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1:49AM Sunday 05 July, 2009

Unlocking family secrets

1 April 2008

| By Blythe Seinor

Every family has a skeleton in the closet; you just need to know where to look.

Just ask Winifred Wynn (pictured), one of the founding members of the Cooroy Noosa Genealogical and Historical Research Group.

After trolling through the branches of her family tree for more than a decade, Ms Wynn has stumbled across a handful of juicy secrets about her ancestors, which would otherwise have remained hidden forever.

“When my great grandfather came out here and married my great grandmother, who was a little Irish girl in Victoria, he said he was a widower with two children,” Ms Wynn said. “I thought I’d look at his first wife’s (details), and I found she died two years after him. “It’s just a mystery what happened, you couldn’t divorce in those days.”

But she said while it was fun to dig back through past secrets, it was also important to use the information wisely.

“Some things you have to keep to yourself. The beauty of the group is you can have a laugh that you couldn’t have with your own family,” she said.

It’s also vital not to believe every piece of information you found.

“One of the first rules is not to believe fully in family stories, although there is always a grain of truth,” she said. “Don’t go looking for a castle and money.”

The Cooroy Noosa Genealogical and Historical Research Group is based at the old guide hut at 41 Miva St in Cooroy, and relies on fundraising to stay afloat.

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