Researching at The National Archives (UK)

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I can still remember my first visit to The National Archives (TNA) many years ago.  That visit proved to be quite daunting I had to work out the process for ordering and viewing records. I am much more familiar with it now but still find that I need to re-orient myself on each visit. The Discovery catalogue is excellent once you understand how the hierarchy works. The first thing you must have is a Readers Ticket, commonly required by most … Continue reading →

Church congregational records

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I have spent the last few days researching in the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) in Belfast, Northern Ireland. This is a small archive but is one of the best that I have visited over many, many years of family history research – staff are always helpful, the building is well designed with the collection area a short walk from the main research area. Each time I visit PRONI, I find that new records have been digitised and … Continue reading →

RootsTech London – what did I think?

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So what did I think of the first RootsTech I have attended and the first at which I have presented? While I am sure that my experience in the USA in 2020 will be different this is my take on the London event. The program Overall, I thought that the program was generally good.  If you were researching ancestors in Great Britain, there were certainly plenty of presentations of interest but there were also excellent ones on Dutch, French and … Continue reading →

History, genealogy, technology and everything in between

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I went to a small one teacher school in north Queensland for my primary schooling. The school had about 12-14 students at various times, usually more during the milling season of June-December as seasonal workers came into the area to cut the sugar cane – there were no mechanical harvesters at this time. Even though it was a small school in a very rural area 40km from the nearest city (no electricity until I was 12), it had great learning … Continue reading →

Separating fact from fiction

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We all know how this goes.  Someone in the family will insist that an ancestor was a Russian princess or walked from Sydney to Brisbane or jumped ship and changed their name or was the illegitimate son of royalty.  The initial reaction from many of us is to dismiss these claims and discard them as possible clues.  In many instances, this is probably the correct option but I have this niggling suspicion that in each over-the-top story, there is a … Continue reading →

Speaking at RootsTech London

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I am thrilled to have been selected as a speaker at RootsTech London in October, 2019.  I am looking forward to meeting family historians from across the world at this wonderful event.  My session is at 9am on Saturday morning, the 26 October, and I am speaking about ways and means of locating British ancestral records in India.  My grandfather and his two siblings were born there in the 1860s, to a Scottish father and a mother who was born … Continue reading →