Family Tree Frog

    Eye colour Have you ever thought about the eye colour you've inherited?  Robert and I were discussing this the other day.  Where did we get our blue eyes from?  I think I got them from my Dad on the Conner side (English).  My mother had hazel eyes.  After meeting the McLoughlins (Irish) a few years ago, I realise I could have got my blue eyes from them too.  And a bit of research into military records shows the Forfars (Scottish) and Carretts (English) could be candidates too.   Robert thinks he got his blue eyes from his paternal grandmother.  She was a HINDE (English) but her father was a DUNCAN (Scottish) so maybe it's from that side.  Robert's eyes are a pale blue which you can see in my daughter Isabel's eyes.  My eyes are a darker blue which my son inherited from me. I remember both my maternal grandfather Tom and my paternal grandmother Ethel had brown eyes.  I didn't meet the other two grandparents and am ...

Chances are, if you are a family historian, you might also be a bit of a hoarder.  The first tooth, the first shoes, jewelry, retirement gifts, christening gowns, communion certificates, ration books, tapestries and home movies.  You name it. I've got it. Have I mentioned I live in a sub-tropical climate?   Being the keeper of family stories, I know that my aunt's home went up in flames in the early 60s and that my parents lost many of their wedding gifts.  They were living overseas at the time and much of their stuff was "in storage" at Hazel's place.  Australia is famous for its fires....and its floods.  Post-tropical cyclone Debbie made a bit of an impact on the Queensland coast recently in case you missed the news.   How do we protect our keepsakes and preserve them for future generations?   Shauna Hicks recently published for the Unlock the Past series a booklet called Y our Family History Archives: a brief introduction. You migh...

Images.  They are so important to family history and half my fun on this blog at least is trying to decipher old family photos.  Of course I need to look after them too.  I fear I am not doing a good job of this at the moment but will be vastly aided by having recently won a beautiful Albox Archival Album.  Thank you Gould Genealogy and History.  But I digress. Books that have helped me enormously in the deciphering and curation of family photos are: Dating Family Photos 1850-1920 by Lenore Frost - published in Victoria in 1991 the first part of the books looks at dating by type of photo and the second part dating by costume with sections broken into men, women, children, weddings, riding habits, working clothes and mourning clothes.  There is an excellent glossary (what is a paletot?) and bibliography.  This book is out of print now but you may be able to pick up a 2nd hand copy somewhere. The Mechanical Eye - A History of Australian Phot...

We're just a bit excited because we've just discovered that Family Tree Frog has been selected for preservation in the Pandora - Australia's Web Archives. A big thank you to State Library of Queensland for recognising us. You can check out other Family History blogs that have been preserved here.    This resonates even more strongly with me as I am studying Digital Preservation at the moment. GSQ have a busy month ahead of them as they are re-locating their premises to Wishart.  The library will be closed from 3pm tomorrow and will remain closed during November. All the best with the move folks. Here's the calendar for the rest of the week.  Enjoy!

Just a quick one today. As a librarian, I am a member of a professional association called ALIA .   One of the benefits of membership is a monthly professional development newsletter which alerts me to all sorts of opportunities to increase my learning. Of course, I am not allowed to rebroadcast that newsletter in part or full but I did want to share with you one of the finds in this month's newsletter and acknowledge how I found out about it. Thanks ALIA.  Well worth the membership :)  And, of course, I encourage you to join if you are working in libraries and information in Australia and are not a member already. The find is a You Tube video from the Museum of Australia which is about caring for your photographic collection.  It's not short being an hour in duration...but if you feel like a virtual visit to the Museum in Canberra and learning about their photographic collection, different types of photographs, digitisation of photographic material and pic...

Week 7 – Historical Documents : Which historical document in your possession are you happy to have? How did you acquire this item? What does it reveal about your ancestors? I’m a bit bamboozled by this challenge in that I don’t think I have any historical documents really.  Original ones that is....I have lots of copies of historical documents. Perhaps we need to define historical document…I’m assuming we are talking about a primary source.  My History teacher in High School Rowena Danziger hammered in the importance of primary sources as opposed to secondary sources.  My rather ham-fisted attempt to explain the difference is that a primary source would be one written at the time by someone with first hand knowledge of the event.  I guess we’re talking diaries and letters. But wait….I do have some….my mother’s letters.  And I am happy to have them.  They are a mix of handwritten and typed letters dating back to 1983.  She w...