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 ...

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...

At the beginning of the month I suggested that we spring clean or "pimp" our family history blogs. I tidied my blog up - design-wise - and am much happier with the look.  The font is bigger.  The background is light.  I think it looks much cleaner.  I hope it is much easier to read. I've been looking at my stats and created a score card  to analyse my top three blog posts of all time. I used Hemingway App and Wordle as tools for analysis.  My score card and analysis tool is here .  Please use it to analyse your family history posts if you think it's useful. My top scoring blog post in Google Terms and number of page-views was this one.    This post scored 2767 page views.   My headline was 11 words long. The optimal length is 6 words according to this author .  The post had only one picture and was 776 words long.  The optimal words length for a post according to Kevan Lee is 1600 words and according to this post ...

About this time last year, I suggested we all "Pimp" our blogs. Pimp is the kind of phrase guaranteed to make my mother spin in her grave and borrowed from my "may-as-well-be son-in-law", Dan, who is mad about cars. Pimp means to kit out, glam up or decorate your car the way you really want it to look.  Of course the term "pimp" has other less salubrious connotations which we will steadfastly ignore for the purposes of this post. For those of us in the southern hemisphere, the 1st of September means spring has sprung.  The jasmine is out in my backyard and the weather is warmer. The doona hasn't come off the bed yet but it won't be long before Summer is here. This week, I borrowed a book from my local library by Robin Houghton called The Golden Rules of Blogging: The Do's and Don'ts every Blogger Needs to Know .   I reviewed it on goodreads  as follows: This is a beautifully designed little book. Short and easy to read, it presen...

Standing Figure by Ante Dabro at University House I promised to write a wrap-up post of my experience of Sunday's talks at the 14th Australasian Congress on Genealogy and Heraldry  in Canberra so here goes.. SUNDAY 29 MARCH Keynote Address: Meeting people at war: writing war on the home front - Michael McKernan Michael McKernan - photo courtesy of  Allen and Unwin I was really interested in listening to this talk mostly because I've been busting a gut (to use an impolite phrase) creating PowerPoint presentations for our library service to commemorate the lives of the soldiers from the region who enlisted in the Great War.  The PowerPoints are just part of the displays we have in each library and they include display cases filled with artefacts from local RSLs and museums and some A2 sized themed posters. Foyer Caboolture Library with WWI Displays WWI Display Caboolture Library Burpengary Library posters These photos give you a ...

What a lovely surprise!  Sharon from Strong Foundations nominated me for the One Lovely Blog Award.  I'm pretty sure I "met" Sharon and her lovely blog through participating in the Sepia Saturday meme.  Sharon shares my love of Family History and finding fabulous articles on Trove.   Thanks Sharon! Here are the Rules for the "One Lovely Blog Award": Thank the person who nominated you and link to that blog Share Seven things about yourself - refer below Nominate 15 bloggers you admire (or as many as you can think of!) - also listed below Contact your bloggers to let them know that you've tagged them for the One Lovely Blog Award Seven things about me: Alex reading a little book in Edinburgh - as you do. I'm an only child (can you tell????) I love words and finding new words.  My husband Robert and I joke that we only buy The Guardian to do the Quick Crossword and the Sudoku. He does the Sudoku and we share the Crossword.  I...

Today's blogging prompt comes from the fabulous  Thomas MacEntee's GeneaBloggers Daily Blogging Prompts. I follow nearly 300 blogs - not all of them Family History ones, mind.   Some of them are about knitting , quilting , sewing , retro-cooking and  books ....all my favourite things in life.   So how can I choose just one or two to recommend to you? Well a few stood out for me this week. In no particular order of merit... here they are: Number 1 The Pharos Blog I love Pharos Tutors.  I've completed a couple of short genealogy courses with them online and have been very happy with the quality of teaching and delivery.  I was really pleased to see them venture into blogland.  It's not easy writing a blog, particularly from a professional or academic point of view and they have grasped the bull by the horns and contributed a thoughtful, reflective voice to our world.   This week's post reminds us of the wealth o...

Lovely Jill of Geniaus dreamt up a geneameme for all of us Geneabloggers - particularly because it is National Family History Month here in Australia. She asks a few questions and here are my answers: What are the titles and URLs of your genealogy blog/s? Family Tree Frog   Baiting the Hooks by  MattieB on Flickr Do you have a wonderful "Cousin Bait" blog story? A link to a previous blog post might answer this question.  I wish I could say "Yes" but not through my blog so far.  At least not to my knowledge.  One cousin found a letter from my mother left at the sexton's office at Rookwood Cemetery in connection with her parent's grave.  That cousin bait worked well.  I think other cousins have found me through Ancestry and other websites, now defunct I think, like First Families and Rootsweb. Why did you start blogging? Is there someone who inspired you to start blogging? I was a bit hesitant about blogging at first.  I h...