Horfield Creek

You know that childhood card game of 'Snap' where you match the pairs? Well this little genealogical exercise is a bit like that.

Thomas and Ann Stone migrated from Bristol, England to Hobart, Van Diemens Land in 1819. They lived in Hobart for a while (to keep a long story short) and moved to Constitution Hill, near Green Ponds and Bagdad in Tasmania's Midlands. They named their property 'Horfield'.

It's taken me a while to sort out the location and I still don't have a good understanding but it doesn't help that some of these names are obsolete. Green Ponds is now Kempton, Constitution Hill (the area not the hill) is now Dysart, Van Diemens Land is now Tasmania.

Bagdad area, Australia. Source: Google Maps

Constitution Hill, Dysart, Tasmania

And Horfield? Several years ago I was on holiday in Tasmania and drove through the Bagdad area just to get a feel for what the area looked like. We weren't actually doing any research because of time restrictions. But I had to stop to take the following photo because the main Midland Highway just north of Bagdad crosses Horfield Creek.

Horfield Creek, Bagdad

I knew immediately that the creek must have been named after the Stone's property. And if we go back a step, the property was named 'Horfield' after the birthplace of Thomas Stone. He was born in Horfield, Bristol, England in 1796. Prior to our visit I had no idea that there was a Horfield Creek!

Trove Tuesday: In which I use Lists

Thank goodness for lists. The older I get the more I rely on my lists of things to do, things to buy. And as a field naturalist I'm always compiling lists of birds or plants or fungi or insects I've seen for my small contribution to citizen science.

But one of the best use for lists is the section of Trove at the National Library of Australia. I can explore other peoples lists of interesting newspaper items they've found pertaining to particular families, towns or subjects. It can save you a lot of time and effort because someone else has already done the search.

For instance, I'm interested in the family of Joseph and Ann Stone of Hobart and Bagdad in Tasmania because they're direct ancestors of my husband. They were among the first teachers in Hobart. 'Kizzie56' has created a list of 23 items that pertain to the family so I'll be able to check out each of those myself. Thanks Kizzie. This is one of the items on her list.

Hobart Town Gazette and Van Diemen’s Land Advertiser (Tas. : 1821-1825), Saturday 21 September 1822

And I can also make my own lists. I've created a few for families I'm researching and add items to them each time I log on. Mostly I save the items as a file to my hard drive as well but it's very useful having the list on the Trove website because I can check what I've done in the past so easily. I can also email the link to other family members.

If you do a general search on the Trove website the results appear in all of the categories on the tabs (books, newspapers, music, archived websites, pictures and photos, diaries, people and organisations ... and lists) and the list category usually appears at the very bottom of the page and can be easily overlooked. I'm suggesting that you try searching the lists only and see what happens. Or better still, create your own lists.

Thomas STONE, son of Thomas STONE and Lucy CAINS was born on 28 Jan 1796 in Horfield, Bristol, GLS, England. He died on 27 Nov 1862 in Green Ponds, Tasmania, Australia. He married Ann WITHERS, daughter of John WITHERS and Susannah COOK on 13 Jul 1817 in St John, Bedminster, Somerset, England. She was born on 30 Aug 1798 in Bristol, England. She died on 24 Apr 1856 in Bagdad, Tasmania, Australia.