NFHM Blogging Challenge - Week 1



Week 1 – Sunday 7 August 


August is National Family History Month in Australia and Australian Family and Local History bloggers thought it would be a great idea to have a - Blogging Challenge!  Everyone is welcome to join in, even if you don't live in Australia, we'd love to hear from you and hear your stories.

Census Night in Australia is 9 August this year and so we decided that Census stories should be our first week's theme. 

 The State Library of Queensland Census and Muster Records Info guide tells us that:


 "prior to 2001 it was Australian federal government policy to destroy all name-identified census returns for privacy reasons, and all returns between 1901 and 2001 have been destroyed."

You will notice if you look at the Card Catalog of Ancestry that there are a few census returns outside this time frame, but that between say 1902 and 1980, you will be relying on electoral records.  

Of course not everyone's ancestors were from Australia and we have been able to research census records from other countries.

What extraordinary things have you discovered about your family history in census records? Did you find your family where you expected them to be or were they in unexpected places and have you been able to work out why? What were households like in those days?  Were they very different from our own?  What has changed?

Share your stories with us on or around Sunday 7 August and link them using the Mr Linky widget below so we have one central place to read all the stories on this theme.



Comments

Anonymous said…
Hi Alex, great idea. I added my name in hope that it will get me doing some posts this month. Looks like I will be doing them on the Sunday night however it's better than no posts at all which has been my recent effort. Fran @ travelgenee.
Alex Daw said…
That's fantastic Fran. Great to have you on board!!
Hi Alex Managed to get Week 1 done and dusted. Haven't seen Mr Linky before, hope it makes it easier for you.
Alex Daw said…
Hoorah! Well done Shauna! What a great post too. Yes I will be ticking the box for my descendants.
GenieJen said…
Thanks for setting this up. My first attempt at doing 4 weekly posts. Fingers crossed I make the time to do it
tasteach said…
First post done for Family History Month. Census topic was a great idea!
GeniAus said…
Thanks for organising this Alex. Look forward to learning from other posts.
Janine & Steve said…
My link is to an old posting that I did LAST census, so I hope that I'm able to use it. It's not really about family history at all, but about the debates that swirled around the 1841 census
Alex Daw said…
Genie Jen - my absolute pleasure. Thanks for joining in.

Tasteach...well done you!

Geniaus - always a joy to see your happy face.

Janine - I can't wait to read your post.
Crissouli said…
All done, with a twist...
Thanks for co ordinating all this, Alex.
Maria said…
This is a great way to celebrate Family History Month. Thanks for organising us all, Alex!
Alex Daw said…
Thank you Chris and Maria for participating in the blogging challenge. It's lovely to see so many join in. I know that we are all so busy but I hope you got something out of posting today...even if you learned just one thing from all the blogs you read, it's got to be worth it, right?
Patsy Daly said…
Thank you for organising this challenge. I almost missed Week 1 as I finally found family that I had been searching for for many years. One week down. Three to go!
Alex Daw said…
Dear Patsy - that's great news to have found family that you have been looking for for so long. Yes, three weeks to go...can we do it? Yes, we can!
Alex Thanks for the prompt to revive a blog that was at risk of moving beyond simply "dormant". Now I need to finish actually Week 2 within Week 2. Small steps!
Anonymous said…
Hi Alex, I just had a thought. Other link parties I join usually have a number of bloggers with the list on their site. If you can figure it out and share the code I will add the list to the bottom of my posts. This means that if someone comes to my post they will see the others posts too. If you are too busy at work, etc, don't worry. Message me on Facebook if you need to discuss. Fran
Thanks for encouraging and motivating us during Family History Month.
HI Alex, It's been awhile since I posted anything on my blog so thanks for providing the motivating force. I love ready the entries of others who are participating gives me ideas for new approaches and topics. Thanks
Done! Thanks for keeping us on our toes :)
Jofeath said…
It's past Sunday but not past the Census date, so hopefully I'm not too late to post - and hopefully I won't spell anyone's names wrong when I fill out the vital details, unlike I just did here!
Anne Young said…
A bit late to the party - my excuse is I was working on the census. An interesting experience in itself. My role involved paper forms though and is now complete :) Interesting to see what I learned from the 1828 census. I found the ancestry.com blog post useful to explain the two versions of the 1828 census that they have. I have enjoyed everyone else's posts too :)

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