It’s Sunday afternoon, we drive westerly for roughly 15 kilometres and arrive at Walkerston. We were aware of roadworks taking place at the front of the cemetery so caution was needed when we made a sharp left turn into the cemetery.
Like the Mackay Cemetery, the Walkerston Cemetery is divided into religious areas and sections. Determining the way the rows ran were soon sorted.
There were no restrictions with flying a drone so we got some good footage that will be used in a project. More about that at another time.
I was able to locate the grave of my Dad’s parents fairly quickly. This was the first time I had actually been to their grave. Other family members were located throughout the cemetery. All in all, it was a successful afternoon. Only one grave from my list was not found. I was using the details from Find-A-Grave. Maybe it was incorrect. Photographs were taken of all graves or plots located. These will be used later in a project.
Jigsaw Puzzle.
Like most investigations with family history, one comes across the unknown. More questions pop-up even though I had extracted information from Find-A-Grave. Who is this person and how are they related, if at all they are related? As we all know, similar names occur everywhere in our research.
It’s working out where a piece fits, just like doing a jigsaw puzzle. It may be that they do not belong in the family tree. Never add someone just because they have the same surname! Think about it, if that surname was “Smith” or even “Jones” – oh, what a mess!
Sunburn.
The day was very hot and you guessed it: I got sunburnt. Now for the funny bit that I mentioned in part 2. I was wearing a cap with mesh on it – I had a lovely “meshed” pattern on the back of my head.
As I burn easily, you can imagine what it was like. I never gave it a thought to use sunscreen on my head as it was (well, partially) covered! For some reason, my neck was also badly burnt. It was the right side only which had mostly been facing west into the direct sun. Yes, the sunscreen used was the highest possible rating available in Australia but I still got burnt! However, it was a very successful afternoon.
The Levee Wall.
It was decided to stay an extra night in Mackay so I could head off to the library on Monday. The first part of the day was spent walking along the Pioneer River and filming the Levee Wall, A pictorial history of the Mackay Region.
This will be another project that will most likely end up on social media which includes my commentary on the day. When this occurs, I’ll advise everyone here on where to find it.
Mackay Library.
Monday afternoon was spent in the Historical Centre within the Mackay Library. The library had moved since I had last visited, many years ago. I found that the centre had the “missing” Mackay Daily Mercury newspapers after 1954 that are currently not available on Trove.
Using microfilm, I remember a couple of events to look for i.e. my birth notice and a funeral notice of my dad’s mother’s grandmother. I didn’t find a birth notice. I did locate the funeral notice of my great-great-grandmother.
Like all family history research, more questions need to be answered to fill gaps in my ancestors’ stories and even mine.
Rewarding.
The trip was extremely eventful and rewarding. We had travelled over 2,600 kilometres in total, but it was worth it. Of course, I now need to plan another trip to spend a lot more time at the Mackay Library going through their collections. NOTE: The newspaper has not been digitised, so scrolling through page by page is needed. I will be making a list of dates so I have starting points. Regarding my primary school, I need to contact them so I can view the registers to locate other family members who also attended the school. This project has commenced. It’s all in the love of family history.
Explore & Discover.
Acknowledgements:
All photographs were taken by me, with exceptions Jigsaw (Pexel) and Microfilm (AI generated).
Ancestor Family 