Welcome to August, Australia’s National Family History Month. I don’t know about you, but the days are already skipping away from me. There’s a host of goodies in store for us and these are the things I’m thinking of for my own research. The full NFHM program is here with the chance to win goodies … More Welcome to August and NFHM
My geminate Shelley from Twigs of Yore blog has been giving us all lessons in how to graph or group our Ancestry DNA matches. She’s done a great job of simplifying each step so it’s hard to make mistakes (but it occasionally happens, due to user-error). In following this process I was lucky on a … More Graphing DNA
What a wonderful array of genealogy delights we’ve had in South East Queensland recently. Firstly we had the Footsteps in Time conference at the Gold Coast where Gould Genealogy and Unlock the Past had a stall promoting their books and cruises. Only a week later, it was a packed day of Irish content from the … More Genealogy Delights: Unlock the Past Roadshows
Well it has taken me an age to revisit my research discoveries from Ireland in September last year. One of my first research stops in Dublin was a flying visit to the Valuation Office to look at one of my favourite record sets – the Cancellation or Revision books from Griffith’s Valuation. I’d visited before … More Of cats and Callaghans at Courtown
My week started with the attempt to unravel my Callaghan ancestors from the Griffith Valuation and revision books. It turned into something of a marathon as I got lost down the rabbit hole of tracking the change in occupants of the small quadrangle of buildings constructed by John Oughton in the early 1840s. What sources … More Of rabbit holes and Irish valuation books
I suppose it’s not surprising that Murphy and his law have a particular fondness for researchers of Irish genealogy. While it’s far more accessible than was the case for many years, thanks to all those recently digitised records, stumbling blocks still abound to challenge our research confidence. Such is the case with my Callaghans (aka … More Courtown Callaghans revisited
The last two weeks have been packed with genea-adventures. Firstly it was the Footsteps in Time conference at the Gold Coast which was extremely well organised by the Gold Coast Family History Society and History Queensland. Thanks also to all the sponsors who helped make it a successful event. If you ever needed proof that … More Genea-conference excitement
During my presentation at the Gold Coast Conference, Footsteps in Time, I used dot points to provide way finders for offline research. These are the points listed during the talk, by life heading. Please note this file is copyrighted to me and cannot be reproduced elsewhere. Beyond the internet checklist 2 of 2017 You can … More Beyond the Internet
In exciting news received via Facebook genimates, I learned yesterday that the University of Melbourne holds the Australian Red Cross cards for World War II until 1973. They’ve now been digitised and indexed and can be seen on the University of Melbourne’s Archives site. They also maintain a blog which has two posts about these … More Red Cross cards and Vatican Archives WWII
We rarely have the opportunity to hear about the wartime experiences of a family member in their own words. You can imagine my surprise, and pleasure, to discover that Trove’s digitised newspapers included interviews with Pte Hugh Moran (my mother’s cousin), about whom I wrote on Anzac Day this year. Settle in, grab the drink … More Pte Hugh Moran, POW: his own words
Family history across the seas 