The Lutge Family in Australia

Well, the time is fast approaching when I'll be standing in the very square in Aabenraa where my 2nd great-grandfather, Peter Benson Lutge, was born and lived from his birth on 15 March 1837 until he left his parents and seven younger siblings in 1862 to settle in Australia.  Peter married Mary Bonner in 1864 and they had 10 children.  All us "Lutge cousins" are descendants of Peter Benson and Mary. You can read about Peter Benson Lutge here. We have quite a heritage in Aabenraa!  Here are our ancestors that I've been able to trace.  All the births shown in the chart were in Aabenraa - apart from one!  Peter Benson's father, Johann Friedrich Lutge, was born in Copenhagen.  So, Peter Benzen (or Bentzon), my 6th great-grandfather, was born in Aabenraa in 1718 - 300 years ago!  I'll be visiting Copenhagen but family history research will have to wait for another visit. Peter, his parents and siblings are shown as living at Vaegterpladsen, Aaben...

You've probably heard how DNA was used to apprehend the alleged Golden State Killer. Knowing that I use genetic genealogy in my family history research, friends and family have spoken to me about how this unfolded. Upfront, I should say that the Police didn't use one of the commercial testing companies like AncestryDNA. They used  GEDmatch.com  which allows people to upload their DNA data from the commercial testing companies to a common platform. Roberta Estes, a US based gene tic genealogist, has published a very detailed article today that some may be interested in reading. Roberta makes the point that there's been little coverage of the same process being followed to identify a murder victim just 13 days earlier. The victim, known as the Buckskin Girl, was found in 1981 and identified as 21 year old Marcia Lenore King earlier in the month. At the end of the article, Roberta details why she's keeping her DNA online. Mine's staying online as well. Plea...

Anzac Day goes beyond the anniversary of the landing on Gallipoli in 1915. It is the day on which we remember all Australians who served and died in war and on operational service past and present. The spirit of Anzac, with its qualities of courage, mateship, and sacrifice, continues to have meaning and relevance for our sense of national identity. Clifford John Stanley Lutge enlisted on 12 July 1915 in the 30 Battalion, C Company of the Australian Imperial Force.  We know him as Cliff but he's recorded as John in his military records and his age at enlistment is shown as 22 years and 8 months but he was 2 years younger.  His occupation at the time of enlistment is recorded as grocer. His unit embarked from Sydney on board HMAT A72 Beltana on 9 November 1915.  Cliff arrived in Suez on 11 December 1915.  Within a month he was admitted to hospital suffering from varicose veins.  Cliff saw little active service.  He retuned to Australia on 3 March ...

Today's a good time to write about my immediate Lutge family as my Mum, Beryl, was born 90 years ago - 27 March 1928.   Beryl was the second child of Kelvin Walter (Kel) Lutge and Ethel Lillian Webb-Wagg.  Kel and Ethel married in 1921 at St Peter's Church of England, Neutral Bay. Kel served in the First World War and, after his return, was employed by the Department of Mines as a Warder and Lighterman at the Middle Harbour Powder Magazines.  By the early 1960s, Kel was the officer-in-charge of the Powder Magazines.  He left due to ill health and died in 1964, aged 64.   Kel's on the right of the photo. Beryl's brother John Walter (Jack) was born on 19 August 1922.  Here's Beryl with Ethel and Jack and Ethel's mother, Josephine, in the background at their home, 82 Gerard Street Cremorne.  Their home was build on land sub-divided from the parcel of land owned by Kel's parents, John Henry and Matilda Lutge, and was completed just in time for...

Ann is the many times great grandmother to descendants of John Henry Lutge and his wife, Matilda Winton.  Ann was Matilda's mother - Ann is my 2nd great-grandmother.   We talked about Matilda's birth family back on 31 December 2017 - the 80th anniversary of Matilda's death.  Press here to link to that post. To recap, Matilda was the youngest child of Henry Winton and Ann Richards.  Henry was from Germany and Ann was from England - possibly Devon or Cornwall.  We can't find any record of Ann'e immigration but she arrived in the young colony in the mid 1850s.  Ann's parents may have been John Richards, a farmer, and Mary.  Ann was born in the 1830s.  As you can see, this is all very sketchy.  I'm thinking that genetic genealogy might give us the breakthrough, in time, to find out more about Ann and her birth family. Henry and Ann married on 16 April 1859 at the Scots Presbyterian Church in York Street, Sydney.  Here's an artic...

The mystery of the missing birth registrations for the children of Peter and Mary Lutge remains!  More time is scheduled at the Mitchell Library to continue searching for microfilm of baptism records for St Mary's Cathedral.  At least I've narrowed the search to Catholic Church records..... Again, I'm basing the birth date of Hannah Maria, the fifth child of Peter Benson and Mary, on the information on her parents' death registrations.  Hannah Maria was born in about 1872 - two years after her brother Peter Benson.  Hannah would have been born in The Rock, Sydney as her parents were living there at this time.  She would have moved with her family to Mosman in the 1880s. In 1891, Hannah married Charles Henry Ford in Sydney.  Charles was born about 1873 in Middlesbrough, England and arrived in Australia in the late 1800s.   Hannah and Charles were living on the lower North Shore of Sydney until the 1920s.  They are shown as living ...

31 December 2017 marks 80 years since the death of Matilda Lutge, my great grandmother, and the great grandmother and 2nd great grandmother of many Lutge cousins in the group. My desire to have a few old photos circulated was one of the main drivers for getting involved in family history just over 2 years ago. This photo of Matilda was one of them.   This was the grandmother that my Mum, Beryl, often told me that she never knew.  Likewise, Mum would talk about not knowing her Lutge cousins or their parents, her aunts and uncles.  We talked about the death of Matilda's husband, John Henry Lutge, by drowning particularly when we looked at the site off Balmoral Beach.  Mum didn't remember her grandfather because she was less than a year old when he died. Yet, I knew Matilda and John Henry's house because it was next door to the house that Mum and her brother, Jack, had grown up in at 82 Gerard Street Cremorne.  Finally, I'd always understood that Matilda's ...