Family Tree Frog

It's my favourite time of the year when I get to reflect back on what I've done over the past 12 months - in a good or positive way - thanks to geneabuddy GeniAus. Wanna join me?  Copy and paste the relevant items below and then email Jill or comment on her blog post here to let her know you're participating too. So here goes me.... Accentuate the Positive ! (Please delete the items that are not relevant to your situation.) 1.  An elusive ancestor I found was barp on this one I'm afraid.  Who are my elusive ancestors?  Well I guess Margaret Jones from Caernarvonshire, Wales (can I actually find her and her family in Wales?) and Robert Forfar from St Ninian's, Stirling, Scotland (where did he die?).  On my husband's side of the family we would be delighted if we could find the burial place for Robert James Daw born in Brisbane in 1873.  I suspect we will never find him as he was on the run from the law.  Last heard of at Augathella.  I am reading ...

  It's Folio Friday and time to share what books we've been reading. I have so many books on the go at the moment, it is embarrassing.  A couple of Inter-Library loans too which I really need to get on with reading. This week's book review is about an Australian book (at last) called The Other Side of Absence by Betty O'Neill published this year by Impact Press, an imprint of Ventura Press. One of the themes that run through both my family history and that of my husband's family history is that of abandonment: children being abandoned by their parents in orphanages or foster homes or similar.  I have often wondered about the psychological damage that is passed down from generation to generation as a result and or the social outcomes for the children.  If I had the intestinal fortitude for undertaking any more university study, this is the area to which I would devote a thesis.  Betty O'Neill has taken on this subject and dealt with it most engagingly and sensit...

Picture by Enrique Mesequer from Pixabay I don't know about you, but sometimes I forget to take my own advice.  I am now looking after my family history society's Facebook page and lots of interesting information gets passed on to me to share with our members.  I'm so busy posting, I forget to follow up some of the leads myself! This week Find My Past released more records, one of which leapt out at me; namely Devon Burials .  My husband's ancestors come from Devon: the Daws, the Ansteys, the Ellises and the Chambers. That's the surnames.  What about the Christian names and places? ANSTEY Elizabeth - Bradninch, mother of Mary Anstey (1796-?) - nothing leaping out in terms of results Mary - Bradninch  (1822-1868) married Thomas DAW Snr (113 results for Mary DAW none in Bradninch) - can't find any results that look like her. Thomas - Hockworthy (1787-?)  CHAMBERS Mary - mother of Mary Bray Ellis - here is where I went off the track.....I find a Mary Ellis wh...

Goodrington Sands, Devon by Julian Walker on Flickr Good Intentions How has your day been? I've been doing a bit of tidying up. It was not my intention to do any research today.  It was my intention to work on my Family History software program and a bit of filing.  Surname and Chapman Code Lists But I ended up trying to clean my overflowing email inbox.  And that led to me realising that while I had submitted my surname interests to my family history society years and years ago, I hadn't re-submitted them to put on the Society's website.  So I started to fill out the forms which led me to realise that there was one particular ancestor on my husband's family tree for whom we lacked biographical info; namely where she was born. Namely Mary Bary Daw nee Ellis. Search Again! Now I am sure that I have tried to research her before but you know the old adage, go back and check those pesky databases again because new information may have been added.  So that is exactl...

  Spring Has Sprung! Have you been spring cleaning?  No, neither have I.  I keep meaning to, but I always find something else to do.  Well, I have been a little bit.  I've changed the wardrobe around from Winter to Summer.  And I swept out the workshop.  And I've done some potting of plants. But most importantly of all, I've been spring cleaning my blog.  When was the last time you lifted the bonnet on yours?  How's it looking? Blogging Workshop Good genea-buddy Pauleen and I will be delivering a blogging workshop together in the not too distant future.  It's a sequel to one I ran a couple of years ago for QFHS.  We're going to get into the nitty-gritty of how to set up a blog on Blogger and WordPress. Tell your friends if they've been thinking of setting one up but have been prevaricating. Those of you who blog regularly will know that Blogger and Word Press have been improving their platforms.  This usually means pain for t...

  Perhaps you have heard about this already but just in case not, I would hate for you to miss out….Legacy is celebrating their 10 th Anniversary by making their top 10 webinars available this week for you to view for free, if you are not already a member.   They are also offering discounted memberships to new webinar memberships.   They really are fantastic discounts.    Legacy really has a lot to be proud of: 1,000 webinars, a fabulous tech zone, over 280 instructors from all over the world.   Such great value.   Annual membership is normally $49.95US but is now being offered for $29.97US but that’s until 16 th Sept (US time) only then it reduces to 35% off and so on. So get in quick. Where do you get these great savings? Click on here.

  Fathers and daughters, mothers and daughters: yes, we have reached letter D in our alphabetical trawl through the theme images. Our theme photo features the American businessman and art collector, Solomon Guggenheim and his daughter, Barbara Josephine Guggenheim. For your Sepia Saturday post, you can follow the daughters, follow the "D's", or - as always - do whatever you choose. All we need is an old photo and a few words. A short post from me today as time is of the essence and I must get going. Goodness! It wasn't until I published the photo on Blogger that I saw all those scratches so I've had a go at blotting them out with the spot fix tool in my photo editing program. Better? A bit better I think.  All I can see is my beautiful mother's elegant hands and her pleased as punch father, Thomas McLoughlin.  This was taken in 1960.  Thomas would have been nearly 62 years old at the time - a month shy of his birthday. I think the photo was taken in the front ...

  Change of theme tonight.  Sorry if you were looking forward to Folio Friday.  I confess I haven't finished any of the books I had hoped to read so....I give to you a couple of my mother's favourite recipes.  I am pretty confident that she didn't invent them.  They were just favourites.  I suspect they came from magazines. Please if you know their source, let me know so I can acknowledge them. Hmmm...must put this in the menu plan next week. Have you got a favourite family recipe?

  Views of Sydney and the Hawkesbury River Bridge, New South Wale s. Jim Davidson Australian postcard collection, 1880-1980. I'm really scratching around for something to write today. So I thought I would transcribe some of my mother's memories.   I just have these fragments here and there, written on paper, not in any particular order, so here goes... My mother's twin sister lived in Newcastle.  They were very close & not tolerant of being separated for long.  Consequently, there were many trips to & fro between Sydney & Newcastle from my earliest recollections. The train, was, of course, exciting, but it became a very familiar environment. The carriages must have been all wooden in those days. Some were better than others. The box carriage was to be avoided, with no connecting corridor in which one could stretch one's legs during what appeared to be very long periods of sitting still in sometimes crowded conditions of wartime.  There seemed al...

  A quick one today.  Found these in one of my mother's old files the other day - our wedding invitation and the order of service.  Getting a bit mildewy now...eek! That's what comes of living in a humid environment. 30 years ago yesterday.  Time flies when you're having fun !

  Free and Sustainable Resources! I hope by now that you have learned you can save yourself some money by borrowing magazines from your local library rather than buying them from the newsagent.  Yes, there are times I can't resist buying one but the reality is that once I've looked at it, I probably never look at it again.  It's much better for the environment don't you think to borrow it from the library?   If you are a bit squeamish in these times of COVID about touching something other people have touched (despite our lovely libraries putting items into quarantine for at least three days) then don't forget that you can borrow magazines electronically and read them on RBD Digital or whatever app your library recommends on your device or for your desktop or laptop. This is what I learned from the two magazines I borrowed this week for example. Family Tree   In August's issue of Family Tree , there are a stack of articles designed to keep you busy and info...

  How to solve a mystery Well first up, I've got to assure you that really I have no idea how to solve this mystery so I am just going to steadily chip away at it and encourage you to chime in if you have any suggestions.  Those of you who have read my blog lately will know that I have in my possession some very old letters from a father to his son; namely A.C. Keep to Henry F Keep in 1883.  I would like to try and work out why they came into my maternal grandfather's possession. The importance of timelines Tonight, I am trying an experiment which is creating a comparative timeline of Henry F Keep, Walter William Forfar and Kate Amelia Ellis.  The two latter individuals were my maternal great-grandparents i.e. Kit McLoughlin (nee Forfar's) parents.  This is what I have created so far.   Henry F Keep Walter W Forfar Kate Amelia Ellis 1863 Henry b. 27 January     ...