Family Tree Frog

  Welcome to my first post for the A-Z Challenge! My theme for the month of April will be Family History Societies.  What does it take to run one?  What do they do?  Who is in a Society and why? What kind of societies are there?  Are Societies relevant in this day and age?   What is the A-Z blogging challenge? Well you can find out more about it here. Basically you pick a theme or meme and blog about it for 26 days in April, the idea being you can have every Sunday off to recover :)  There are all sorts of blogs out there - history, books, health, musing, genealogy.  You name it, there's a blog about the topic you're interested in.   My blog here is about family history and genealogy and there's a few of us in blogland who will be participating, including some of my genea-buddies blogging about anything from the Australian Joint Copying Project to whether oral histories can be trusted sources of information.  All good fun....

Or words to that effect. There has been a bit of debate in the geneablogging community about whether our blogging days are over. Julie Cahill Tarr's post here got the debate going, although James Tanner says he has raised this issue before and been howled down.  Thomas MacEntee announced recently that he's changing the way he's doing business on Geneabloggers.com . For the affirmative, Amy Johnson Crow has weighed in and said it's not dead it's just different.  And the lovely Alona Tester has identified the pros and cons of Blogging versus the suggested villain of the piece Facebooking. It's a very interesting and important debate and I don't begin to pretend to know the answer. What I will say is that 25 people turned up to attend a QFHS seminar this morning where we talked about how blogging your family history can maximise your research and why you might consider doing it.  The social media landscape is a crowded one and it will pro...

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 we...

It's National Family History Month next month and there's all sorts of fabulous events on around the country.   260 so far and no doubt more will be added in this last week.  The members of the Australian Local and Family History Bloggers Group on Facebook agree that a blogging challenge would be a good idea during the month of August and here are the proposed themes: Week 1 - Sunday 7 August - 9 August is Census Night in Australia.  What extraordinary things have you discovered about your ancestors in census records? Week 2 - Sunday 14 August - Blogger Anne Young reminds us that 16 August 1891 was the date the Shearers' Strike Monument was dedicated. This week why don't you honour your working ancestors and the challenges they faced in their occupations. Week 3 - Sunday 21 August - Significant military battles are commemorated during the month of August such as Mouquet Farm in WWI and Milne Bay in WW2.  The Australian Comforts Fund was also founded in...

Brisbane City Hall - Museum of Brisbane This is the way National Family History Month ends This is the way National Family History Month ends This is the way National Family History Month ends Not with a whimper but a bang! (with apologies to TS Eliot) Today was one of those days that just happened to turn out for the best.  Just as well really because I was a bit low last night.   I was a bit low because Robbie and I have really been suffering a dreadful bout of the flu this week.  Last night I was meant to go to a concert with my kids but was still a bit too "not chipper" to be standing in a mosh pit dancing to my favourite band - yes, tragic at my age I know, but there you go.   Anyway, so I was a bit sorry for myself last night but determined to turn it around today.  And today was the last day of August.  The last day of National Family History Month in Australia.  Next weekend is Father's Day in Oz but we decided...

From the Library of Congress Pauline Frederick's Potiphar's Wife National Family History Month got off to a great start on Saturday in Queensland with the QFHS ' latest seminar at the Queensland Baptist Conference Centre.  It was called  Fortune and Misfortune: Parish Chest, Poor Law and Bankruptcy. Over 40 hardy family historians decided to forgo the beautiful Queensland winter sunshine and participate in this very worthwhile educational exercise.  I took notes using Evernote on my iPad.  I'm not going to give you a blow-by-blow account of each of the speaker's talks because that would discourage you from going along to QFHS talks.  What I shall do, instead, is attempt to give you a taste of what  was covered to encourage you to attend in future.   The three speakers each undertook a different facet of the subject matter. The first speaker, Bev Bonning, introduced us to the delights of the Parish Chest and all the treasu...

Thomas MacEntee says : To participate in Follow Friday ,  simply create a post in which you recommend another genealogy blogger, a specific blog post, a genealogy website or a genealogy resource.  Tell us why they are important to the genealogy community and why we should follow. A special thanks to Earline Bradt of Ancestral Notes for suggesting Follow Friday as a daily blogging theme! This week I want to encourage you to follow the lovely Shauna Hicks.    Shauna has put in a powerload of voluntary work into National Family HIstory Month  on behalf of AFFHO  or the Australian Federation of Family History Organisations.  August is National Family History Month in Australia.  Each year Shauna comes up with a list of activities for individuals to consider pursuing during National Family History Month.  I've started ticking my list off and entered the competition today.   Don't worry - you don't have to do anything too ...