Douglas Paul Barnard, Master Brainteaser (52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks 2025 Week 34 theme: "Playtime")

Douglas Barnard from his obituary in the London Daily Telegraph 18 May 1994 p.25 accessed on Newsapapers.com 

Douglas Paul Barnard (aka Douglas St. Paul Barnard) was my husband's first cousin once removed. Born 27 January 1924 in Pakefield, Suffolk, England to Arthur and Laura (Parry) Barnard, his idea of playtime might not be everyone's idea of fun. As a cruciverbalist, his work was his play. (To save you the trouble since I had to look it up anyway -- a cruciverbalist is a compiler or aficionado of crossword-puzzles. And -- full disclosure: I have been a lifelong cryptic crossword puzzle junkie, a hobby shared with my mother and her brother Bob. I am in awe of the work of Douglas Barnard.)

Douglas Barnard's father Arthur was the younger brother to my husband's grandfather John Mathias Barnard. (Whereas John Mathias was a large man standing over 6 feet tall, brother Arthur's service records from when he signed up for the army at age 18 show him to be less than 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighing just 124 pounds. Perhaps he was still growing?) After serving with the British army during the Boer War and in India from 1896-1908, Arthur committed to service in the Christian ministry. To this end, Arthur moved his family to Australia in the 1920s. 

Young Douglas grew up in Australia and obtained his education at the Brisbane Boys'  College. He compiled his first crossword at age 15.

He started work as a bank clerk, but soon enlisted in the Australian army at Launceston, Tasmania on 10 March 1942 shortly after turning 18. His capabilities were soon recognized and he was sent on a Junior Leaders Course followed by selection for the Royal Military College. Records indicate he was a Bombardier. His casualty forms list frequent illnesses and problems with his eyes and with his right ear after a gun blast near it. It is difficult to follow his military records with any real idea of what he was doing; there is a very mysterious reference to his having "m/in from Queensland LofC area  GDD" and embarked from Cairns for "Mexico" (yes, with the quotation marks) on 19-02-45 and then having disembarked at Aitape (surely this is in New Guinea?) on 3-1-45.  He was promoted to Sergeant on 8 November 1945 before his discharge from service in 1946. 

Perhaps he was actually an intelligence officer during the War as reported by a couple of sources (see Gilbert article and Best for Puzzles website in Resources below). If his talents were not taken advantage of in this way, a great opportunity was missed. No official source has been found, but his was exactly the sort of mind required at Bletchley Park or its Australian counterpart Central Bureau. 

At the end of the War, Douglas transferred to the Army Psychology Corps. Then in 1946 he entered Tasmania University to study political science. He was expelled for publishing a pamphlet calling one of his professors a Communist. Later vindicated when that professor was discharged, it nevertheless cost Douglas the Rhodes Scholarship he had won to study at Oxford. 

When paralyzed from polio at age 25, he was told he would never walk again. With characteristic determination and ability, he designed his own leg clamp and got himself back on his feet.  

In 1954, Douglas moved his wife and children to England where he found free-lance work, including as an occasional crossword compiler for the London Daily Telegraph. By the time his obituary was published in that newspaper on 18 May 1994, they reported that he had compiled 2,956 puzzles for them over a course of 40 years. They added that "recently his crosswords had appeared on Mondays because their clarity and cryptic elegance were considered a refreshing challenge after a relaxed weekend."

His book Anatomy of The Crossword is a classic for demystifying the cryptic crossword (which is unlike the more straight-forward encyclopedic version more common in North America). Having figured out on my own how the cryptic clues can follow a number of different formats, it delighted me to read this book and learn that the patterns all had names and explanations. He expounds on the use of puns (based on homonyms and homophones), drollery, allusion, dialectic clues, dilemmatic clues, paragrams, anagrams, disjunctive clues, parabolic clues, and finally the all-encompassing cryptic licence that may be taken by the cruciverbalist. Oh, my! 

Barnard's Anatomy of the Crossword, 1963

According to his obituary:

A true polymath, he quickly grasped the arcane details of any discipline. Science, mathematics, computers, religion and philosophy were of particular interest to him, but he was also a talented handyman who rewired, replumbed and restored his large Georgian house almost single-handed. 

He designed and built a large Adam-style mantelpiece, restored a Bechstein grand piano and collected and restored Oriental antiques.  

His interest in politics led him to run as a Conservative candidate in the 1964 election; he did not win a seat. 

Over the years, he set many other brain-teaser puzzles and wrote many articles as a freelance journalist, often under various pseudonyms. It takes a special mind to turn mathematics into playtime.

The Rochdale Observer 24 April 1965 accessed on Newspapers.com

In addition to his Adventures in Mathematics (1967), he also wrote The Puffin Book of Car Games (1977), It's All Done by Numbers (1968), 50 Daily Telegraph Brain-Twisters (1985), Figure it Out (1973), One Hundred Brain Twisters (1966), A Book of Mathematical and Reasoning Puzzles (1962) and 50 Observer Brain-Twisters (1963). So much playtime created by him for so many puzzle enthusiasts!

Here is an example of one of his regular Brain-twisters (and, no, I haven't tried to solve it, before you ask!):

The Observer 10 January 1965 p.39 from Newspapers.com

As to why he added the "St." to change his name from Douglas Paul Barnard to Douglas St. Paul Barnard or D. St. P. Barnard, no explanation has been found. Probably there is some sort of cryptic or mathematical clue. Perhaps the "s" and "t" are needed to create an anagram: absurd lapdogs rant? about grandads plural? Sorry, Douglas, some of us need a more fulsome clue to solve this one!

Some Resources:

• Australia, World War II Military Service Records, 1939-1945 for Douglas Paul Barnard, accessed on Fold3
• Barnard, D. St. P., Anatomy of the Crossword, London: G. Bell and Sons, Ltd. 1963
• Barnard, D. St. P., 50 Daily Telegraph Brain-Twisters: a book of mathematical puzzles and reasoning problems, Javelin, 1985, accessed on 25 July 2025 on Internet Archive at https://archive.org/details/50dailytelegraph0000doug/page/12/mode/2up
• Best for Puzzles Website, Crossword Who's Who for Douglas Barnard accessed online 25 July 2025 at https://bestforpuzzles.com/people/b.html
• Gilbert, Val, "The Telegraph Crossword is 80 and Still Going Strong", 30 July 2005 from the Narkive Newsgroup Archive  accessed online 25 July 2025 at https://rec.puzzles.crosswords.narkive.com/5ALuWsOd/the-telegraph-crossword-is-80-down-and-still-going-strong
• Obituary for Douglas Barnard, The Daily Telegraph, London, England, 18 May 1994, p.25.

The Andersons at Bawlf, Alberta, Canada (52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks 2025 Week 32 theme: "Wide Open Spaces")

My maternal great great grandfather Israel Anderson (1829-1910) spent a lifetime searching for wide open spaces. Born in 1829  and raised in Laxarby, Västra Götaland, Sweden, 3 miles from the nearest town, he moved to Norway as a young man to work on a farm there. He married farmer's daughter Johanna Gundersdatter Opsahl and moved to America in 1856 with wife and their first child, my great grandfather Anders (Andrew) Anderson. 

Israel and Johanna went on to have the following children: Andrew b 1855, Sophia b. abt. 1856, Ida b. 1858, Gunelius b. 1862, Olava b. 1864, Annetta b. 1868, John b. 1868, Betsy b. abt. 1870 and Carl Gustaf b. 1873. Johanna died in 1900.  

Over the years, the call of its wide open spaces took Israel and family to several newly developing areas on the American frontier. After first settling in Decatur, WI, they moved on to Northwood County, Iowa and then to Grafton, Dakota Territories, traveling by train and covered wagon. In 1901 son Carl Gustaf moved across the border to homestead in Manitoba. In 1902 son Gunelius moved his family to Canada as well, settling in what became the Bawlf area of what was then the North-West Territories.  In 1903 Israel himself emigrated for a third and final time to join Gunelius in the Bawlf area. He was a widower in his mid-70s.

Alberta was not even yet a province when Israel arrived. In 1903 the land was still part of the North-West Territories, and, of course, before that had been part of the truly wide open spaces occupied by the western First Nations peoples. At noon on 1 September 1905 Alberta became a Province of Canada. Israel had been there for a couple of years by this time.

Google Earth view of Bawlf area - showing the present-day checkerboard of fields that were wide open spaces when the Andersons arrived

The Village of Bawlf was established in the vast Canadian prairies in 1905, the same year that Alberta became a province. Named for Nicholas Bawlf, president of the Winnipeg Grain Exchange, the town came into being alongside the new railroad. Farming and shipping grain were its raison d'être.

Son Gunelius "G.I."  had moved there the preceding year with his family. The following is from a letter dated 17 May 1977 from Ernie and Esther Anderson to R.W. "Bob" Anderson, based on their recollections of  comments made by Gunelius's son Lawrence Anderson: 

"G.I. left Edinburg, N.D., where he owned a hotel, in 1902 and moved to Alberta. Andrew and John came up two years later and bought a half section beside the homestead. Lawrence was saved land, proved it up and got it at age 21. The railroad came in 1906. Israel homesteaded near his sons' farms and was required to spend a few months each year on his homestead, so he had a house on skids that he pulled over to the land in summer and then back to the sons in the winter.    Lawrence said they lived in 2 tents when they arrive in Daysland and lived in them until three weeks before Christmas when their house was finally ready for occupancy. It was bitterly cold, he remembers."

The 1906 census of Alberta shows Gunelius at section 8-45-17-W4M, his sons Emil at 10-45-17-W4M and Lawrence at 30-44-16-W4M. Another brother, John Anderson, had homesteaded at Bawlf just east of his father at NE36-44-17 W4M.

Homestead application of Israel Anderson

Sadly, on 7 March 1910, at age 80, Israel died before proving up his homestead application. 

1910 Post Card from Gunelius Anderson advising sister Sophia of Israel's death

Decades ago my uncle Bob Anderson and his son visited the rural Lutheran cemetery near Bawlf  where Israel is buried. A few years after this, while attending a kids' hockey tournament at nearby Daysland, my husband and I also paid Israel's gravesite a visit.

Two of His Male Anderson descendants visit Israel's burial location 

In 1998, in response to my letter to the Village of Bawlf, local resident and historical record-keeper Lil Bohmer sent me a considerable amount of information based on local knowledge of the family. Lil was a member of the same Bawlf Lutheran Church as the Andersons and was the record-keeper for the cemetery. She provided the burial locations for Israel as well as for Gunelius, his wife Sophia, their daughter Gina Reesor (1891-1928), son Emil (1884-1950) and son Alfred (1886-1954).

Lil went on to say: 

I found in the Daysland History book the enclosed information about Kenneth and Aleda Anderson. Also in the book were copies of maps showing land owners in the early 1900s. Another son of Gunelius and Sophia farmed north of Ohaton. He was known as Ike but a gentleman who knew him said he thought his given name was Israel - after his grandfather. The other son Lawrence, who farmed with Alfred later lived in Daysland. I found several people who remembered Gunelius and family but no one is left who would remember Israel. The house that the Andersons built on their farm was considered a beautiful place. Their neighbours and church friends were all there for Open House when it was completed. A few years ago that house was moved into Daysland to be a neat looking place yet. It was a 2 story. The fact that it had a kitchen nook and a dining room had impressed everyone. 

Israel's grandsons Clarence and Ingwald (sons of Andrew) homesteaded in the Lancer area of Saskatchewan, Canada a few years later. The wide open spaces of the Canadian prairies did not suit everyone. Some of the sons or their descendants ended up moving back south of the 49th parallel. The current crop of Andersons inhabiting Canada's wide open spaces primarily descend through the Israel/Andrew/Ingwald line. 

3 of Israel's sons backed by their sons about 1915: lower left my great grandfather Andrew Anderson in front of his son Clarence, lower centre Gunelius in front of his son Emil and lower right John in front of his son Victor. The picture was taken after Victor returned from fighting in World War I

1816: The Year Without a Summer (52 Ancestors 2022 week 21, variation on the Theme: "Yearbook")

Spring 2022 has been unusually cold and wet where I live on Canada's west coast. As records here have been broken, it has come to my attention that there was another year with worse and more widespread broken records. The year 1816 is often referred to as "the year without a summer" or as "Eighteen-hundred-and-froze-to-death".

Snow storms blanketed the ground in Europe and North America in May that year. A huge storm in early June covered Eastern Canada and Northeastern United States from Maine and upstate New York to Pennsylvania with up to 30 cm of snow. The cold weather continued with frost occurring every month of the year in many places. The sky was dark and had a strange reddish cast. Some of the snow that fell was brown or red.

Crops froze and were replanted only to freeze again. Yields were terrible, just when the world had been hoping for an abundant harvest to recover from the Napoleonic Wars. (1816 was the year when Napoleon was finally defeated and sent into exile on Saint Helena. It has even been suggested that Britain's victory in the Battle of Waterloo that year could be at least partially attributed to the wet and  muddy conditions.)

Summer temperatures in Europe were the coldest on record for the period 1766-2000. Switzerland, for example, reported summer temperatures that year between 2.5-3 degrees C. cooler than the norm. Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Godwin (who later became Mary Shelley) spent the summer near Geneva, Switzerland. The cool weather and endless rains reportedly kept them indoors writing, resulting in the creation of Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein". 

Other artistic creations from 1816 include Lord Byron's "Darkness", Jane Austen's "Emma" and Rossini's "Barber of Saville".

Although the actual temperature of the planet dropped less than 1 degree C., the effects were widespread and catastrophic. Crop failures led to famine resulting in the deaths of an estimated 100,000 people. It was the worst famine in mainland Europe for the entire 19th century. Major typhus epidemics occurred in Europe in the years immediately following,  running rampant through a population weakened by malnourishment. As one might expect, political and economic consequences were profound. Despair prevailed.

Hunger in der Schweiz 1817 

Painting by Anna Barbara Giezendanner (1831-1905) Public Domain image from Wikimedia Commons 

At the time, there was no good scientific explanation for why this had happened but many theories were put forward. It is now generally accepted that a major cause was volcanic ash sent into the atmosphere by the explosion of Mount Tambora on the island of Sumbawa in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) in April of 1815. This explosion was the greatest in at least 1300 years. Serious local repercussions ensued and thousands died in the immediate aftermath. The following year had bad weather in Asia, much as in Europe and America, with China reporting severe floods and famine. 

 Tambora volcano on Indonesia's Sumbawa Island was the site of the world's largest historical eruption in April 1815. This NASA Landsat mosaic shows the 6-km-wide caldera truncating the 2850-m-high summit of the massive volcano. Pyroclastic flows during the 1815 eruption reached the sea on all sides of the 60-km-wide volcanic peninsula, and the ejection of large amounts of tephra caused world-wide temperature declines in 1815 and 1816. (Photo is in the Public Domain as a screenshot from NASA's globe software World Wind using a public domain layer)

We all would have had family affected by this event. At the time, many of mine were in Norway and the Northeastern United States (mostly in New York and Pennsylvania). We don't have any stories or diaries from my family members to let us know specifically how they fared, but the general conditions in the areas would have been their experiences. As there were dozens of family members alive in 1816, I will select just a few to highlight.

New York

Upstate New York, one of the areas worst hit by the weather disaster, was home to many of my ancestors in 1816. 

Upstate New York - Family Locations inn 1816 (Google Earth image)

The John Bullen family of Paris, Oneida County, New York had lived in this area since his escape from Massachusetts for his part in Shay's Rebellion after the Revolutionary War. Enumerated in the 1820 census, two adult children were living with the parents John (and presumably his wife Mary Whitcomb Bullen). There was an unnamed female between the ages of 26-44 and an unnamed male also between 26-44. Two men were engaged in agriculture. Since the only other son of the family was married and living on his own at the time, most likely the unnamed son would be my 3rd great grandfather David Bullen, aged 32 in 1816. 

1820 U.S. Census for Paris, Oneida County, New York - John Bullen family

A few years later, David would marry Jane Murdie (1801-1857), my maternal line ancestor whose mitochondrial DNA has come down to me and my family. Notionally, my mitochondrial DNA spent the year without a summer in the safekeeping of Jane in Hannibal, Oswego, New York.  

A bit of a mystery surrounds Jane's family but my best guess at present is that her mother was most likely Jane Davidson (or Davididson) whose Murdie first husband had gone missing and was presumed dead sometime around 1815. The mother then remarried in about 1816 to a man named John Chambers and had three more daughters with him. By the time of the 1820 census for Hannibal, we might conclude that the 5 people listed were John and his wife Jane Davidson Chambers, their own two infant daughters under age 10 (Kate and Louisa Chambers) and Jane Murdie for the female aged between 16 and 25.    

1820 census for Hannibal, Oswego, New York - Murdie/Chambers household

We don't know exactly what impact the year without a summer had on Jane Murdie who was a young woman at the time, but she would not have been enjoying wearing lighter summer attire that year. It was said that everyone bundled up in their greatcoats all through the summer.

Other branches of my mother's family were living in the area of Butler, Wayne County, New York in 1816. My 3rd great grandparents Stephen Wescott and Catherine Barton were both children living with their parents at the time. Stephen, born 1809, would have been about 7 years old and Catherine, born 1812, would have been just 4. Not for them the summer fun of playing outdoor childhood games in the sunshine. Although children are generally pretty adaptable, it must have been a very strange time where everyone was just making the best of a bad situation. We don't know if or how badly they suffered from lack of food production on their families' farms. Any economic stress would have been felt by the family as a whole. 

Norway

Although Norway also experienced terrible weather conditions in 1816, no sources could be located to provide evidence of any worse outcomes that year than other tough years in the 19th century. Still, one might assume that subsistence farmers were challenged by reduction in farm output. 

Those living near the Norwegian coastlines no doubt made good use of the resources provided by the ocean. For example, my paternal Bardahl line lived near the Norwegian Sea on the west coast of Nordland, Norway. My Dad's great grandfather John Christian Larsen Hellesvig was born in 1800 in Stamnes, Alstahaug, Nordland and most likely was still living with his parents in 1816. As a young man, he was probably learning to fish; years later, the 1865 census gave his occupation as both farmer and fisherman.

My paternal 3rd great grandparents Andris Erikson Elton and Tora Iversdatter Kjerstein were newlyweds, having been married 6 July 1815.

Valdres, Oppland, Norway Kirkebok - Marriage Records for 1815

Their first child, my 2nd great grandfather Erick Anderson Elton, was born 12 January 1817, meaning Tora had been pregnant during the year without a summer. What was that like, I wonder? Was she able to get adequate nutrition for her developing baby?

My maternal line had another newlywed couple in Norway in 1816. Another set of my 3rd great grandparents, Knud Olson Vralstad and Gro Torgrimsdatter Tveitane were married 3 December 1815 in Telemark, Norway. Gro became pregnant almost immediately and gave birth to their first child, daughter Signe, on 28 September 1816. Again, one might wonder how the prevailing conditions affected her pregnancy. Baby Signe did not survive childhood and her name was recycled for use by a sister born in 1828 when conditions were probably more conducive to a  healthy outcome. That second Signe was my 2nd great grandmother who emigrated with her husband Torkel Jorgenson Heimdahl and children, leaving for America in April of 1862. 

Signe Knutson Tveitane (1828-1904), the second Signe born to Knud and Gro

Having examined my family database, I can find no evidence of any family members actually dying of famine during this trying time in human history. A good number of all our ancestors lived through the year without a summer and went on to leave a healthy supply of grateful descendants. 

Some Sour

• Univerisitat Bern, Tambora and the "Year without a Summer" of 1816: A Perspective on Earth and Human Systems Science, accessed online 23 May 2022 at:  https://www.geography.unibe.ch/unibe/portal/fak_naturwis/e_geowiss/c_igeogr/content/e39624/e39625/e39626/e426207/e431531/tambora_e_webA4_eng.pdf
• Dr, Matthew Genge, reported by the Evening Standard, "Volcanic Eruption helped with the Battle of Waterloo, Scientists Claim" accessed online 23 May 2022 at standard.co.uk
• Buffalo, New York Evening News 1944 - 8853.pdf, issue 25 January 1945, available through Old Fulton New York Post Cards accessed online 23 May at https://fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html