Remember to Accentuate the Positive is GeniAus’ challenge for each January, this is my 6th year in a row tackling this challenge where authors need to look back on their previous year and appreciate the positive actions that have taken place in their life. As suggested I have not responded to some points which didn’t apply to my year.

Extract of land Title Deed changing hand from William Evans to William McKee Irvine on 9 Dec 1893. Thanks to Catherine for a copy of the Title Deed.

1.  Google provided an answer to many questions I asked of it through the course of my year. It is a ‘Go to’ site for me which I utilise every single day. Google maps for finding out an exact locations, Google enquiry to find out what County, State etc., although I do also utilise familysearch.org Research Wiki for more detailed genealogical information.
2.  I was the recipient of genearosity from my brother-in-law’s three DNA cousins who shared the research they had already done on their mystery great-grandmother with my niece and myself.
3.  A useful record my GSQ friend, Catherine discovered and shared with me was a land title record of her ancestor William Evans who sold one of his James Street Fortitude Valley properties in Brisbane to my great-grandfather’s brother, William Irvine on 9 December 1893. It was an amazing co-incidence
4.  A newly found family member who shared was a second cousin who finally noticed my Ancestry messages sent years ago, so never give up! Disappointingly, he shared the news that our great-grandparents gravesite obelisk at Toowong Cemetery has fallen over and broken into three pieces.
5.  A genea surprise I received was to realise that a lengthy section of a parish register of baptisms had been indexed as burials instead of baptisms by a genealogy site. I initially contacted the County family history society who transcribed the details who informed me that they had never had a great deal of success getting records corrected, so I contacted an employee of the company that I had dealt with through the years. Thankfully he was able to have the indexing error corrected and the entries are now all correctly indexed as Baptisms.
6.   My 2024 post that I was particularly proud of was ‘Digging deeper into the Neville family; my brick wall‘. I did an intensive three months of early 1700s research in four neighbouring UK counties only to come to no conclusion as to whom my fifth great-grandfather’s parents were!

   

7.   DNA helped me to correspond with three half cousins of the person I was assisting with their family history.
8.  I was pleased I upgraded my online cloud backup capacity; like many other genealogists we just keep collecting more and more scans and stories.
9. Although Face to Face events have returned, Zoom has continued to play an important part in my life as the Convenor of one of the GSQ members Zoom groups. We have a varied program twice a month with topics and learning aid help, and in 2024 I presented seven of the ten PowerPoint sessions.
10. I dipped my toes into AI after attending two presentations by Andrew Redfern, an expert in the field. I find Andrew’s method of teaching easy to follow and well-illustrated with step-by-step instructions and advice on how to achieve the outcome you are looking for.
11. On my recent cruise I connected and chatted with, a lovely presenter that I’d previously only interacted with when arranging a Zoom presentation three years ago. This is one of the delights of attending conferences, especially those at sea! 
12. By dipping my toes into AI I was able to create an image for a family presentation.
13. I was honoured to continue as Blogs Editor for the Genealogical Society of Queensland. It is a role I particularly enjoy by ensuring that our bloggers stories are presented in the best possible way and make interesting reading in a visually attractive presentation.
14. I found the GSQ annual seminar in 2024 titled ‘Forgotten women and children’ to be extremely useful with seven jam-packed experts in various fields teaching their specialty topic. The variety covered in the presentations was a surprise and learning more about each topic was a sobering experience. It was particularly well timed for me with the research I was doing for my niece.
15. After a huge de-clutter five years ago, I decided to move away from physical books. Now-a-days my Kindle is my friend that I stay connected with every single day, usually with night-time reading. My tally for 2024 was 106, mostly detective or ‘feel good’ stories.
    
    

    Speakers on the last night of cruise. L to R back: Eric Kopittke, Mia Bennett, Shauna Hicks, Maggie Gaffney, Chris Paton. F: Rosemary Kopittke, Hillary Blanford, Helen Smith. Thanks to Kerry Beeton for permission to use image.

16. It was exciting to finally get together with the members of my GSQ Zoom Wednesday morning group for our end of year Christmas gathering. As in the past it was held in the comfort of a local function centre and ably catered for by the cafe adjoining. We had a jam-packed event with socialising, mixed with trivia and sharing unusual newspaper articles we had come across concerning a family member.
17. A gene adventure I enjoyed was the 2024 Unlock the Past cruise in December with lead speakers Chris Paton, Mia Bennett and Michelle Patient, who are all extremely knowledgeable in their chosen topics. As well as the many presentations I attended and the beautiful cities we docked in, it was wonderful meeting up again with overseas, interstate and local friends that I hadn’t seen in some time.
18. Another positive I would like to share followed a particularly debilitating period of health in August when I found that staying positive, mentally active, and asking for help was the way to go. In doing that, I managed to get myself back to my previous level of daily activities with a step-by-step process of slow improvements. Family history definitely kept me focussed during this period.