Category Archives: family pictures

Christmas memories from near and wide

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This week’s blog consists of short memories of Christmas celebrations in countries around the world. It seems we all grew up with fond, but sometimes very different memories, so I hope these stories evoke lovely flashbacks from your own youth. Christmas Memories in Washington, USA. By Cyndi Ingle, CyndisList.com and The Genealogy Squad Christmas was always special for me as a child. My mom and dad always made it so. I believe my love of genealogy started when I was … Continue reading

What Ignites the Spark in the Storytelling Process?

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By Victoria MacGregor. Since the late 1980s, when my mother gave me a detailed family tree document, I’ve lingered around the perimeter of getting into family tree research. It recorded the names, birth and death dates of her father’s side of the family. Mostly his distant cousins. I pulled that old, faded Xerox chart out the day after I finished my fourth 1500-piece jigsaw puzzle about three weeks into Covid19 lock down in 2020 and was struck by the fact … Continue reading

What about you?

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                As family historians, we avidly search for details about our ancestors from records about their births, deaths and marriages, immigration documents, electoral rolls and census records etc, and then pad out the details of their lives using various other documents and newspaper articles. If we’re lucky there will be family tales passed down through the generations or someone may even have a collection of photos that they are willing to share. Hopefully … Continue reading

Ann Ferguson LAIRD – Does the Photo tell the Story?

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By Margaret Doherty. After researching my family history for about twenty years, I was given a photo of my great great grandmother, Ann Ferguson Laird. Seeing her image made me feel closer to the person, who, along with her first husband, James Porter, took the giant step to move their family to the colony of New South Wales in 1849. Ann’s photo shows a stern woman with thin lips. She is wearing a black bonnet with the image softened by … Continue reading

Rose and the Frenchman.

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By Sharyn Merkley. Among the many fascinating stories often repeated by my Great Grandmother Rose, was the one about our French ancestry. According to Rose, her mother, Elizabeth Foulger, descended from De Fouriers who had escaped the French Revolution. A mysterious Frenchman had once remarked on Rose’s similarity to someone he knew well, and she had a photograph to prove it! So, she must be French? Right? As a child, I accepted the story until I figured out that the … Continue reading