Over the past six months or so I’ve been taking part in the Family History Through the Alphabet Challenge which I was also co-ordinating on the Genealogy & History News blog. And while it was a lot more work involved than I had anticipated, I did really enjoy it.

I was great to be able to write about things relating to my family history (people, heirlooms, websites, countries etc), and use the alphabet letters as a prompt for doing so. And even though I did finish a little late (though there wasn’t really a formal time limit), I did finally make it from A right through to Z. So this post is simply “My Family History Through the Alphabet Collection”.

You might think hang on, what is she doing. Is she starting the Family History Through the Alphabet Challenge again??  In short no, but let me explain. As I never actually did the letter A thanks to a lack of inspiration which lasted until about the letter J or so, and I really would like to complete the whole alphabet, I am doing it now. And I figured it was better to do it at the end, rather than right in the middle. So for my A post …

A is for … A2A (Access to Archives)

Some of you may have heard of the A2A website, others may not have. But for me it is one of the most amazing sites around.

Welcome to my Z post in the Family History Through the Alphabet Challenge. Yes the end of the Alphabet Challenge has come (although I will be posting my ‘A’ post after this, as I never got around to doing it at the time, but we can overlook that fact – and better 25 weeks late than never, eh?). Anyway for this Z post I’ve decided that

Z is for  … The End? Not a Chance

So what on earth do I actually mean by that? Well I found phrase could relate so well to both my blogging, and to my family history, so here’s a little explanation.

This week the Family History Through the Alphabet Challenge brings us up to the letter Y, and for this I have decided that

Y is for … Yesteryear

For this I have decided think way back and come up with some memories I have of  ‘yesteryear’. Ok, I’m not that old, but still much of what I have come up with are things that are not around today, so I’m counting them as yesteryear.

As I spent a reasonable portion of my childhood visiting my grandparents (on my mum’s side) on their farm and orchard