thomas clan, family and friends on Sunday the 19th of April (2009) at Pier St. As you might expect, a great time was had by all. The weather was perfect, and by mid-afternoon everyone was in fine form chatting and catching up at a great rate of knots.

Here are some of the happy faces.... Click to see low resolution extracts. The original pics are further down....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

THANKS SUE AND COLIN FOR YOUR WONDERFUL HOSPITALITY!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Did you know that it has been almost 10 years since the last family reunion? That one was also hosted by Sue. By the way, it WAS held at Kipling Ave. I mention the location because there was some robust debate about when and where the reunion (as such) took place. And how can I be so sure? Well, you can all relax; Dianne and I found the photos and Vonnie has also confirmed the location. We are confident about the date because our grandson David was there as a wee babe in arms. As he was just a few months old, it must have been early 1999 - almost exactly 10 years ago.

Yes, there was a later reunion of sorts at Pier Street. We think the confusion arose because although most of us could also recall another gathering of the Thomas mob at Pier St, the occasion was Uncle Adrian Thomas' birthday celebration. Again, I'm sure I have photos, but I am yet to locate them. I can't be sure of the date until I see them but I think it might have been Adrian's 90th birthday (2004).

Sadly, a few of the older, family members were missing this year. My Mum (Auntie Eileen), Anuntie Joan, Uncles Silvester and Lloyd; all have now passed on to their own big family reunion. A few others also were not able to make it due to ill-health, having other engagements that couldn't be put off, tyranny of distance, etc. Never mind, I'm sure we will all catch up again soon. Just a few we seem to have lost touch with.

On the up-side, it was also nice to see some nice new faces and meet some new folks for the first time. New partners for the cousins, and their latest additions to the lineage - lovely to meet you.

Here is a bit of statistical trivia: At last count, the number of descendants of Grandfather Henry George Thomas ('Pop' Thomas or 'Poppa') and Grandmother Harriet Rose ('Nanna' Thomas nee Butler) was :

7 Children

14 G. Children (11 direct descendants, plus 3 step)

15 G.G. Children (9 direct descendants, plus 6 step)

12 G.G.G. Children (10 direct descendants, plus 2 step)

The span is now 5 generations from when Grandfather Thomas was born in Australia (1888 or 121 years ago). There is a total of at least 37 direct descendants, that I am aware of.

How many cousins? Well, that is a question that can be asked and answered in many ways depending on how you define what is a 'cousin'. I though I might therefore express the answer in its most interesting form - that is all direct descendents are 'blood' cousins if they share a common ancestor. How they are related to each other (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. is not relevant).

Grandfather Henry George Thomas was one of 11 children. He was born in Australia to Frederick Thomas who migrated in 1857/58 as a wee lad.

A rough calculation tells me that if the issue of children for Henry George was typical (and I think it is actually a bit below the average) then it means we probably have 11 x 37 = 407 cousins who share Frederick Thomas as a common ancestor.

Grandfather Frederick Thomas was also one of 11 children. He was born in Cornwall to Richard Thomas who actually migrated to Australia a little earlier (1854). Most of Frederick's siblings stayed in Australia and raised families. I say 'mostly' because I know there was some early mortality and some went back to England. If we use the same multiplier effect, the number of cousins is in the order of 4,500 ! I think we could apply a conservative 10% error factor, but it is in the ball park.

This probably explains why it has been relatively easy (please excuse the awful pun) for me to locate like minded cousins researching common family roots.

The genealogy data-base was given a dusting leading up to the reunion. It was refreshed on the day with the very latest information on who's who in the zoo. The long term plan is to make the information available to all. On reflection however, I still need to come back to some folk for more information.

I would love to publish the family tree on Internet but privacy of information prevents that going to the air in such a public space. Sorry about that. As an alternative, I propose to make it available on CD as an easily useable computer application pitched at our younger family members. This together with a bit of a history should be useful and interesting. Maybe it will be available later this year for Windows users. I'll set up the family tree data so you can add your own detail for other ancestoral branches, and delete those branches not relevant to your own lineage.

By the way, my genealogical research has been running for almost 20 years now. It goes in fits and starts. Over the years, I have managed to gather quite a bit of detail which I am sure will be enthusiastically received by all who have Thomas roots. I have managed to get detail all the way back to the 16th century with certainty and at the same time I can put a bit of human interest on the story; you know life style, where they lived, what work they did and so on. It is possible to go back even further for example to when the family appears to have come from Wales, but the detail is a bit speculative. As a family historian, I don't want to publish anything that can't be verified from trusted records without putting a lot of caveats and cautions on it first.

Just to finish off, here is a bit more trivia: A new gem of information was discovered for the family records - (not so much new info as something long-forgotten). Uncle Adrian Thomas was fondly known by the nickname 'Chark'. Yes - that's right; sort of a cross between 'Shark' and 'Chalk', or 'Shark' and 'Chaff'. (Thanks for that Jeffrey Raglass).

So the question for the family slueths is how did Uncle Adrian come by such an unusual 'nick?

I can remember him being called that by Ross, Pop and my own Dad but it was a term I would never have used - that would have been much too familiar, indeed cheeky in those days coming from a young nephew. Anyways, perhaps you can help. Maybe Brian, Raymond or David Potter could offer some insight? Over to you lot.

Here are some of the nice photos the head and shoulder pics were extracted from ....

PLEASE CLICK ON EACH PHOTO FOR A 640 X 480 PIXEL VERSION

PLEASE EMAIL ME IF YOU WANT A HI-RESOLUTION IMAGE