www.nickhodge.com

Twenty years ago today, Avril and I were mar­ried. And we still are hap­pily mar­ried. BTW: didn’t Avril look totally beau­ti­ful here?

All Hail the New Show Name: atNickHodge.

Com­ments in the chat stream from Thursday 18th’s #under­stil 7 (Conked Out and Stoked) ended with a sug­ges­tion from @LafinBoy to change the name of the show. Not because Stilgher­rian Live! nor being his under­study is a bad thing: just it is just time to gradu­ate. Up the ante. Grow up, maybe.

After 4.2 minutes of think­ing, the only name that fell into my head is “atNick­Hodge” (@nickhodge). That will do for the moment. At least it is con­sist­ent with my strict per­sonal brand­ing guidelines. And I will prob­ably change my mind and call it some­thing else one day.

Thanks to all my pre­vi­ous guests, and the future super sekrit guests. And a big thanks to @dekrazee1 for her help and sup­port. Oh, and @mrsnickhodge and @yin_0x7f for their guid­ance. Doing a weekly show seems to add struc­ture into my life; and is becom­ing a new hobby.

Onto way more import­ant topics.

Nick at Arro­manches (D-Day Gold Beach) May 2004.

The next show is sched­uled for 8.30pm, Thursday 23^rd April 2009.

URL: http://tinyurl.com/atnickhodge

Topic this week: “The Lost Uncles”. It is Anzac Day this Sat­urday. In Remem­brance, I am going to reveal the his­tor­ies of four indi­vidual sol­diers from World War 1 and 2; each of which I have a per­sonal con­nec­tion. This show is not to glor­ify war; nor cre­ate false her­oes. It is an epis­ode just to remem­ber four men.

Three from WW1, one from WW2; Two I am related to, two have other con­nec­tions; Two sur­vived the war, Two did not. Three were enlis­ted men, one an officer. One was mar­ried and had a child prior to enlist­ment; two had no chil­dren and I am dir­ectly des­cen­ded from one. One I met in per­son; all are in my being and thoughts.

This show is for Lock, Roberts, Mason and Hodge.

Lest We Forget.

Please pop this into your diar­ies. See you on Thursday night.

This is page 2 of a con­tract between Charles and Robert Fall of Dun­bar, Scot­land and the fish­er­men of Crail, Fife, Scot­land.

Charles and Robert Fall held many interests in Dun­bar in the 18^th Cen­tury. They also had fam­ily con­nec­tions in Fife. In an agree­ment signed by them on the 9^th Novem­ber 1745, the fish­er­men of Crail agreed to deliver their catch of white fish to them for a period of 6 years. This shows the final part of the con­tract made between the Falls and the fish­er­men of Crail. Here, agree­ment is made for the car­riage of fish, not­ably saithe, to the Fall’s cel­lars, to be paid by them. At the end are the sig­na­tures or ‘marks’ of the fish­er­men of Crail. The most east­erly of Fife’s fish­ing ports, Crail Har­bour dates back to the 16^th cen­tury. At one time the vil­lage was an import­ant her­ring sta­tion. The few fish­er­men left today fish inshore, mainly for shellfish.

On the left hand side, just below the fold, there is the fol­low text: “George GH Hodge mark.” In this instance, George Hodge could not sign his name, and there­fore marked with a “GH”. I am related to this George Hodge.

George Hodge was born in 1717 to George Hodge (him­self born in 1686) and mother Kath­erin Mon­crief in Crail/Fife, Scot­land. He was 32 when he marked this doc­u­ment. His younger brother was a James Hodge, where my paternal line descends.

Crail Har­bour: The har­bour was ‘new foundit’ in 1610, des­troyed in 1707, and what is shown here dates from the rebuild of 1728.

The fish stocks in this area star­ted to drop in the later part of the 18^th Cen­tury, and there­fore there was not enough room in the fam­ily busi­ness. As the younger brother, James Hodge left the fam­ily busi­ness and slowly drif­ted north to St Andrews in the lat­ter half of the 18^th Cen­tury. From 1764 in Crail, 1766 in Kings­barns (3.5km north of Crail) and 1771 in Brown Hills (just south of St Andrews). This George Hodge is also the wit­ness to the birth of James Hodge’s first and second chil­dren: Andrew and Mary. The third child of James Hodge is a John Hodge; again from where my paternal line des­cends. This John’s son, Melville, emig­rated to South Aus­tralia in 1853.

In the 1841 census, Mary Hodge (daugh­ter of James Hodge, born in Kings­barns in 1766) is lis­ted as liv­ing in Thor­gate, Crail. Based on the pos­i­tion in the census, it is likey she was liv­ing with the Scotts of Crail at this time.

I sus­pect that James trav­elled north either as a farm labourer, or as a hand loom linen weaver; as was his son. Kings­barns has a noted his­tory of both. And golf­ing, but I doubt my fam­ily was of the cor­rect glass for golfing.

Note: This inform­a­tion was found using the http://scran.ac.uk sys­tem. Scran is:

Scran — part of the Royal Com­mis­sion on the Ancient and His­tor­ical Monu­ments of Scot­land — aims to provide edu­ca­tional access to digital mater­i­als rep­res­ent­ing our mater­ial cul­ture and his­tory. This is provided through the wholly owned trad­ing arm Scran Ltd. We are one of the largest edu­ca­tional online ser­vices in the UK sup­port­ing over 4,000 schools, lib­rar­ies, col­leges and universities.

It is pos­sible that my paternal ancestor, some 11 gen­er­a­tions ago, was born in Duns. Very close to Black­ad­der. Maybe not the same Black­ad­der, but inter­est­ing in a his­tor­ical sense.

Epic laughs.

In the recent research of my paternal fam­ily his­tory, I found ref­er­ence to David Melville Hodge sign­ing the papers for an Angus Hodge. These papers were per­mis­sion given by David for Angus to join the Aus­tralian Infantry in 1916 for ser­vice abroad. He was only 18 years and 2 months old.

Private Angus Hodge was my Great-Grand Uncle.

Based on my recent research into a Private Albert Lock, I knew I could find Private Angus Hodge’s ser­vice records at the National Archives. A few per­sonal notes where an injured right leg from a hors­ing acci­dent in 1912, and many teeth miss­ing. He was also noted as “stocky” at only 5 and a half feet tall. His denom­in­a­tion was lis­ted as Meth­od­ist.

Private Angus Hodge became a part of the 6^th rein­force­ments for the South Aus­tralian 43^rd Bat­talion, AIF. The 43^rd Bat­talion made up the 11^th Infantry Bri­gade, 3^rd Divi­sion of the AIF. Landed in the UK dur­ing the early part of 1917. (note: This Order of Battle is extremely use­ful and the War Diar­ies of the 43^rd Bat­talion are insight­ful)

At this stage, Private Hodge star­ted to have a bout of Measles and Mumps and finally arrived in France 30^th July 1917. He joined the front line on 24^th August 1917. Just in time for the 3^rd Battle of Ypres. (also known to Aus­trali­ans as Passchendaele)

From this time, there were many times in hosip­ital lis­ted as “NYD” and “PUO” : not yet determ­ined and pyr­exia unknown ori­gin (ie: fever)

Then there is a note from 18^th August 1918 “admit­ted old wounded leg, slight” back in the UK ; frac­ture from tibia, based on the fall from a horse some 6 years earlier. Repat­ri­ated back to the UK, Private Hodge spent time get­ting bet­ter at the end of the first world war.

On the 23^rd Novem­ber 1918, exactly 90 years ago today, the Med­ical Board in the UK awar­ded Private Angus Hodge a 20% per­man­ent dis­ab­il­ity due to ser­vice; fit for home ser­vice.  He would have limped for the rest of his life.

Dis­charged from the AIF on 19^th March 1919 in Adelaide. Merely a year after return­ing to Aus­tralia, Angus was dead.

Nearly 3 years away from home, Private Hodge served his coun­try. The records fail to detail the men­tal and other injur­ies suffered whilst in France.

Angus Hodge died ages 22 and is bur­ied 23^rd March 1920. The grave­stone states “Son of DM and FJ.” Last res­id­ence is recor­ded as Gul­nare South Aus­tralia. Where David Melville Hodge was farm­ing at the time.

Lest We Forget.

As pre­vi­ously blogged, my ancest­ors hailed from the east­ern shores of Fife, Scot­land. Exactly where golf was invented.

NB: this page will be updated as more info is found. Dots will join back to here

Inspired by recent fam­ily events, I decided to revisit my June 2006 research and go fur­ther back. The pre­vi­ous searches had stopped at David Melville’s grand­father: John Hodge

Thanks to Scot­lands People, the offi­cial gov­ern­ment source of births, deaths, mar­riages, census data and other bits and pieces: search­ing is easy and rel­at­ively cheap. Cer­tainly saves trav­el­ling to Scot­land and spend­ing days in a lib­rary or archive.

My ancest­ors were not cath­olic but rather “free kirk” Pres­by­ters, they freely recor­ded their details in the Old Par­ish Records kept since 1553 in Scot­land. I am 100% of my ancest­ors to 1734; The move­ments prior to Crail in 1662 is a little more tenu­ous, although this was a time of much upheavel in Scotland.

Using Maps.live.com, I have cre­ated a visual map col­lec­tion that details the move­ments of these people in Scotland.

So, this is where we are in reverse chro­no­lo­gical order; the left hand column has the male line and birth year, with the fol­low­ing row their respect­ive father. The num­ber is the gen­er­a­tion from Liam back (ie: Liam is zero, and I am num­ber 1)

After pub­lish­ing details on my fam­ily his­tory two years ago: the con­nec­tions con­tinue to increase.

Firstly, a con­nec­tion to my Great-Great-Great Grand­mother, Mary Milne was made in Octo­ber 2007. Mary Milne is David Melville Hodge’s mother.

Now, a rel­at­ive in South Aus­tralia for­war­ded me this pic­ture of my Great– Great– Grand­father: Mr David Melville Hodge.

More inter­est­ingly, a series of bio­graph­ical stor­ies appeared. He seems quite the pion­eer­ing character.

I think if here were around today, he would prob­ably be a blog­ger. And mer­cur­ial, too.

Short Bio­graphy from the Encyc­lo­pe­dia of South Australia

Mr David Melville Hodge, Chaff and grain mer­chant, Alex­an­der Port Pirie, is a nat­ive of South Aus­tralia, hav­ing been born at Angaston in I860. He is a son of the late Mr. Melville Hodge, who settled in the Angaston dis­trict in the early days of the Province.

At the con­clu­sion of his edu­ca­tion, which was received at Sad­dle­worth, while still quite a boy he came to Laura at the open­ing up of the North­ern areas for set­tle­ment, and engaged in farm­ing pur­suits and out­door life gen­er­ally, rough­ing it in the man­ner well known to many of the young Aus­trali­ans of that peÂriod.

He vis­ited the Kim­ber­ley “rush” in the north of West­ern Aus­tralia, Mount Brown, in Queens­land, and has made him­self acquain­ted with all the gold-mining centres in the North­ern Ter­rit­ory and through­out the Commonwealth.

At a later period Mr. Hodge engaged in farm­ing and team­s­ter­ing in the north­ern parts of South Aus­tralia, and in 1901 estab­lished him­self in his pre­sent busi­ness, that of a chaff and grain mer­chant, in Port Pirie. He has since worked up a sat­is­fact­ory con­nec­tion, and enjoys his full share of the trade of the district.

Mr. Hodge is a mem­ber of the Cale­do­nian Soci­ety. In 1885 he mar­ried Julia Florence, daugh­ter of Mr. John Pil­grim of Gawler, lat­terly of Laura, and has a fam­ily of six sons and two daughters.

Golden Wed­ding Anniversary (1936) News­pa­per Clipping

Mr Hodge, Senr, of Lock, recenly cel­eb­rated the anniversary of his Golden Wed­ding. Mr Hodge was a suc­cess­ful farmer in the Gul­nare dis­trict some years ago, and at one time was shear­ing for Mr Niel McGilp, who was widely known in pas­toral areas. At Lock, Mr Hodge is one of the most inter­ested work­ers in the Meth­od­ist Church, and to attend the ser­vices he drives his car 12 miles pracically(sic) every Sunday. Mr Hodge still drives a team of bul­locks when clear­ing scrub on his farm, and this proves that he is a true son of the soil. A few years ago Mr Hodge gave up retired life, and returned to farm­ing. On his Golden Wed­ding day, Mr Hodge com­posed the fol­low­ing poem.

Aus­tralia: A Poem by Mr. D. M. Hodge

AUSTRALIA

Aus­tralia, I love thee,
The land that gave me birth,
And reared me up to man­hood,
From the products of the earth.

Thou has let me roam in free­dom,
From moun­tain top to plain,
And always gave suf­fi­cient,
To relieve my hun­ger pain.

I have seen thy sil­ver mines,
And gold and cop­per, too,
Deep down into your bowels,
All shin­ing bright and new.

Your wheat and wool I’ve car­ted,
From far inland to the sea,
To feed and clothe the hungry
In Eng­land or where’r it may be:

I’ve seen your men and women
Leave here to go and fight
And join up with dear old Eng­land
For justice, honor, and right.

I’ve seen your towns and cit­ies
Grow up about your land,
And helped the pion­eers to clear
Mal­lee and stones on every land.

And now I’m grow­ing old and grey,
On this, my Golden Wed­ding Day;
Great Mas­ter wilt Thou hear me say,
’Tis here in Aus­tralia I wish to stay.

Obit­u­ary

Mr. David Melville Hodge, 76, died at the home of his son-in-law (Inspec­tor M. M. Bishop), of Fourth street, Port Pirie West, on Septem­ber 5. His earli­est juven­ile exper­i­ences included the sight of mobs of wild nat­ives at North Rhine sur­round­ing the home of his father. The lat­ter died there when David Hodge was a small boy and he moved with his mother to Coghill’s Creek. At 11 years of age he became a farmer’s boy with a wage of 2/6 a week, but he soon after­wards obtained employ­ment with Mr. Hugh Aitken, a fam­ous colt­breaker of his day, and from him learned the art of hand­ling horses.

After a brief spell at home he left, on a horse he had pur­chased for £4 10/, find­ing his way to Kapunda and thence to Adelaide, where he obtained employ­ment with a farmer at Bal­ak­lava. At Port Wake­field later he obtained a pas­sage by ketch to Port Adelaide, but soon trekked north again.

His next job was that of woolpicker on Par­a­too Run. then jointly held by Sir Thomas Elder and Mr. Peter Waite. Later, purchas­ing a team of bul­locks, he engaged in cart­ing sleep­ers from Wir­ra­bara and took loads to the Sil­ver­ton sil­ver fields. He claimed to have car­ted the first con­sign­ment of silver-lead ore from Thack­ar­inga to Terowie to be sent from there by train to Port Adelaide.

In 1886 he and two mates, W. Duck and F. Lind­say, set off for what was repor­ted to be a rich gold find in the Kim­ber­leys. Mr. Hodge returned to South Aus­tralia and star­ted a chaff store, saw­mill, and wood­y­ard at Port Pine.

Seven years later he moved to Pirie Springs, near Laura, and from there to Gul­nare. Five years’ retire­ment in Adelaide fol­lowed, but 10 years ago he took up land at Lock, on the West Coast, return­ing from there to Port Pirie. At Laura he mar­ried Miss Florence Julia Pil­grim, who sur­vives. Mr. and Mrs. Hodge cel­eb­rated their gol­den wed­ding in 1935. Four sons and two daugh­ters are left Messrs. Frank. Hec­tor, Ken­neth (West Coast), and Wil­liam Hodge (Iron Knob). Mrs. J. N. O’Brien (West Aus­tralia), and Mrs. M. M. Bishop (Port Pirie).

Why blog your fam­ily his­tory? Because it helps oth­ers out, and you find out more. Oth­ers doing searches for com­mon ancest­ors will stumble on your site, and send emails.

The above photo is of one Mary Milne. She mar­ried a Melville Hodge in 1853 whilst on her way to South Aus­tralia. Her first son was my great– great– grandfather.

In other words, she is my great– great– great– grand­mother. A small part of her is in my genes. This photo was taken in March 1904, 103 years ago.

And speak­ing of genes, if you look at her eyes and mouth: they are not aligned. It’s not “an error” in pos­ing. It’s prob­ably Bell’s Palsy.

Thanks to Darryl, also a decend­ent of Mary Milne for send­ing the photo and a detailed history.

In a week of sur­real­ity, I learnt I am a MINI-me to a Nick Hodge in the UK and atten­ded Ying Tong.

An email from my mother-in-law, who emig­rated to Aus­tralia in the mid 1950s, con­nec­ted more dots. And some fam­ily skel­et­ons in the closet fell out.

Before jump­ing aboard the ship to Aus­tralia, she worked at the BBC — with The Goons! She typed their scripts and atten­ded record­ings. I am related to fam­ous, and only a few steps removed from The Goons. I am con­nec­ted to Brit­ish Com­edy roy­alty, even if only by marriage.

If you are not a par­ent or teacher with chil­dren between the ages of 5–15, you might want to read some­thing else. I know how it gets when people talk about kids.

If you are a teacher or par­ent, wel­come to the new inter­net gen­er­a­tion gap.

An art­icle pub­lished in the New York magazine, Say Everything, details the online lives of Gen­er­a­tion Y. The art­icle takes a moralistic-angle to cre­ate a story; and asserts that the gen­er­a­tion gap is greater now than when Elvis, Cliff Richard and The Beatles rock-and/or-roll per­ver­ted the lives of Generation-X’s par­ents in the 1950s/1960s.

It’s more than mor­als. It is about how the world is at the pivot point of a dra­matic change.

This quo­ta­tion from Clay Shirky sum­mar­ised where we are at:

“Whenever young people are allowed to indulge in some­thing old people are not allowed to, it makes us bit­ter. What did we have? The mall and the park­ing lot of the 7-Eleven? It sucked to grow up when we did! And we’re mad about it now.”

The moral side is important,Look at your internet-connected kids: what are they doing, right now?

As a com­par­ison, I took a photo of Liam over the week­end that illus­trated this major gap:

1. Liam has both MacOS X Tiger and Microsoft Win­dows XP run­ning, and is using both flu­ently. Vista will not be installed until he’s backed-up his PC, and he’s sure his games work.
2. MSN Mes­sen­ger is his con­nec­tion to the out­side world: rarely will one of his friends call on the phone; but I am sure he com­mu­nic­ates more widely than I at the same age. His peers are world-wide, not local.
3. There is a Fire­fox ses­sion run­ning on the Mac with his favour­ite web sites (for­ums, not blogs) going. He says that he’s had a Fire­fox browser win­dow run­ning for 2 weeks, solid. 
4. On the Win­dows box, he is cre­at­ing an Adobe Premiere video clip (adding titling+encoding). Not only con­sum­ing con­tent; he is act­ively adding bits to the world. The video comes from cap­tur­ing an anim­a­tion cre­ated using Garry’s Mod for Half-Life 2.
5. He is listen­ing to ABC’s Triple-J not via radio, but via Internode’s stream.
6. Liam watches less broad­cast TV than Avril and I. Way less. Yet his know­ledge of what is cur­rent and news­worthy is no dif­fer­ent. There  is no man­u­fac­tured scarcity (either in time, or in phys­ical atoms)
7. Wiki­pe­dia answers everything.

Hyper-connected & digitally-creative.

Com­pare this to your world.

Mak­ing a ‘social net­work­ing’ plat­form that assumes you are con­nec­ted and are writ­ing, not just read­ing from the web: that’s next. THe next gen­er­a­tion is cre­at­ing these tools as the Baby boomers and Generation-X keeps look­ing at its col­lect­ive navel.