No peer pressure or anything seeing as how some people went straight home and uploaded to fb because they are actually enormous nerds :) .....

... but photos from Gab & Michael's wedding:

Preceremony
Wedding Ceremony
Post ceremony
Reception

Nic & Lee's (mostly photos of foods): http://gallery.arsimagica.net/gallery/733

Halloween & assorted birthdayness: http://gallery.arsimagica.net/gallery/734

Two weekends ago, I drove up to Sydney and back, primarily to attend a 70th wedding anniversary. I didn't fly because a) I hate flying; b) its a pain to drive or get driven to Tullamarine and back, combined with having to fluff about in Sydney to get to the places I wanted to go to without a car; c) I could accomplish some other goals on the way, like stopping in tiny country towns where various ancestors used to live; and d) I hadn't done it before.

So I drove up the Hume on Saturday, stayed with some lovely friends for two nights in Sydney, did the touristy walking the bridge thing, went to the anniversary celebration, and then drove back and back down by the Pacific, Snowy Mountains and Bonang highways, stayed in Orbost on Monday night with my grandmother, then drove the rest of the way home on the Tuesday.

For my own amusement and possibly to explain how I crashed and died, I randomly recorded myself blithering from time to time. Not as much as I sort of expected to, because I really enjoyed having hours and hours with no one else there and found no need to fill the car with talking. I thought I'd post it, mostly so I have a record of trip.

( transcript follows fairly accurately, including random rudeness as I dealt with sydney traffic )

( Wherein I rambled endlessly again )

And, of course, photos of everything

I've been digging at my Jennings' ancestors for some time, and come back to them a bit recently, having had contact with cousins of varying levels of closeness. Recently stephanie_klaus found an article or two on someone with the same name as my great great grandfather's sister, and we've both been poking at things to see if it was the right person. She snapped last night and bought a copy of a wedding certificate that confirms that it is the right person, which means that the following is about my great great great aunt Mary Robina Jennings:

( Gorey attempted murder newspaper articles )

There's a few more articles, expanding on some bits or others, and a letter from Mary Robina's original employer, denying any immorality on his behalf, that was published in the Argus.

She had a bad run - her mother died at 2yo, her dad at 4yo, abandoned by her first husband, her daughter died, her second husband tried to murder her, and finally died of TB at age 33.

(articles from Australian Historical Newspapers project at the National Library of Australia)

This gentleman is my great great grandfather, Francis Naylor Jennings. He was born in Melbourne to John Jennings and Catherine Naylor in 1854, and died in 1914. John was born in Demerara, South America in 1820 (see prev post about his mixed ancestry) and Catherine was born in Ireland around 1819. They both died early, Catherine in 1857 from "flooding after confinement" (ie: haemorrage after birth) and John in 1861 from "Congestio Cerebral Paralysis" (a stroke, i think). Francis and his 3 other siblings were admitted to the Melbourne Orphanage, as their next closest relative, Eliza, was in Wollongong and not able to take them. Francis left the orphanage in the care of James Richards, of Cole St Elsternwick as an apprentice builder in 1864.

julian3's Belated Birthday

cheshire_bitten's Out From Underneathgrad party

shemjaza, bjj_moves and delphaeus's Mega Party