Books on family history
Glenn began to think about his family history when his mother turned 90. He suddenly felt the need to know about his parents’ early lives (his father had died when he was only sixteen), and who their siblings were. And he knew nothing about his grandparents.
It began as a modest quest. He was not envisaging an extended exploration back to when the ancestors came here from England and Scotland (presumably). However, it was not long before he discovered a truth about exploring family history – you don’t understand a person fully until you know something about their parents. And thus the quest is, by default, ongoing. He comforted himself with the thought that at some point the sources of information would peter out.
Over a period of several years he broke through numerous barriers and began to accumulate the names and life details of people in many branches of the family, and stepped back more and more generations. His family tree grew, and he migrated from an Excel file to an online program, My Heritage. His methods became more refined, and he was rigorous about avoiding false trails.
In parallel, Glenn began to realise that he had to find ways of opening this knowledge up to his own family and others, or it would remain locked in files in his computer forever. He had to write the stories of individuals and families and show how all these lives were woven together. He began to realise that there was a spirit of family, and this is expressed in the image of the family tree.
Glenn has written five books about his family’s history:
They Went to Australia (2019)
The Search for Edward Lewis (2018)
A Modest Quest (2017).
The idea that knowing your family’s history might make a difference to your life emerged gradually. It was fuelled by a quote from Susan Griffin (A Chorus of Stones, 1992): “The history of our family is part of us, and when we hear any secret revealed, our lives are made suddenly clearer to us.”
Glenn began to conceptualise the family across time as forming an arc. Each of the books forms part of “the arc of the family”.
How does Glenn describe this arc? Our lives have a trajectory, from start to finish. We are not the masters of that trajectory, but we have some say in it, and what we do, and our reasons for it, are all of interest. Our actions and circumstances elicit feelings in others.
Likewise, families have a trajectory, and the same truths apply to them. We wonder at the choices that family members made, the vagaries of circumstance, and the qualities that they showed themselves to have in the living of their lives. Moreover, these people are not strangers; they are people bound to us by blood and marriage.
We inherit, not merely the shape of our nose and the colour of our eyes, but vast stores of memory, the bulk of it beneath the level of our awareness – defeats, losses, achievements and intentions. But what we inherit more than this is potential, which is ever-new, inventive and inexhaustible. Just as the arc of the family is planted in the past, so too it extends into the future.
Availability of books: The links near each book take you to my Spotlight page on the Lulu.com website, from where my books may be purchased. They are print-on-demand, and wherever you are globally, they are printed and posted in or near your country. Enjoy.
Read sample from this book: Click here
ALL THE RIVERS COME TOGETHER:
Tracing Family
This is a collection of over forty stories drawn from the family history of Glenn Martin. Our family history can be illuminating, even inspiring. At its worst it is still cautionary, and suggests to us how we might steer our own lives better, and that of our own families and communities. The stories here span five generations, going back to the early 1800s. There are no famous or wealthy people here, but all of these people did remarkable things in their lives. What shines through is something like the universal spirit of humanity.
Published March 2022. Paperback, 291 pages.
Paperback: ISBN 978 0 6488433 4 4
ebook: ISBN 978 0 6488433 5 1
NO GOLD IN MELBOURNE:
A Scottish Family in Australia
A prominent stream of my ancestors is Scottish, particularly the Mackie family. Scottish people began emigrating as far back as the early 1600s. Many of them went to America, but in 1852 Alexander and Rachel Mackie emigrated to Melbourne, taking with them their five children. Alexander was a skilled tradesman, both a weaver and a stonemason, and Melbourne was about to stir as the hub of the Victorian colony’s gold rush.
It would have been a cheerful story of increasing prosperity that flowed down through the generations, except for the fact that Alexander’s son, Robert, was killed in a goldmine in Collingwood. How does that affect a family? Glenn charts the silent but powerful effect of this event on the family over generations.
Published 2021. Paperback, 134 pages.
ISBN 978 0 6488433 2 0 (pbk) 978 0 6488433 3 7 (ebook)
Read a sample from the book: Click here
A Modest Quest
Growing up, Glenn knew very little about the past of his family. There were only some stories that his mother told, and they were mostly about her side of the family. Later in life he became curious, and embarked on a quest, modest at first, to find out about his parents’ siblings and his grandparents. It took him about three years to find the answers to these questions, and by then the lives of the ancestors had drawn him in. It was now an ongoing quest, and no longer a modest one.
Published 2017. Paperback, 157 pages. ISBN 978 0 980 40459 3
e-book ISBN 978 0 6487797 4 2
They Went to Australia
Why would people leave the land where their families had lived for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years? Glenn Martin’s ancestors had all lived in Cornwall, other parts of England, Scotland and Ireland, for all that time. And yet, within the space of 25 years, they all migrated to Australia. For three of them it was involuntary – they were convicts. But for the others, it was a choice to make a new life in what was still an uncertain and turbulent colony.
This book portrays these people, young and old, alone or in couples or as entire families – what they left behind, how they made the voyage, what happened to them after they arrived, and how they created new lives. The book is in colour and is illustrated with many photos, tables and diagrams.
Published 2019. Paperback, 62 pages.
ISBN 978 0 6480811 2 8
Not available as e-book.
The Search for Edward Lewis
This is a true story with an overlay of fiction. Edward Lewis and Sarah Crosby (Glenn’s great great grandparents) were transported to Hobart in the 1840s. They met and married, and Edward became a policeman and detective in New South Wales. He was involved in some politically charged cases, after which he became a legal clerk. Then at some point in the 1870s, he seemed to disappear.
Now, William and Rachel of the Archer & Martin Family History Detective Agency (a fiction) are on his trail. The problem is, Edward keeps turning up in the present, and he is not happy about being investigated. And there is no proof that he ever died.
Published 2018. 440 pages
ISBN 978 0 6480811 4 2
Not yet available as e-book.
Glenn’s poem called “Family History” — The Poem