Lucky Number 13

A very large chunk of the information I find on my ancestors is often obtained from the online collection of Australian newspapers on Trove.  Though the majority of articles are usually birth, death or marriage notices, occasionally I come across a rare gem of an article such as the one below.

Before immediately proclaiming the Mrs Arthur Harwood in the article to be my Great Grandmother, I first decided to analyse all the facts:

1. Mary Elizabeth Theakston married Arthur Harold Harwood and so would be known as Mrs Arthur Harwood.
2. The Harwood family lived on Hay Street.
3. Mary and Arthur had a son named Dennis.
4. Mary and Arthur had a Grandson named Dennis Harwood who was born in 1951 and would’ve been about two at the time.

The final clincher and the bit that truly convinced me was the very last line in the article where Mrs Harwood states that her daughter was married on the 13^th.  On a hunch, I headed straight to my Nan’s profile on Ancestry.com.au and looked up the date she and my Pop were married.  There it was, the final piece that assured me that this article was indeed about my family; they were married on the 13^th October 1950.

It’s an article that I will forever cherish as a favourite.  Not only is there a rare photograph of the house that my Great Grandparents lived in and that today no longer stands, it also provides a glimpse into the mind of my Great Grandmother, Mary and shows that perhaps she was a little superstitious.

Sources:

• 1953 ‘STORM BLOWS NEW BRICK WALL ON TO HOUSE.’, The West Australian (Perth, WA : 1879-1954), 14 July, p. 2, viewed 30 December, 2010, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article49220299