Accentuate the Positive Geneameme 2023

 

Every year, fabulous blogger and family historian Jill Ball on Geniaus issues a challenge to fellow bloggers to record the positive things that happened at the end of the year.  No matter how big or small the achievements, the emphasis is on the positive.  

 

Here are my responses for 2023's questions:

 

    1. On revisiting some old research I found ...

Hmmm….to be honest I had no time to revisit old research this year AT ALL.  Very disappointing.

 

    2. In 2023 I hooked up with a new (to me) living cousin ...

 

Thanks to my blog and also to testing my DNA with Ancestry (but mostly my blog), a new to me cousin contacted me in November.  I was so busy at first that I didn’t reply... so she contacted me a different way i.e. through my Ancestry account.  Bless her for persisting.  

 

Our great-grandmothers were sisters.  I think that makes us 2nd cousins once-removed.  

 

Christine lives in the UK and has been able to visit the area where my great-great-grandfather was born in 12 Artillery Lane which is now an American type diner called The Breakfast Club.  Funnily enough Christine came to Brisbane where I live before COVID and stayed in the same building where my father lives.  Talk about ships in the night.  Has that happened to you?  Where your cousins passed by very closely but you didn’t know?  I hope we can catch up in person one day.

    3. I'm pleased I replaced a tool I had been using with  ...

 

I’m not sure that I have been very adventurous in this regard.  I am still making the transition to Family Historian from Family Tree Maker but lack the time and practice to make it second nature.  I have been loving my new SOG Membership this year though.  A Xmas gift from my precious kids last year.

    4. My sledge hammer did great work on this brick wall ...

 

 No sledge hammer work this year.

    5. I was pleased that I finally read ... ...

 

Well I can’t say I’ve read all of it but I was delighted to find Wangalpoing to Mount Tamborine by Karen Rosser.  I read the first chapter and was delighted to find some stories about my husband’s ancestors on the Gold Coast which I hadn’t heard before.  Karen has kindly agreed to talk to our book club later in 2024 and I can’t wait to introduce her to everyone.  She is a star.

I also bought one of the “Born in ….” Series and whilst its not a great read, it certainly is interesting to see what the issues were in the year you were born and how times have changed…definitely for the better I feel.

I was pleased to obtain a copy of Earlwood’s Past by BJ Madden and Lesley Muir which gives a mavellous insight into where my father and his grandmother grew up.

I also purchased a copy of Anstey: Our True Surname Origin and Shared Medieval Ancestry by Mr Gary Mark Anstey and Mr Thomas John Anstey.  I look forward to seeing more from these authors. Anstey is one of my husband’s surnames.

Restless Dolly Maunder by Kate Grenville was a really good read particularly for those of us wrestling with how to weave a family history that is made up of imagined fact as well as official records.

Secrets beyond the Screen by Anita Jacoby was another outstanding family history that I just loved for so many reasons; it was very evocative of the time when I grew up and the industry in which I worked as well as taking me by surprise just when I thought I knew what was going on.  

     6. I enjoyed my geneajourney to ...

 

Hmmmm…. Not much travel this year I’m afraid.  I went down to Sydney and had a wonderful week’s holiday with a friend.  I insisted on showing her Parsley Bay where my grandmother grew up and she appreciated being shown a relatively hidden/secret part of the Eastern Suburbs which is just delightful.

 

 

In November, I visited the Sunshine Coast with my sister-in-law and we attempted to do a bit of a recce of a particular area where her grandfather’s foster parents lived but we need to go back after we have made contact with the local history society and or library and have a better idea of exactly where they lived.

 

    7. In 2022 I finally met ...

 

 My niece’s daughter !  Baby Lola and what a darling she is – just like her Mummy.

    8. I was the recipient of genearosity from ...

 

As the National Family History Month coordinator I was delighted that we were able to secure so much sponsorship for prizes this year from all our supporters.  

 

Personally I value the camaraderie of all who I work with virtually and physically in family history – all the lovely people at AFFHO and QFHS and my genea-blogging friends who were so generous in my hour of agony last month when I had a major blip.  

    9.  I am pleased that I am a member of ...

 

Society of Genealogists
Society of Australian Genealogists
Queensland Family History Society

    10. I made a new DNA discovery  ...

 

See question 2

    11.  An informative  journal or newspaper article I found was ...

 

 

Pass - although I would like to say that I found the following blog post very interesting
https://www.anglocelticconnections.ca/2023/10/16/the-financial-health-of-canadian-genealogical-societies-2022-update/

    12.  A newspaper archive (Trove?) helped me ...

 

When researching for a talk I delivered online at a SAG conference, Trove was very helpful in helping me build a picture of my husband's grandfather's foster family.

 

    13.  I enjoyed my wander around Southport Lawn cemetery

 

Our much loved Aunt Alice died earlier this year and it was comforting to see her buried near her husband and much loved brother and sister-in-law.

    14. AI was a mystery to me but I learnt  ...

 

so much at the National Family History Month Opening Ceremony where we were lucky enough to hear from Professor Hamish Maxwell-Stewart and Andrew Redfern about how they are using AI in their family history/historical endeavours.

    15. The best value I got for my genealogy dollars was ... 

 

 My QFHS membership of course!  Though Legacy Tree Webinars comes a close second.

    16.  It felt good to contribute to  ...

 

 I was very pleased to be part of SAG’s one day conference in August entitled The Australian Welfare Experience.  I presented a short paper on my husband’s grandparents and my grandparents experience of the welfare system as foster/orphanage children. https://sag.org.au/resources/PROGRAM%20In%20Search%20of%20The%20Australian%20Welfare%20Experience.pdf

    17. It was wonderful to catch up with genimates ...

 

I was pleased to be able to meet with Ruth Graham while I was in Sydney on holiday.  She was very generous with her time as were all the folk I met at the SAG library.  Very special people indeed.  

 

I also really enjoyed our social gatherings as part of QFHS Members Lounge, particularly the excursion to Miegunyah.

 

 

    18. I wouldn't be without this technology ...

 

Zoom of course!  It has helped decrease barriers for all of us no matter what our situation – whether we live a long way away, whether we are unwell or caring for a family member at home or whether we are time-poor like me.  It has its drawbacks of course but its positives outweigh its negatives.

 

    19. I wrote ...

 

 Lots of emails!!! 999 from my personal email inbox and 1137 from my QFHS email account.

     20. I got a thrill from opening someone's eyes to the joy of genealogy ...

 

We have been fortunate enough to host some students on work experience at QFHS this year - a school student and a University student.  While I didn’t really need to open their eyes to the joys of genealogy as they were already pretty hooked, I was delighted to share the learning journey with them.  We are always learning – no matter how ancient we are and that was good for them to see that too.

    21. Another positive I would like to share is ...

 

It was a very busy year for QFHS.  We developed a new program  called The Members Lounge and I hosted/delivered the following sessions: five bookclub sessions, four social get-togethers, one family history toolkit session, six What’s New sessions and three guest speaker Presenting sessions.  For National Family History month I also presented a blogging session at North Lakes library in July.

 

 

Why don't you join in the challenge too and respond to Jill's questions? My thanks to Jill for giving us an opportunity to reflect on our work and share the good stuff that's happened over the year.