Author Archives: Guest Blogger

Belfast & tracing Irish ancestors

GSQ Blog Posted on by

By Cathie Sherwood. This blog post is being written from Belfast as I am here for the Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Conference run by the Ulster Historical Foundation. Prior to the start of the week long conference, I attended a 3 day Irish Genealogy Essentials course.  There were about 40 attendees at this workshop/seminar, 5 of whom were Australians and the rest were a mix of Canadians and Americans. There were quite a few in the group who had taken … Continue reading

Questions for Rosina

GSQ Blog Posted on by

By Lyndall Maag. Did you wear crinoline, I wonder?  Layers of petticoats that weighed you down and a corset that constricted?  How did the swaying deck of the three-mast barque-rigged Reichstag feel under your feet?  How did you care for, and keep safe, a 9 month old child,  born in Bismarck’s newly created Germany, on a four month voyage from Hamburg to pre Brisbane Moreton Bay?  Or even on an overland journey to the tiny Darling Downs community of Meringandan?  … Continue reading

What do they think we are?

GSQ Blog Posted on by

by Bob McAllister Have you fallen under the spell of the latest Australian series of Who do you think you are? [1] Have you been lured away from your own research to see what is being “discovered” by the celebrity of the week in the latest genea-porn episode? Why call it genea-porn? Because it is a public visual representation of an activity in which many of us engage in the privacy of our own home, but which has crucial elements … Continue reading

My paternal great great grandmother was a bolter!

GSQ Blog Posted on by

By Cathie Sherwood. In the mid 1850s, she left her husband, the second son of one of the Hunter Valley’s earliest free settlers, and ran off with the local draper, Robert Hector Paulovich. This all seems like I may be about to tell a rather grubby tale –  he has a very foreign surname and she was ‘obviously’ of low moral character. But like most family stories, there is more to this one than meets the eye and while Mary … Continue reading

Better Google communication

GSQ Blog Posted on by

By Lisa Louise Cooke. At the Bridging the Past & Future Congress held in Sydney in March this year, Lisa Louise Cooke kindly agreed to do a blog post for GSQ.  Google search expert Lisa Louise Cooke provides genealogists with three ways to improve Google search results. See how these small improvements can make a big difference in your own genealogy Google searches! Lisa Louise Cooke Imagine traveling to a foreign country where a different language is spoken. It would … Continue reading