Category Archives: family histories

Living with a Family Historian.

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By Peter Cass. Wos’it like, then, eh? Wos’it really like? Living with a Family Historian (FH), that is. (Dropping poor Michael Caine imitation.) Herewith some reflections and anecdotes, probably somewhat muddled because they include events from Pauleen’s (aka the FH in question) pursuit of her family history, far more sporadic forays into mine, and the involvement of our daughters. For Pauleen, the journey began in the mid-1980s, with an enquiry at the Genealogical Society of Queensland stand in an Historical … Continue reading

Genealogy in COVID 19 Times Was Amazing and Never Boring.

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By Shauna Hicks. Since 16 March I have been mostly at home except for food shopping and medical appointments. There has been some reading, cleaning, and gardening but mostly I have had the luxury of spending more time on my own family history. I have tidied up paper files, sorted and tried to identify family photographs, cleaned up computer files and directories, worked through DNA matches, undertaken some new research on various sites and completed some serious writing of stories … Continue reading

How do you pass on family stories to your grandchildren?

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My first grandchild was born last year and I spent six weeks with him a month after he was born.  He lives in Chicago so while I was there I spent some time thinking about how I could pass on some stories of his Australian family without just giving him a list of relatives with names and dates. One day during my visit, I was in the American Writers Centre on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, which had just opened, reading … Continue reading

Tracing your female ancestors.

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I have recently given talks at GSQ and Brisbane City Council libraries on “Finding Grandma – tracing the female line.” It can be a challenge to discover a female ancestor’s individual identity; in the 18th and 19th centuries women were generally recorded as “wife of …” or “daughter of …” in a wide range of records. Socially, this situation existed as recently as the Second World War. How many times when doing our research have we come across a baptism record, … Continue reading

The Who’s Who of my family tree

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The first Who’s Who was published in London (1849) as a handbook of titled classes, listing only names without biographical sketches. In 1899, the format changed to include a short biography and various versions of Who’s Who are now published around the world. Each version has a slightly different format but usually provides details about prominent living people with deceased notables listed in Who Was Who. Every family has notables – some have convicts while others have royalty – some are lucky … Continue reading