More from the Gilruths

We are absolutely delighted, at Stratford Historical Society, to welcome Russell Gilruth and his family to the conversation about the Gilruth family. Russell and his father have been trying to find Jack Gilruth Gilruth, and last night put him into an internet search engine yet again - and this time all our recent posts came up. We look forward to lots of ongoing mutual research.

In the meantime, we have identified what we think is Maud's photograph, taken at the same time as Jack had his taken with that moustache, and sent to his future mother-in-law in Dargo.

This is Maud:

It is signed with what appears to be the same pen, in the same style as Jack's photograph. And we know Maude always had a liking for large hats. This photograph is 1911, scroll down further in the post linked above, to see what she is wearing later. We almost wonder if it is the same hat reworked.

So what took a beautiful young girl from the remote mountain goldfields town of Dargo, to Melbourne, where she met Jack? 

We do know that for a time, after they married, they were in Sydney before going to New Zealand. Here are two pages from the autograph book of Amy Cahill, Maud’s sister:

(Our apologies to anyone who read an earlier draft of this post, where we posted another page from the autograph book instead - we are now waiting for someone to read the shorthand to be totally sure of who that signature is from)

We have one little piece more to add to the puzzle, once we can get another photograph scanned (which my take a while, as Christmas approaches)

But we would most sincerely like to thank HairyMancestors, who started us off on this journey - we would not have done it without you.

What a wonderful result.

UPDATE

But there is more - Jack's moustache photo not only reunited him with his family - it has won Best Mo in the Show over at Hairy Mancestors. Thank You, Inside History Magazine.