Russells, Russells Everywhere.

This blog of mine continues to amaze in terms of the links it fosters.

Ages ago I posted these photos of two graves in the Indian city of Jabalpur. They are the graves of two of my great-great-grandparents. I was sent these piccies by a gentleman called Byram who also had ancestors from Jabalpur. He found me through this blog.

An amazing contact formed through the blogosphere.

Well it has happened again!

This little blog has brought me contact with two people from the UK (to be precise England) researching their genealogy. Only this time the people in questions are actually distant relations of mine.

Great- great-grandfather William Alexander Russell who lies in the Jabalpur grave was one of eight siblings.

As a quick aside his sister Ellen also happens to be my great-great-grandmother. Before you go “eeewwww” or “give me six” (as a friend facetiously did) they did not marry each other. WA's son (my great-grandfather) married Ellen's daughter (my great-grandmother).

Actually, at some point I am going to have to write about how the two cousins came to be hitched. It is quite a romantic tale. But as I say another time!

Now where was I?

Distant Russell relations.

I received an email from a Susannah Russell who lives in England.

She introduced herself by saying she enjoyed my blog and went on to say “I have just started to research my own family tree and I am sure that we must be related. Like you I am descended from the Russells of Jabalpur and the names Postance and Anley also feature in my tree.”

It turns out WA and Ellen had six other siblings.

One of these Edwin Arthur Russell is Susannah’s great-grandfather.

While another brother of WA and Ellen was Augustus Morrell Russell who is the great-great grandfather of yet another distant cousin Bill Russell.

The internet and the blogosphere are making this world very small and giving me very long lost relatives!

Two last points on family links:
Bill (or William) Russell is a family name that has continued down my line too. My pop's brother was another Bill Russell, my dad is Rupert Anley William Russell, and one of my nephews is also a William Russell.

Susannah's father was a scriptwriter (and actor) for the BBC and her grandmother (also a Russell) was a novelist!

It seems there are some latent writer’s genes in this Russell’s family!

Now that is enough because you are probably all as confused as I was to start!

Now a piccie from Mum's place.

A juvenile Crimson Rosella (Platycercus elegans)

Heat and Cricket at Arthur's Creek

It has been quite hot here today 39 ° C (about 102 ° F) in the City and 41° (106°F) out here to the north.. So once I finished work I just came home and stayed indoors. 40 -41° are not uncommon summer temperatures here. We got as hot as 47° (117°F) last February, which was a record for Melbourne. The Bureau of Meteorology is saying we may top 50° (122°F) this coming February, If they are right I am not looking forward to it. It will cause a lot of people a lot of problems.

Melbourne City Council will be running emergency heatwave programs this year. I attended a briefing last Thursday because homeless people are one of the at risk groups in heatwaves.

Now to change the topic entirely (don’t I jump around a lot) I am going to return briefly to Arthur’s Creek. Phil at Walk Talk Tours asked a rather odd question after reading my post on the Cemetery there and I quote “Are you related to the former England wicketkeeper, Robert Charles 'Jack' Russell?”

My answer to Phil was “I'm probably not related to Jack Russell. I do have ancestors from Gloucestershire but they are on my mum's side. The Russell side of my family left England for India over 150 years ago. Before then they hailed from Jersey, London and Yorkshire.”

But there is a coincidence here, I had been thinking about posting on cricket (a wicketkeeper is a player on a cricket field) and the reason is after driving down from the cemetery I paused briefly to take some photos of the Saturday cricket at Arthur’s Creek.Here the batsman stands ready for the ball as the bowler completes his run up.

In this close up the wicketkeeper is the man with the gloves crouched well behind the batsman. His job is to not only stop missed balls but also to attempt to get the batsman “out” if he makes any of a number of errors.

In this case the batsman hit the ball. It wasn’t a great strike and he probably shouldn’t have “run” because one of the fielders had the ball while he was running and it looked like he would be “run out”(unlike baseball a batsman is not obliged to run if he hits the ball).Fortunately the fielders aim was not what it should be and he missed the "stumps"

I should probably stop there. Attempting to explain anymore will take far too long and get me in hot water with cricket fanatics (like Deb my other half). If anyone is interested in how the game works you can find a description at Wikipedia.

But before I go, one last word. I remember attempting to explain cricket to an American guest at a dinner party. Not only did he struggle with the rules but he could not get that the “pure” form of the game lasts for five days and then is more likely to end in a draw than anything else!