Family Tree Frog

Did you like doing jigsaw puzzles when you were a child?  I did.  I'm such a hoarder that I have even kept my favourites...I have very fond memories of a Mary Poppins jigsaw and I even have one of the Oriana , the ship we went overseas in when I was a baby.  That's the ship's prow you can see next to the passenger terminal at Circular Quay in that piece just above....if you turned the piece anti-clockwise you would see it better.... Well, I found another piece of my family history jigsaw puzzle last night - quite unexpectedly, whilst looking for something else...isn't it always the way?   You may remember, that this time last year, I was researching my maternal grandfather's working life - Thomas Joseph Benedict McLoughlin.  One of the "bits" that eluded me was what happened between school and his eventual employment at the Commonwealth Aircraft Factory in the 1940s.  Tom did very well at school and I've blogged about that before, fi...

I must say that it was very difficult to leave my accommodation every morning in Canberra.  I was just in love with University House.  It won the Sulman Award for Architectural Merit back in 1953.  I suspect it is heritage listed. The Queen size rooms are capacious.  The bathrooms have been updated except for the terrazo floors ... and there is a beautiful library....see... So I was very happy with my accommodation and there were lots of other people there doing conferency things too.  It was about a 20-30 minute walk to the Convention Centre which I needed and for which I was grateful, sitting on my bottom for the rest of the day.  And I got to see lots of lovely sculpture as I walked along. Sunday was full on at Congress and I might leave my account of that for another post when I'm not so tired.   Today was spent going to the National Archives, the Australian War Memorial and the Noel Butlin Archives . I didn...

RSL Museum Redcliffe It's been another busy week at work preparing for the WWI commemorations; working on digital presentations to go with physical display items.  This is a photo of one of the displays at the Redcliffe RSL Museum which is worth a visit. You can have a cup of coffee or lunch afterwards at The Point - which just opened recently; all very swish.  The photos on their website/Facebook page don't really do it justice.  Go and see it for yourself. Today I have been preparing to attend Congress next week and have just ordered some items to view in the National Archives Reading Room in Canberra. In the process I created a template for a form which I have called National Archives of Australia Advance Records Request.  It's for when you are requesting multiple items. Probably someone has already created this template but if you think you might use it in future you can download it here.   I've shared it on Dropbox.  I'm not the world's m...