The “When I Was Young” Geneameme...

Like it or not, life today is a whole lot different from when we grew up. And as genealogists and family historians, we are mindful of recording our own history, yet so often it doesn’t happen, and sits in the “I must do that” list. So this “When I Was Young” geneameme has been created to allow you to record at least some of your childhood memories.This series of 25 questions will take you back to your childhood as it asks questions about the games you played, what school was like, what heirlooms you have from your childhood, what books or stories you remember from back then … and a whole heap more. So if you’d like to record a little of your own childhood history, feel free to take part in my “When I Was Young” geneameme. Do you (or your parents) have any memorabilia from when you were a baby? (ie. baby book, lock of hair, first shoes etc.) Do you know if you were named after anyone? And do you know of any other names your parents might have named you? What is your earliest memory? Did your parent/s (or older siblings) read, sing or tell stories to you? Do you remember any of these? When you were young, do you remember what it was that you wanted to grow up to be? Did you have a favourite teacher at school? How did you get to school? What games did playtime involve? Did you have a cubby house? What was something you remember from an early family holiday? What is a memory from one of your childhood birthday’s or Christmas? What childhood injuries do you remember? What was your first pet? Did your grandparents, or older...

So This is Christmas and What Have You Done Geneameme...

Christmas is coming quickly and fellow Aussie geneablogger Sharn White has created the “So This is Christmas and What Have You Done?” Geneameme. which is making us reminisce. This very thought-provoking geneameme, has stretched my memory back, here’s what I’ve come up with … Q1 . WHAT KIND OF CHRISTMAS DID YOU HAVE AS A CHILD? A. Let’s see … I do remember going to the local church service and also carol singing sessions with my grandparents occasionally, but I don’t remember my parents going to the carol singing at all. It wasn’t their thing.  ———————-  Q2. WHERE DID YOU SPEND  CHRISTMAS? A. Christmas has always (except for one year) spent at home with my family in the Adelaide Hills. Usually all the reli’s came to to their place. ———————- Q3. A LETTER AND SOMETHING YUMMY FOR SANTA A. I don’t remember ever writing a letter to Santa, but I do remember seeing a present under the tree one year saying it was for me and from Santa. Not surprisingly it was in my mum’s handwriting, so I wasn’t fooled. I do remember making big long multi-page Christmas gift lists which I’d put on the fridge weeks before Christmas, so it was giving my parents plenty of time to work out what they’d get me. ———————- Q4. THE CHRISTMAS TREE A. A christmas tree is a big thing for me, and I would assume that is because we’ve always had one, so it seems wrong not to. I remember that we use to go an get a real pine tree from a pine forest near our house. One year it was so big it touched the ceiling. While these days I’m happy with my fake tree, there is something about...

My Response to “It’s All In the Numbers” Geneameme...

It’s now over a week since I sent out the “It’s All in the Numbers” geneameme, so I thought I’d better get my butt into gear and actually post my response to it. Given the fact that I’ve had time to think about this prior to even posting it, you’d think that I’d have had all my answers by now. But in reality I keep thinking of more, not to mention changing some that I’d already had noted. But I can see that this will go on forever if I don’t get it posted, so here goes … Some numbers have various relevant meanings to my family history, so I’ve put each of those in. NUMBER 2 – this is for the number of geneacruises I’ve been on (so far). I went on Unlock the Past’s 1st cruise back in February 2011 as well as their 3rd cruise back in March 2013. – two is also for the number of times my great grandpa Otto Winter jumped ship. Once in England, and again in Australia. – two is also for the number of generations of illegitimacies found so far in my direct line. My 5x great grandma Eliza Phillips had daughter Charlotte Phillips when she was 24, and then that Charlotte Phillips had George Phillips (my 3x great grandpa) when she was 23. Both later married and had other children. – another thing that two is for, is the number of times my grandpa (Ron Phillips) won the Magarey Medal. To win this is the highest achievement in South Australian football. NUMBER 3 – three is for the number of blogs that I have. – three is also for the number of years that I have been getting Inside...

It’s All in the Numbers Geneameme...

Ever since I created the Family History Through the Alphabet Blog Challenge back in 2012, one idea that continued to make a regular visit is “numbers”, and how I could make that work that into a blog challenge. Over time I have come up with numerous scenarios, but none have made it beyond my head yet. Anyway rather than create a blog challenge – which does tend to tie you into something for a number of weeks, and this time of year is busy enough. And there are already some regular blog challenges currently going, I’ve decided that this can be a geneameme. My idea for “It’s All in the Numbers” Geneameme is for you to come up with say 10  numbers (but feel free to do as many as you want) that mean something to YOU, and that relate to your family history in some way. You might choose number 12 as that was the number of children one of your ancestors had, or number 3 as that’s how many sets of twins you’ve found in your family so far. Your great great uncle might have lived until he was 102, or 24 was the date of your grandma’s birthday. Number 28 was a house you lived at as a kid, or you might like to use the number of years you’ve been researching, or the number of trips you’ve taken to see family in the ‘homeland’. So pretty much any number that you can link in with your family history – do them consecutive, do them random – it’s your choice. Here’s just a couple of examples: 13 – Thirteen is the number of generations I can go back on one line! That takes me back to...

Crissouli’s Geneameme – My Responses...

Crissouli, from the As They Were blog, has asked for a few moments of our time to answer some questions. She called them questions, I call it a geneameme … but whatever, there’s a bunch of genealogy releated questions which require answers. So here’s my responses … 1. What is the most important detail you want to find about your  ancestors? Ooh there’s so many, and each one varies. But I guess each goes down to wanting to know more detail about the person, not just the name and date of someone. But there’s when and how did Samuel Trewartha get from Cornwall to New Jersey? And what happened to his daughter Eliza Trewartha? What did my great grandpa Otto Winter do in the 7 years he was at sea when he allegedly sailed the world several times over, and what was it he did in America that he’d be in trouble for? Then there’s the “why did they emigrate”, and the “where did that one go to” questions for numerous family. 2. Do you buy certificates? Yes. Definately for all direct reli’s, and for others as I feel the need to. 3.  Do you belong to a paid subscription site, if so, which one/s? Currently I have www.ancestry.com.au (World) and www.findmypast.com (World) and www.myheritage.com. And previously I have also had www.thegenealogist.co.uk and www.origins.net subscriptions, but have let those lapse for the time being. 4. What has been your ‘best’ find? I can say that there’s two ‘best finds’ that REALLY stand out. One was the obituaries for  my 4x great grandma Charlotte Trewartha (nee Phillips) and her husband Samuel Trewartha in a small town newspaper in New Jersey. You can find details of these obits in a post...

A Blogging Overview: The Bloggers’ Geneameme...

You know I love blogging, so how could I go past Jill Ball’s (aka Geniaus) new geneameme, “The Bloggers’ Geneameme“. Jill writes … “It’s NationaI Family History Month here in Australia and I have been procrastinating about hosting an online activity to mark the event. I am very interested in hearing about the practices and thoughts of fellow Geneabloggers so thought I’d dream up a little geneameme on the topic. You are invited to respond to the questions in this short geneameme via a post on your blog. Please write as little or as much as you like and don’t feel obliged to answer all the questions.” So here goes … 1. What are the titles and URLs of your genealogy blog/s? Lonetester HQ – www.lonetester.com Memorabilia House – www.memorabiliahouse.com 2. Do you have a wonderful “Cousin Bait” blog story? I have had some people contact me, but no-one close. What I have found very cool, is that my cousins are enjoying learning about the history of the family through me sharing the pictures and stories. 3. Why did you start blogging? Is there someone who inspired you to start blogging? I started my blogs because I had already been blogging for work, and decided I needed my own, as i had more I wanted to say and share with others. 4. How did you decide on your blog/s title/s? The Lonetester HQ one I took quite a while took quite a while to come up with, as I was deciding on my social media name at the time, so thought about it probably too long. And that’s what it ended up as. The Memorabilia House one just came to me one night. The name, together with the whole...

A Small Social Media Geneameme...

One of the highlights of the recent 3rd History & Genealogy Cruise was the ‘Social Media Panel’. Chaired by Jill Ball, and with Shauna Hicks, Louis Kessler, Helen Smith and myself as panelists, Jill asked us questions regarding social media, which each of us answered. As we all use social media differently it gave those those who came to this presentation an overview of how it can be used in many ways. Now Jill has turned the social media questions into a geneameme, and is asking those in the geneasphere to get some answers to the questions that she posed to the panel. 1. Tell us about your favourite social media tool and why you like it. During the panel I did answer Twitter to this, which is partially correct. I actually have fav’s for different things. For general interaction I like Facebook, for more indepth stories there are blogs. For the latest genealogy news and happenings around the world I do like Twitter. Twitter also has a fabulous bunch of genealogy nuts on there who are more than happy to help, advise and share in your excitement no matter what time of day or night you have ‘THAT” find. 2. How do you use social media to further your genealogy career or business? As I am the social media manager for Gould Genealogy, I get to manage (write) the blog, Facebook page, Twitter account and the Google+ page.  Although there is a little crossover, the greater proportion of each has it’s own audience. So using these mediums we announce new products, events, general genealogy news, help with people’s questions and so on. 3. What advice would you give the cruiser who said “I must be living under a...

Accentuate the Positive 2012 Geneameme...

Fellow Aussie genealogy friend, and geneablogging extraordinaire Geniaus, has come up with a wonderful way to review the past year of genealogy. And she’s done it so that you don’t focus on the ‘I didn’t get to do this … or look for that’, she’s decided to focus on the what you did do though her Accentuate the Positive 2012 Geneameme. Geniaus writes: “I feel that a lot of my geneablogging friends are too hard on themselves; several have reported on their successes this year but quite a number have lamented that they haven’t achieved as much as they set out to do or that they haven’t blogged with the frequency they envisaged.  I invite you to take part in this activity by responding to the following statements/questions in a blog post. Write as much or as little as you want. Once you have done so please share your post’s link in a comment on this post or to me via social media. As this applies to research that I’ve done in 2012, and sadly life has been rather busy with little time for it, my responses are sparser than I’d like, but still some is better than none. And I did have a big genealogy happy-dance find so that was useful. So from the original 20 questions, here’s my responses: 1.  An elusive ancestor I found was … I can’t say that I found anyone that was elusive, but I did find a very elusive record so does that count? My genealogy happy dance moment of 2012 happened back in August when I found the discovered the Iron Era newspaper online. This is a small local area newspaper in New Jersey. Through this I found not only Samuel Trewartha’s...

Christmas Geneameme – Deck the Halls 2012...

It’s now only days away from Christmas, and what better way to celebrate it coming than to reminisce a little with a Christmas Geneameme. Pauleen from Family History Across the Seas, has come up with Deck the Halls 2012 Christmas Geneameme, and is inviting geneabloggers around to world, to share their Christmas experiences. As she says “the more the merrier”, although she would like all blog posts in by December 16th if possible … and don’t forget to leave a link to your geneameme response in the comments section or on Google+ or on Twitter using hashtag #xmasgeneameme. For this meme, it doesn’t matter whether you’re religiously inclined or not, just tell us how important this season is to your family. So here goes … THE 2012 CHRISTMAS GENEAMEME ————————————————————–  1. Do you have any special Xmas traditions in your family? Hmmm, I wouldn’t say that we have any ‘special traditions’. Just the usual, put up the tree, write cards (hopefully), put Christmas food etc. Maybe I should think hard ans start making a ‘special tradition. 2. Is church attendance an important part of your Christmas celebrations and do you go the evening before or on Xmas Day? I grew up going to church, but don’t anymore, so no. 3. Did/do you or your children/grandchildren believe in Santa? I kinda realised that Santa wasn’t Santa when I recognised the handwriting on the gift tag from Santa was mum’s 😉 4. Do you go carolling in your neighbourhood? Not so much in the neighbourhood, but at the local church when I went to church. 5. What’s your favourite Christmas music? I wouldn’t say I have a favourite, but I guess I like more modern singers singing carols. 6. What’s your...

So you think you’re a Tech Savvy Genealogist…...

After my intro blog post, I was wondering what I should write next. I’d been meaning to participate in fellow geneablogger Geniaus’ latest meme “So you think you’re a Tech Savvy Genealogist… ” and write it on the Gould Genealogy & History blog, but haven’t done so yet. Then I figured in reality it’s probably more appropriate here anyway, so here’s my contribution to the “So you think you’re a Tech Savvy Genealogist… ” meme. THE RULES: The list should be annotated in the following manner: Things you have already done or found: bold face type Things you would like to do or find: italicize (colour optional) Things you haven’t done or found and don’t care to: plain type Feel free to add extra comments in brackets after each item Which of these apply to you? Own an Android or Windows tablet or an iPad Use a tablet or iPad for genealogy related purposes (I have an iPod Touch with genie apps on it) Have used Skype to for genealogy purposes Have used a camera to capture images in a library/archives/ancestor’s home Use a genealogy software program on your computer to manage your family tree Have a Twitter account Tweet daily Have a genealogy blog Have more then one genealogy blog (well yes if I count my work one, and this one) Have lectured/presented to a genealogy group on a technology topic Currently an active member of Genealogy Wise Have a Facebook Account Have connected with genealogists via Facebook Maintain a genealogy related Facebook Page (again yes, if I count the Gould Genealogy one) Maintain a blog or website for a genealogy society Have submitted text corrections online to Ancestry, Trove or a similar site Have registered a domain...