2013, A Year of Firsts

With 2013 almost over, everyone tends to start thinking back over the past year, while at the same time thinking about what they want to do in 2014. I’m not a New Years resolution person. Never have been. Probably never will be. Instead I tend to make a goal for myself somewhere along the way relating to a task or project, obviously with the aim of achieving it. While some of you might call that a resolution. Me, I just call it a goal. And it can’t be a “New Years resolution” as such as I don’t do them at New Years either! 😉 So for this post, I’m taking a leaf out of Kenneth Marks’ The Ancestor Hunt blog, and have chosen not to do a “Best and Worst of 2013” type post as many have, but rather a modified version of it. I’m going to look back at a number of “firsts” that I  achieved throughout 2013. ========================================= No. 1 FIRST FOR 2013 – Heirloom Blog My first ”first for 2013” started in January 2013, which was the beginning of Memorabilia House blog. I created this with the idea of recording my family’s heirlooms and the stories behind them. My family has been fortunate enough to inherit nearly ‘everything’ from at least one side of my family, and as such has a house full of ephemera and heirlooms, I thought it should be catalogued. So that is the purpose of this blog. To catalogue items that our family has, and note the significance of them. And I chose to do this as a blog so my wider family can also see what we have, together with others who might find connections. ========================================= No. 2 FIRST FOR 2013...

Just Taking a New Direction (or Slight Detour)...

Life doesn’t let us stay on just one road. To make it interesting it throws in roundabouts, u-turns, side roads and sometimes even one way streets. Whether we like it or not, we adapt and go with it. Genealogy is like that too. Sure you’re going along fine, then you find a name in records you’re browsing that sounds a bit familiar – and you’re given two choices: 1. to ignore it as it’s not connected to your current research, or 2. check it out, and see where it takes you, which can lead to you leaving your current research, and totally following this person. Personally I think there is nothing wrong with that as long as you can accept that “what-was-your-current-research” is now pushed back at least one level. And depending on just how interesting this family is, as to how long you continue to be sidetracked. It can be a few hours , a few days, a week or even months … sometimes even longer  (gasp). But trust me if it’s that long, it means the family is worth researching because they are just SOOOOO interesting. Anyway I have come to the realisation that my Genealogy road took a new direction (or two) earlier this year. While thinking about what I have and haven’t done genealogy-wise this year, and I see that while I haven’t done things I had hoped, while others that weren’t even in my thinking six months ago I have done. So it’s not all bad, it’s just simply a new direction, or a detour. So here a little run-down on  my have and have not’s for genealogy this year: Did I continue with my own family research? – Now that would have been...

Genealogy Goals for … Sometime...

The end of the year is looming, and once the excitement and recovery from Christmas is over, many start think about goals or resolutions that they’d like to do (or at least aim for) in the coming year. Yeah, I’m not one of those people. Maybe it’s because everyone else did – and therefore I didn’t want to, and I wanted to be different. Who knows, but for whatever reason I have never particularly done the whole New Year’s resolution thing. I do however set myself some genealogy goals. For these I don’t bother waiting till the end of one year or the beginning of the next. In fact it usually just happens as I think of something that I would to find (you know, great grandpa’s shipping records, or the court records for your convict ancestor, or the death certificate for your great aunt who doesn’t seem to have died anywhere!) As any true genie can imagine, these little goals can occur at any … day or night … summer or winter (or any season in between). “I FOUND HIM! I FOUND HIM! I FOUND HIM! I FOUND HIM! I FOUND HIM! I FOUND HIM! I FOUND HIM! I FOUND HIM! I FOUND HIM! I FOUND HIM! I FOUND HIM! I FOUND HIM! I FOUND HIM! I FOUND HIM! I FOUND HIM!” That was how I announced to the world (via Twitter) that I had found Samuel Trewartha’s obituary record! Can you feel how excited I was? Anyway I had been told there was one for him, so as a previous genealogy goal I’ve been on the lookout for it, and a few months ago I found it in newspapers that were online. But the best part was that I not only...