Family Tree Frog

It is now day mutter mutter mumble of the 30 x 30 minutes of the family history challenge created by Janine Adams , I confess to not doing any yesterday, but believe me, I have done more than 30 minutes on other days, so I'm not too worried about it. Check out this stack of books I borrowed from the State Library of Queensland .  Yes, you heard correctly - borrowed.  Who knew you could borrow books from SLQ?  Not this little black duck.  I knew you could do Interlibrary Loans or whatever they're called, but borrowing directly from the library... well, how fabulous is that?  Of course, there are some requirements that you can check out here. As I've mentioned in recent blog posts, I am currently undertaking a short course with Pharos Tutors , titled ' Education and Childhood 1820-1920 '.  I was also lucky enough to be able to borrow this book from my local city council library... So many books to read...so little time. This looks like a particularly intere...

  Alex on the Family History Scavenger Hunt Sometimes it's a long and winding road - the good old family history trail.  Today I had to leave my family history organisation and research to the end of the day, as I was busy looking after my grandson.   Most of the day was spent taking part in a Family Fun Day at the Environmental Hut down the road from us.  We did a scavenger hunt/bingo type activity where we looked for all sorts of things - prickly, rough, smooth, dead, bendy sticks etc. Then we had storytime about famous environmentalists, diminishing species (e.g. the Christmas beetle ) and the sounds of the bush, followed by craft activities preparing for Christmas.  Hopefully, the walk to and from home burned off the scones generously provided by the hosts :) But back to family history.   Janine Adams  from  Organize Your Family History  challenges  genealogists  to do this regularly, and boy do I need this!  Basi...

  [School children] [picture] / European & Australian Photographic Company  [ca. 1855 -ca .1875]  John Etkins collection State Library of Victoria Janine Adams  from  Organize Your Family History  challenges genealogists to do this regularly, and boy do I need this!  Basically - to quote Janine -  you commit to doing 30 minutes of  genealogy research /organizing/whatever for 30 days in a row (i.e. the month of November). The “rules” of this challenge are very fluid. For example, you could decide that, for you, 30 minutes daily translates into 15 hours of activity over the course of the month.  I am in the process of downloading photos taken on my mobile phone at the State Library of Victoria a couple of weeks ago while doing some family history research into my Ellis ancestors.  George and Isabella Ellis taught at country schools in Victoria, Australia from 1868-1881. Yesterday I spent my 30 minutes reading about the history ...

Darkmoon-Art by Dorothe Wouters - https://darkmoon-art.de   Day 2 of my 30 x 30 challenge where I try to do 30 minutes of family history a day.  Yesterday was - to quote my grandson - THE BEST DAY EVER!  He attended orientation for his new school and Bel bought his uniform.  VERY EXCITING. I forgot to mention yesterday that I have signed up for a course this month with Pharos tutors - the course is called Education and Childhood 1820-1920 , and I'm so looking forward to it. It's being taught by Linda Newey .   My goals for today are to print out the rest of the photos I took at the State Library of Victoria last week so I can assemble more fabulous data for my ancestors' biographies.  I'm talking about the Ellis/Sinclair line on my mother's side of the family. I've done 30 minutes of learning Spanish this morning to keep my brain sharp.  Having studied French, Italian and Latin in my youth, I'm finding Spanish a bit of a breeze.  I love le...

Ashcombe gardens and maze Janine Adams from Organize Your Family History  challenges genealogists to do this regularly, and boy do I need this!  Basically - to quote Janine -  you commit to doing 30 minutes of genealogy research /organizing/whatever for 30 days in a row (i.e. the month of November). The “rules” of this challenge are very fluid. For example, you could decide that, for you, 30 minutes daily translates into 15 hours of activity over the course of the month.  So I'm going to try and do this for the next 30 days.  Wish me luck! What am I going to do? Well for a start - organize all the photos I took in Melbourne last month. What photos? Let's step back a bit and I will put this in context.   Last month, I finally made it to Melbourne - something I'd been planning all year. I had to postpone it once - originally scheduled for May, but all my nearest and dearest in Melbourne were going overseas then so we rescheduled to October. My primary ...

Amy Johnson Crow offers the following prompt for bloggers who are participating in 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. This week’s theme is “In the Beginning.” (According to “The Sound of Music,” the beginning is a very good place to start.) Who was the first person you wanted to find when you started your genealogy journey? Was there a family member who sparked your interest, maybe by giving you a bunch of genealogy “stuff”? This would be a great week to write about them! Some people think family history is my life.  Perhaps they're not far off the mark. Although bridge, my grandson, reading, sewing and spending time with dear friends compete heavily for my attention too.  This week's prompt has made me think about who was there at the beginning of my family history journey? Three women were very supportive of my early efforts in family history research - my mother, my mother-in-law and her sister-in-law.   Barbara, Isabel, Alex and Caspar I became aware of family history in my t...