History, genealogy, technology and everything in between

Ancestor Discovery Posted on by

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 →

Sometimes online isn’t always best

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We are often bombarded with advertisements for subscriptions to online genealogy services like Ancestry and Find My Past. These are wonderful programs and provide a wealth of information but as the old adage goes, Not everything is online. This was demonstrated to me quite recently. For 12 months, I have been helping two sisters try to find the birth or baptism date for their great grandfather who had emigrated to Australia in the early 1900s from Northern Ireland. There was … Continue reading →

Identifying faces in old photos

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You have discovered all of these wonderful photos of family groups but you are not sure who everybody is and how they may be related. There are some simple steps you can take which can make identification easier. Make a copy of the photo and write on it the names of those people you can identify.Try and identify the time period by looking at the clothes, the surrounding buildings etc. Using what you know already about the family, find out … Continue reading →