I have heard stories about you all my life. I would see our family name on the Toowoomba Mother’s Memorial and ask, “Who was GH Maag?” The answer was always the same. “That’s Uncle George.” As a family, however, we knew little more than that you fought in WW1 and the family story that your life had been saved during fierce fighting in The Great War because a bullet had struck a cigarette case in your breast pocket instead of … Continue reading
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? Were you Jewish, … Continue reading
I have heard of family historians being gifted or inheriting documents, memorabilia or an entire family archive, precious as a result of age and sympathetic attachment. I remember being pleased and disappointed at the same time. Pleased for them, for the tangible connection they now had with those who had gone before. Disappointed that, while I have appreciated very much the moments of genealogical serendipity that have come my way, pieces of information that have demonstrated the types of people … Continue reading
“But I can’t”, I explained. “GSQ’s blog has only just really begun and I should continue with posts that focus on the Society’s collection of family tree charts”. “But you should”, I was told and eventually I was convinced. Let me set the scene. GSQ is open on Wednesdays between 6 and 9pm twice each month and recently, with night falling outside the East Brisbane Resource Centre, a small group of dedicated family historians gathered to progress their research. We … Continue reading
Have you ever been sitting in a library or an archives reading room when the silence is deafening? You know, the sort of atmosphere where people’s breathing and the sound of lead pencil on paper seems loud, almost raucous? Then…you hear the sound of tearing paper and it echoes throughout the room. Looks of disapproval spread across the faces of the staff and the more experienced researchers and their sharp intakes of breath communicate in no uncertain terms that the rules … Continue reading
