Lorna's family forest - The Rowe Dawe Letters

A large number of letters from the late 1850s through to the early 1900s from Exeter and Plymouth, to New Zealand, as well as several within NZ and from Australia, have survived.

Marion kindly allowed me to photograph them.

Over time I will gradually add all the letters to the original source documents sub site, but bear with me, it will take some time to sort out all the photographs I took, and figure out who is writing to whom, when, why etc.

And be warned that some aren't very legible, either in the original, or because my non-professional photography wasn't the best.

BMD data on all rellies

Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.

— Abraham Lincoln
My formula for living is quite simple. I get up in the morning and I go to bed at night. In between, I occupy myself as best I can.

— Cary Grant
Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.

— E. B. White
I'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart.

— e. e. cummings
What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know.

— Saint Augustine
Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

— Mark Twain
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.

— Henry David Thoreau
If two things look the same, look for differences. If they look different, look for similarities.

— John Cardinal
In theory, there is no difference. In practice, there is.

— Anonymous
Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.

— John Adams
People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like.

— Abraham Lincoln
History - what never happened described by someone who wasn't there

— ?Santayana?
What's a "trice"? It's like a jiffy but with three wheels

— Last of the Summer Wine
Inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened

— Terry Pratchett
I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.

— Terry Pratchett
.. we were trained to meet any new situation by reorganising; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illuson of progress

— Petronius (210 BC)
The time we have at our disposal every day is elastic; the passions that we feel expand it, those that we inspire contract it; and habit fills up what remains

— Proust
So just as it is not the desire to become famous but the habit of being laborious that enables us to produce a finished work, so it is not the activity of the present moment but wise reflexions from the past that help us to safeguard the future

— Proust "Within the Budding Grove"
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.

— William J. H. Boetcker
Only a genealogist thinks taking a step backwards is progress

— Lorna
No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means.

— George Bernard Shaw
A TV remote is female: It easily gives a man pleasure, he'd be lost without it, and while he doesn't always know which buttons to push, he just keeps trying.

— Anon
Hammers are male: Because in the last 5000 years they've hardly changed at all, and are occasionally handy to have around.

— Anon
The right thing to do is to do nothing, the place to do it is in a place of concealment and the time to do it is as often as possible.

— Tony Cook "The Biology of Terrestrial Molluscs"
All that mankind has done, thought, gained or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books.

— Thomas Carlyle "The Hero as Man of Letters"

Click on the picture if you wish to thank me for any of my research/DNA work that has helped you.