You know, every time I’ve been in my bathroom over the past few weeks the same question pops into my head “I wonder when shampoo was invented?”. This was always followed by “I wonder what did they use before?”

So I decided to find out.

Let’s start by saying that I’m talking about the liquid shampoo that comes in a bottle. I need to state that because when I was looking around, I found many earlier references to shampoo, but that was for “soap” shampoo and even ‘”powder” shampoo.

So yes, prior to liquid shampoo being available, soap was what was mostly used. My 96 year old grandma even remembers using soap for shampoo as a young child.

Anyway so I headed to Wikipedia for some info  …

So firstly the word, “shampoo” ….

The word shampoo entered the English language from India during the colonial era. It dates to 1762, and is derived from Hindi chāmpo itself derived from the Sanskrit root chapayati (which means to press, knead, soothe).

But what about liquid shampoo? For that we fast forward 165 years …

In 1927, liquid shampoo was invented by German inventor Hans Schwarzkopf in Berlin, whose name created a shampoo brand sold in Europe. Originally, soap and shampoo were very similar products; both containing the same naturally derived surfactants, a type of detergent.

So we all know the brand Schwartzkopf, right? Well it seems Hans Schwartzkopf wasn’t ‘just’ a name in the hair care industry, he was the actual inventor of liquid shampoo, and in doing so revolutionised hair care.

The Schwartzkopf website even has a timeline history which is a fascinating read, and you can check that out here.

So to Mr Schwartzkopf and those that followed and continued the innovation, I thank you for creating liquid shampoo. While I’m too young to have used soap as shampoo or even “powder shampoo”, to me shampoo is simply one of life’s little conveniences, and rightly or wrongly it’s one of those things we take for granted.

So that’s my little history lesson for today. I know I learnt something while checking this out, and maybe you did to.

For those of you who have been reading my blog for at least the last couple of weeks, you’ll know that I recently visited Finland for a holiday to meet family and see the places where my ancestors came from.

One thing I found when being with my relatives, was that all the names and places I knew from correspondence with family and various Finnish archives, I had been pronouncing very wrong. I had simply seen them written down, and gave them my own Australian-version of the pronunciation as best as I knew without ever hearing it.

Now that I’ve heard the names and places said in Finnish, it’s made me realise how easy someone simply listening to it said could give a whole different spelling.

One thing I did while I was in Finland was create a listing of names and places with both the proper Finnish spelling, and then I wrote each with the pronunciation as it sounds in Australian-English, which was quite often VERY different.

An example of this is one of my family names, BACKBERG. It seems simple enough, Back (as in the back of something), and Berg (like an iceberg). But when it’s said in Finnish it is actually pronounced BACH-BERRY. Now had I simply ‘heard’ the name, I would have had no idea that is actually spelt Backberg. And the same goes for place names too.

Add into the mix all of those who emigrated to another country, and you have foreign names and places, said with an accent and you have the perfect recipe for some very creative spelling.

It’s not news for researchers to find alternate spellings on documents. In fact it would be far more unusual if you didn’t. But having to write the names and places out phonetically has made me take a step back and think just how it could be written to get the right sound, and it actually reminded me of being back in Primary School and writing words as you heard them. Anyway I found that it’s been a very interesting and useful exercise. Try it yourself, you might just be surprised.

As researchers we want to find out everything possibly can, about every member of our family. Right? I’m sure I’m close anyway. While family might say we’re nosy, we tend to prefer the term detective or record keepers.

Tracing your family history is a good thing, however you DO NEED TO BE FOCUSSED. Because when you’re not and want to find EVERYTHING at once, it becomes so overwhelming. I know, I’ve been there, so I can truthfully speak from experience.

And despite me knowing this, I can feel myself edging towards it again. Why, because of BSOs (yes, those bright shiny objects). You know the ones that distract you, and your suddenly are off chasing someone else.

Needless to say that I have a few of these at the moment.

I haven’t actually been doing any real solid research for a couple of years, instead I tend to pick up a branch, family, or ancestor and follow them for a bit. I have done that with Charlotte Phillips (one of my fav’s), and also my great grandpa, Otto Winter.

However a new and “reasonably-likely-but-yet-to-be-proven” convict has taken my attention recently (you’ll probably read about him in due course), and last week Trove had the most incredible article on my great grandpa going to prison (a family story that wasn’t passed down, well not to me anyway). Again that’s another story, but it needs a little more research first before I share it with the world. And did I mention that I’m completely fascinated by the Adelaide Arcade now? I did a ghost tour there recently, and I am totally in love with that place, and have big long post planned. But seriously the history in that building is phenomenal.

Then there’s all the new records that go online … FamilySearch, Ancestry, Findmypast, TheGenealogist, or MyHeritage … or even those on local organisations (libraries, archives, societies). So of course I have to go and play and check them out.

However, I need to refocus as I’m heading to Finland soon, and while it is a holiday, I’d like to take the opportunity to try to do some research. Hey, I may as well since I’m going to the other side of the world, and have the opportunity to go to their city archives. Right? But I need to refamiliarise myself that side of the family, which I largely worked on maybe 10 years ago. So that’s my goal for the next few weeks!

Still there’s no absolute guarantee that those BSOs won’t be super shiny and tempting, but I’ll try!

I got a huge surprise when I found out that Barb from the Decluttering The Stuff blog had nominated me for a Blogger Recognition Award. To say I was blow away is an understatement. Thankyou Barb, I’m truly honoured.

So to accept the Award, there are some ‘Rules’:
– I must thank the Blogger who nominated me and provide a link to their blog.
– I must write a post to show the award.
– I must write a brief story on how my blog started.
– I must give two pieces of advice to new bloggers.
– I must select 15 bloggers to pass this award on to.
– I must comment on each of their blogs to let them know they have been nominated for this award and provide a link to this post.

So a brief history of how I started … well I started genealogy blogging for work back in 2009, but was finding I was wanting to write more about my own family, and experiences in genealogy, and having my own works far better than mixing it with my work one. So in 2011 Lonetester HQ was born, and I’ve been writing ever since.

Two pieces of advice … hmm narrowing it down to two, that’s hard, so I’m going to make it five.
– Write in your own “voice”, then it sound like you.
– Have share buttons. Never underestimate the usefulness of them. If someone can’t share your post easily, they won’t.
– Photos. They are important as people do like graphics (ie. Instagram, Pinterest and a decent portion of Facebook).
– Have categories. As your blog grows add categories, and file them into them, because it’s ridiculously hard to find something on someone’s blog if it’s just one l-o-n-g stream of posts.
– Don’t wait until it is 100% perfect to post. If I did that you’d be lucky to get a post a month. Just write it, check it for grammar and typos of course, and let it take its course. If you’re writing about your research everyone knows it’s a work in progress, so it’s ok to not have every single piece of information yet. (Keep an eye on future posts of mine, I have some of these comping up). Besides if you “put it out there” cousin bait might do it’s thing, and relatives might find you who can then fill in the gaps. IT WORKS!

Selecting 15 bloggers to pass this award on to … Well I might be breaking the rules here, but I’m not going to pass it on. Not because I don’t think there’s worthy blogs. But blogs awards did the rounds a couple of years ago, and my blogger friends all got numerous times. So instead I’m going to direct you to a listing of over 200 Australian History & Genealogy Blogs that I have compiled. Feel free to browse through those, and I’m sure you’ll find plenty of interesting ones to read and/or follow.

So again, a big thankyou to Barb for the Award. It was truly unexpected, but I am honoured that you thought of me. And also a thankyou to my readers. I will continue to keep writing, telling my families stories, and sharing advice along the way!