These three sites are very helpful, when searching for your soldier ancestors.   Australian War Memorial; this site has so much on it and is easy to use. The Search for a Person is great and there are links to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and the National Archives of Australia. https://www.awm.gov.au/ National Archives of […]

I’ve been in Europe for the past six weeks and am now catching-up on emails, snail mail and the bills that were waiting for me. Also in my pile of mail were these; two Family Tree magazines, Australian Family Tree Connections and my Descent. Bedtime reading, me thinks. The Family Tree magazines have several interesting […]

That statement might surprise you but really not everything is online. Consider how many newspapers, books and documents you hold, relating to your family and then try and imagine similar things being held by genealogists and you will understand. This little book It’s Not All Online by Shauna Hicks, will help you navigate your way to […]

I love doing Scottish research and find these two books invaluable. Both are by Chris Paton and are in the Unlock the Past family. Down and Out in Scotland, researching ancestral crisis, covers such interesting topics as Illegitimacy, death, law and order, poverty, debt and medical problems. Explanations of how these were dealt with and […]

   What I hear you say is Palaeography?  Well ever picked up an old document and gone, “I can’t read that/understand the writing?” We all have and this book will help with that. There are five chapters, with Chapter 5 , The Characteristics of Individual Letters being the one you would use the most. Transcripts […]

Have you ever wanted to know who lived in your house, what secrets it hold or just plain curious? I know I am and this started me looking into the history of my house. A useful book, Land Research for Family Historians in Australia and New Zealand by Carole Riley is well worth reading.  Carole […]

    Do you have a favourite genealogical magazine? Here are some of mine.   Your Family History, (top left, English) is one I sometimes pick-up, if I think the contents are interesting. This one has an interesting article on The Making of America. This looks at the British and Irish, who started news lives in […]

Was your ancestor a Bang Beggar, an Earth stopper or a Pardoner? I was browsing a list I have of websites (I do this to see if they still exist or what changes there might be), and came across this one. Index to Old Occupations.   http://rmhh.co.uk/occup/index.html It is for the Hall Genealogy Website and has other interesting areas to look […]

I’ve taken a step into the world of DNA, with the hope of finding distant relations. I used Family Tree DNA for my test and have just uploaded it to a GEDMatch site and have had a tiny bit of luck. I was contacted by a member of the local history group and we are very […]