What colour is your elephant? A family history is like an elephant – huge and impossible to digest in one piece. One way of reducing the writing task to a manageable level is to consider it a compilation of smaller parts or chapters rather than as a whole. Also you don’t have to do everything in one sitting – pick one part at a time. It helps to set aside a regular time for writing – no phone calls, social … Continue reading
Membership of GSQs Writing Group has changed over the years, so for the benefit of new members, we have started to revisit some basics, which we originally covered in early meetings. One basic is the creation of a style sheet, which is extremely useful in ensuring your finished work is consistent in terms of spelling, style and many other issues. This is particularly the case if material is incorporated from various sources, especially the internet. Current word processing packages, such … Continue reading
A couple of months ago I posted information about the In Time and Place conference being held at Riverglenn at Indooroopilly in Brisbane’s west on 3 and 4 October. This conference, Queensland’s first local, family and social history conference, was a joint venture for History Queensland, Genealogical Society of Queensland, and Queensland Family History Society. The program was divided into two streams: Family History and Local History. Overall, the presentations were excellent and many demonstrated clearly the nexus between family and local … Continue reading
There have been two deaths in my family this month and, as well as making me almost forget to write something for you, it got me thinking. One of the people to have passed was my mother’s aunt. I was fortunate enough to have visited her when I was in Melbourne in January, and after I learned of her passing, it made me want to sit down and write the stories she told me then (from the notes I made), … Continue reading
Wikipedia offers the following explanation of the saying ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’: it “refers to the notion that a complex idea can be conveyed with just a single still image, or that an image of a subject conveys its meaning/essence more effectively than a description does. It also aptly characterizes one of the main goals of visualization, namely making it possible to absorb large amounts of data quickly.” I was reminded of this adage on my recent visit to … Continue reading
