Category Archives: family histories

My coalmining ancestor Joseph Stirland (1816-1879)

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I have several ancestors named Joseph Stirland. This post concerns my 2 x great grandfather, son of William Stirland and Dinah Hofton. He was born into a coalmining family in June 1816 in Cotmanhay, Derbyshire and, like his father, became a coalminer. He was born at a time and place when men were transitioning from the increasingly mechanised industry of framework knitting to the rapidly developing coalmining industry. The Stirlands and related families were non-conformist and this perhaps explains why … Continue reading

Early migrants to South East Queensland

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As regular readers of this blog will be aware, I wasn’t born in Brisbane, let alone in Australia. At times, I do dip my toes into Australian records, however, and have gradually been picking up more knowledge. As well as my regular activities with GSQ, I also belong to a genealogy group that meets monthly. We take it in turns to set a challenge for the following month and some of these challenges have been awesome in opening our eyes … Continue reading

Writing my family story

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I entitled this post Writing my family story as that is what I’ve been doing over recent months. Regular readers may remember that around three years ago, I prepared a draft family history for my mum’s family. I gave this to her for her 90th birthday. At the time I knew what I had produced wasn’t particularly well-written, but didn’t have sufficient time or information to do a better job. My mum found the long list of citations/references rather daunting; the … Continue reading

Travel on my mind

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I sat down to start writing this blog post after the whirl of Christmas and Boxing Day was over. I’ve been thinking about the two trips I’m planning for this year: the AFFHO Congress in Sydney in March and the Unlock the Past Cruise to Alaska in September. My main activity over the past few weeks, however, has been to write up a family history for my dad’s ancestry, which has been somewhat on the backburner for several years. I wanted to … Continue reading

The places where we live usually impact on our lives

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Over the years, I have been gathering photos of places where I have lived as a means of documenting significant periods in my life. I can record changes in my life experiences as I’ve moved from my parents’ home to student accommodation to the rental market to private home ownership. I have also adopted this strategy in relation to as many of my ancestors as possible. Since the majority of these lived in England, I have relied greatly on online … Continue reading