New Dartmoor Archive Treasures !

Copyright of The Dartmoor Trust

I was recently browsing through the pictures taken by Robert Burnard, when I suddenly found myself looking at Mary in a group-picture taken in September of 1893. Among several members of Robert Burnard's family, we can see their mother and two of Mary's Children: Hilde (in the cart on the left) and Robert (standing on the right). Until February of this year, I would never have realized it was her, but now it is instantly clear - see for yourself!

So, some 113 years ago this image was taken ... 1893 was the year New Zealand became the first country in the world where women had a vote. At this time they had no such things as cars, telephones, electric lights, radio, X-rays ... It was thought impossible that man would ever fly in a machine heavier than air & the railroads were the big new thing. Bicycles were positively dangerous contraptions and called "boneshakers". If you do not believe me, check out what else happened that year on wikipedia or visit the site with some of the worst predictions in history and see how many of them were made about things we now take for granted around that time.

Having stumbled on a picture of Mary & decided to look at every single picture Robert had taken - over 550 of them in the Dartmoor Archive. I found a further - very similar- picture to the one above and one of a chap practicing cricket in 1895. It turns out to be my grandfather at the age of 19. Last time I was in Mardid I asked my 93 year old aunt Gerda to tell me who that was on the picture and then accused her of not even recognizing her own dad. Apart from having a good laugh about this she was absolutely delighted to see these images and she is now in complete awe regarding the powers of the Internet.

Copyright of The Dartmoor Trust

I would like to add a special thanks to the Dartmoor Archive here for giving me permission to show these photographs here. Thanks Natalie, it really makes our family history come alive.

Among the last interesting discoveries is a "Surname Profiler" site showing the distribution of family names in the UK in 1881 and in 1998. If you enter Burnard, Bice or Evans you can see that these names were most frequently found concentrated in Devon, Cornwall and Wales respectively. You can also see that the name Burnard appears frequently in Taranaki, New Zealand and in Arkansas, USA. The second is the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website, where you can trace any Burnard family war casualties - I found 29 entries for Burnard, but have so far not been able to reconstruct whether members of the Plymouth branch of the Burnard family were among them. You see, new things to report do keep tuning up.