So what’s he actually done?

The journey started nearly twenty years ago (see post 23 May 2013). I have been researching and writing, on and off, since 1994:

• Go through the trunk belonging to my grandfather, Edwin William “Slip” Carr, sort and conserve
• Transcribe letters to Slip from family and friends when he was away at the First World War in the Middle East (1917-1919)
• Sort, transcribe and catalogue scrapbooks, letters, postcards and photographs from Slip’s sporting career (1916 to 1924). Slip represented Australia in Rugby Union and at the 1924 Paris Olympics. He equalled US sprinter Charlie Paddock’s 1920 OR for 100m in 1923 and set a WR for the 60m sprint twice that year.
• Research the vital records of the Carr line, up through my father, Eddie, my grandfather, Slip, and my great grandfather, TP Carr and their families
• Gather stories from my father, aunts and uncles and other family members about this line of people; receive precious gifts of photos, objects and documents from family
• Some research into my grandmother’s people – the Tysons. Her maiden name was May Queenie Tyson. A lot of work has been done by other genealogists on the Tyson family in Australia. Isabella Tyson, the matriarch, was a convict. One of her sons, James, became a fabulously wealthy pastoralist, known as “the Cattle King” - a wonderful “rags to riches” story. Click here for more about James Tyson in the Australian Dictionary of Biography.
• Convert my father’s and grandfather’s 16mm home movies (some filmed in the 1930s) into digital format
• Discover my great, great grandfather, William Henry Carr, who was born in Ireland and who emigrated to Australia in the 1850s. The family of William’s wife, Maria Lillyman, has extensively researched the Lillyman family
• Discover that William Henry Carr had up to 15 brothers and sisters (wow), about eight of whom also migrated to Australia and New Zealand in the 19thC; research their descendants
• This year (2013), I came into contact with some of the descendants of the siblings of William Henry Carr, expanding my knowledge of the extended Australian family
• Another person contacted is GJ, a fourth cousin in Wales, UK who has generously shared her research and information about the Carrs back in Ireland. She also unlocked many of the secrets of a mysterious letter I found in Slip’s trunk. Written in the early 1920s by a distant Irish relative, it potentially expands significantly the Irish family tree.

[Photo: Slip Carr, Copenhagen, 1923]