2023 went by in a blur. So many great things happened and keeping this Diary helps me to remember just how much I do in a year.
Blogs
Jill Ball aka Geniaus has again offered her Accentuate the Positive Geneameme for 2023. Another great way to think about what happened in your genealogy research in 2023. Read my response here.
I have a guest blog for the Genealogical Society of Queensland coming up in January. The big question as always, will be what to write about.
Books & Magazines
For various reasons my attention has been drawn to Charles Dickens and his association with Australia. To my shame, I suspect, I have only ever read Great Expectations for school. To redress this I am currently reading Tom Keneally's That Dickens Boy. Not quite a Charles Dickens novel but a great insight into the Dickens family. It may even inspire me to read a real Dickens book again.
Books are piling up around me, season gifts and Ph D works plus the number on my IPad is growing at an alarming rate. It seems I may have been converted to the convenience of the ebook.
Also using Moreton Region libraries more and their app Libby which lets me read all those genealogy magazines as part of my library subscription. Not to mention all the ebooks they have.
Conferences
Not too many on my horizon this year. However, there are lots of webinars and online sessions that I can catch up on.
Legacy Family Tree Webinars have just announced their 2024 program. Good to see the Down Under series continues with some good Aussie/Kiwi speakers. You can register to watch live for the whole year and its free to watch for the first week after the session. Check it out here.
New Resources
The Australian Home Beautiful Vol 29 No 7 July 1950 |
Trove Treasure in December 2023 and January 2024 and for all our holiday cooking, they have now digitised over 100 classic cookbooks. Confession time. I can spend hours looking at cookbooks, not necessarily cooking, just looking. I can't wait to explore this new collection of cookbooks.
Or you could read all those wonderful magazines that have also been digitised. Remember the 1950s and all those wonderful hot winter puddings. I loved the pineapple upside down cakes although mine never quite looked like the recipe image.
Over 800,000 images were added to Trove in 2022-2023. More will be coming in 2024 and here is a preview list. Good to see the community cooperation between Trove and regional genealogy societies as well as school and local history groups.
NSW
- Border Morning Mail (1952) [Albury City Libraries]
- Coolamon Farmers' Review (1910-1917) [Coolamon and District History Group]
- Coolamon-Ganmain Farmers' Review (1906-1910, 1917-1918) [Coolamon and District History Group]
- The Pastoral Times and Deniliquin Telegraph (1895-1950) [Deniliquin Genealogy Society Inc]
- The Seagull (1957-2015) [Tweed River High School]
SA
- Australijos Lietuvis - The Australian Lithuanian (1948-1956) [Australian Lithuanian Archives]
- People's Weekly (1890-1926) [State Library of South Australia]
- Port Lincoln Times (1982-1986) [Port Lincoln History Group]
- Seasider (1956-1963) [National Trust of SA - Wilunga Branch]
- South East Kingston Leader (1962-1976) [Kingston Branch of the National Trust of SA]
- The Standard (1959-1965) [Prospect Local History Group]
VIC
- Gippsland Farmers' and Glengarry, Toongabbie and Cowwarr Journal (1923) [Latrobe City Libraries]
- Sun News Pictorial (1922-1954) [State Library Victoria]
- The Journal: Glengarry, Toongabbie and Cowwarr journal (1923-1929) [Latrobe City Libraries]
- Yarrawonga Mercury and Lake Rowan, Tungamah and Mulwala News (1882) [Yarrawonga Mulwala Historical Society Inc]
- Yarrawonga Mercury and Mulwala News (1882-1897) [Yarrawonga Mulwala Historical Society Inc]
- Yarrawonga Mercury and Southern Riverina Advertiser (1897-1905, 1921-1927) [Yarrawonga Mulwala Historical Society Inc]
Talks
My list of talks for 2024 so far are now up on the Events page of my website. As usual I am looking forward to presenting and catching up with friends at these events.
My Genie Chat sessions here on Bribie are continuing in 2024 and the first term will look at English genealogy.
What's Coming Up?
January is traditionally a quiet time and there are lots of little catch up tasks on my list. Like sorting out all my travel and family photos from this year. I tend to download them into subject folders and promise myself I will get back to delete the not so good and identify the ones I want to keep. No surprises but I rarely do that so I have quite a bit of tidying up just in my photo folders.
Alice Price and her daughters |
I could mention the scanning word, but there are too many projects there. I managed to sort Mum's photos into categories and give my brother some that related to his children. But the little piles of scanning are still sitting on the shelf behind me. In the photo above I am reasonably sure that my son could not identify anyone. Even I'm not sure if that is Mum on the far left, she was a lot younger than her siblings. I do know the rest - from left to right Alice Price nee White, her daughter Beryl, daughter in law Peggy, daughter Mavis and daughter Hazel.
The Genealogy Squad and Cyndi Ingles has her Filing Friday Facebook challenge and occasionally I have set aside a Friday to just tackle things like filing and scanning. Could I keep it up every week? No for starters the Bribie Family History Association has its monthly meeting on the first Friday. Then there is lunch afterwards. But 3 out of 4 Fridays might make a difference to my photo projects. Have a look at their last post for 2023 and the plan for 2024.
Thank you to all my readers over the year - I have not been as regular with blogging as I hoped. Travel took up quite a few weeks and you can follow those travels through my Facebook page. Your ongoing support of this blog is very much appreciated.
I hope that you have all had a fabulous genealogy time in 2023 and that 2024 will be equally fabulous. Stay safe and well until next time, Shauna