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
Do you have favourite resources/internet sites that you go to for your research? Do you limit yourself to these or do you actively seek out new ones? Some ways in which I try to expand my knowledge are to offer, and attend, education courses and conferences; investigate websites highlighted or recommended in magazines or by other researchers; and write this regular blog. How do these help me to learn more? Presenting an education course or writing a blog post puts … Continue reading
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
By Bob McAllister. The way in which you justify your conclusions concerning a branch of your family tree has much in common with a formalmathematical proof. Each one depends upon assembling demonstrated (and defensible) facts and then proceeding from them via a path of inexorable logic to an inevitable conclusion. But they share far more than that. Both a genealogical argument and a mathematical proof are deliberately structured to obscure the false starts, blind alleys and mistaken identifications that make … Continue reading
One of the first things I learnt about my great-great-grandfather, John Kennedy Donald, was that he came to Ipswich in Queensland as the first traffic manager on the Southern and Western Railway. I soon discovered that he arrived on the Commodore Perry, which anchored in Moreton Bay on 30 June 1865 after 100 days sailing from London. His family followed in two groups; first, daughters Mary Morrison and Eliza Donald and granddaughter Mary Morrison, whom J Kennedy met in Brisbane … Continue reading
