Kiva Genealogists for Families, Resources & Other News: My Genealogy Weeks 1-15 Oct 2024

Hello everyone

Fresh back from a two week holiday in Bali. We haven't been since Covid and found it much busier than before. Airport congestion was unreal mostly due to having to do online visas and health declarations prior to arrival. Many hadn't and quite a few planes arrived at the same time. 

It didn't help that they changed baggage carousels without announcing the changes. 

But the people were friendly and the food was wonderful. We even did a Balinese cooking course so now to put that into practice.

The good thing was that I didn't get sick or fall over and hurt myself. Bought some nice casual dresses for summer and planning when we might be able to escape there again.

Books

Our Bribie Family History Association bookclub has been reading some great books. Our current book The Girl Who Left: from Croatia to the cane fields by Debra Gavranich is about a woman who left Yugoslavia after WW2 to marry a man she had never seen before in Queensland. Based on a real life story it is interesting to learn more about Australia's post war immigrants.

One thing I forgot to mention in my September news was that I have completely updated my books on Library Thing. I also received their Tenner badge as I have been a member for over 10 years. 

The app is now on my smart phone so that I can see if I already have a book before buying it. A great way to avoid having two copies of the same book.

Looking forward to reading this new book from Nathan Dylan Goodwin. It is the next one in the Venator cold case series.

DNA

Ancestry has done a major update to how DNA ethnicity (now ancestral regions) helps us to understand our paternal and maternal lines.  

Dad has lost his Scandinavian and it is now England and Northwestern Europe (this must be the two lines where I don't know who my GG grandfathers are). Otherwise he is Scots and Irish.

Mum still has that puzzling Wales connection with no Welsh in the paper trail. Her Cornish is now a defined group.

Hopefully over the December/January break I will find some time to get back to those unknown ancestors and see if I can track them down.

Kiva for Genealogists

Another group I have been a member of for years has been Genealogists for Families team on Kiva which lends small loans to people in other countries under a range of categories. Our team captain is Judy Webster and we have been in existence since 27 Sep 2011 - that's 13 years so we missed that 10th anniversary. There are 264 members who have made over $550,830 in loans. 

That's an impressive record and by relending or making new loans it is amazing how your individual contribution adds up. For example I have made 194 loans in 71 countries. Now that I have actually looked at my stats it would be nice to get to 200 loans before the end of 2024 which will depend on existing loans being repaid or I can make new loans. I usually do this for Christmas instead of buying gifts. Now on my to do list so I don't forget.

Anyone can join us by going to Kiva, signing up and selecting the Genealogists for Families team. You do have to make a $25 loan as well.

Resources

The Trove Treasures e-newsletter for October talked about haunted buildings, tracing towns through resources in Trove, early Australian maps and a feature on brides from 1890. Everyone should sign up for this newsletter as it really does expand your knowledge of what is in Trove and how best to find what you are looking for. Plus it's free.

At right is an image from the the Brisbane Telegraph of Mum's eldest sister who was an October bride in 1938. Mum was only 4 at the time so my memories of aunty Hazel were always of an older woman. Finding this image in Trove was wonderful and it is just one of the many images I have found on Mum's family.

MyHeritage has an all new look to their Inbox feature for easier communication with other researchers. Plus they added another 56 million records in September. No wonder everyone is saying it is hard to keep up with changes and new resources.

If only we could do family history 24/7! But then the house doesn't get dusted, the garden doesn't get weeded and no food shopping gets done. Amazing how these basic chores take up so much of our daily life - how did I manage when I worked 9-5, five days a week?

Talks

Genealogical Society of Queensland's annual seminar was at the weekend. Forgotten Women and Children had an incredible line up of good speakers with varied topics on women. 

I was one of the speakers looking at homeless women in colonial Queensland gaols based on my PhD research. But many of the aspects I cover apply to all women, not just those unfortunate enough to be sent to gaol for having nowhere to live.

Left is an image of female prisoners at the Boggo Road Gaol. My great great grandmother Helen/Ellen Carnegie/Ferguson could be in that photograph which was part of a series in The Queenslander in 1903.

I still have talks in November and December so it has been a very full year of presentations despite my saying at the start I would be cutting back to focus on my PhD. Hard to stop something you love doing.

See my Events page for details.

What's Coming Up?

First is catching up with my emails and ejournal and enewsletter reading. As a member of numerous genealogy societies and other organisations I receive their quarterly journals and weekly newsletters. It is so easy to simply flag and aim to go back when I have more time. The only trouble is that 'more time' never seems to happen.

My plan for 2025 is to list all the journals and magazines in a chart and then tick them off when I have read the issue. Sounds simple but it never seems to work until I get to the end of the year and madly flick through a whole lot at once. There will be more timely reading in 2025. Wish me luck.

Until next time happy researching

Shauna

Genealogy Notes 5-6 Feb 2014 Days 2-3 of geneacruising

It is only Day 3 of the Unlock the Past cruise and I am in need of a nanna nap! In the last Diary I briefly mentioned that I was going to the meet and greet that night so I will start there with this geneacruise account. It was really amazing to see Cleopatra's Needle ( a rather large lounge area on Voyager of the Seas) packed with family historians. It must be the biggest geneacruise so far and I spotted friends from all over Australia. After Alan introduced the overseas speakers and other key people it was photo time. I ended up in the Geneabloggers, Kiva Genealogists for Families, the GOONS (Guild of One Name Studies) and Queensland photos.

I should also mention the first night dinner. Seating is allocated before hand so you don't know  who your dinner companions are until you are escorted to the table. Two old friends from the Gold Coast Family History Society were already at our table, always nice to see smiling faces, then we were joined by a couple from the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria, one of our favourite places and then a lady I knew from Wodonga in Victoria joined us. The 8th place was vacant so we are not sure if someone is there or it is vacant. Might allow us to ask a person to join us for dinner which would be good.

Day 2 - I was up early to get ready for my talk, have breakfast and be in the room on time for Chris Paton's talk on British and Irish Newspapers which attracted a full house and sadly some missed out. It is the only session where there was just one talk on offer, most of the other sessions have 2 or 3 speakers. As usual Chris gave an entertaining talk as well as some interesting sites to look at. He has a handout online but after something Thomas MacEntee said about his handouts and copyright I'm not going to give out their private links to handouts. I will follow it up with both of them as I have not come across private links before. Mine are always on my website which is public.

I followed Chris with my talk on Follow the Gold: Mining Ancestors which is the subject of one of my new research guides out this month Tracing Mining Ancestors: A Brief Guide to Sources in Australia and New Zealand. For some reason the screen started flickering during my talk (but not for Chris) which was a bit off putting but verbal feedback indicated that people enjoyed the talk and got some useful tips for their own research. As usual I have done a PDF of the presentation and it is on the Resources page of my website, scroll down to Presentations.

After a short break I went to Thomas MacEntee's Building a Genealogy Research Toolbox and this was not quite what I was expecting. I realised that I already have a number of toolboxes in Word, Excel, Chrome Bookmarks and Evernote and so on. It is more about how we organise and find all those useful websites that we use on a regular basis. So not the collection of gadgets like scanners, cameras, and other techno bits that I thought would be in a toolbox. There is a handout but as I mentioned earlier, I need to check that with Thomas.

After lunch it was Helen Smith talking on Document Analysis and aside from the flickering screen it was a good session. Helen made lots of interesting points about really reading a document, transcribing it exactly, citation and so on. A lot of it is usual research practice but sometimes in our excitement or haste we forget the basics and years later we will not remember what we did or why. Helen also mentioned two websites I have not come across before - Clooz3 and Evidentia. Both of these help with document analysis so now on my to do list to have a look. I missed the very beginning of the talk so not sure about handouts - something else to follow up.

Next was Neil Smith talking on That Elusive Digger and this was an overview of Australasian military ancestors. It was an interesting talk with snapshots of individual soldiers interspersed throughout the session. Neil also gave the usual suspects for research including the National Archives of Australia, the Australian War Memorial and the DVA Nominal Rolls for various wars. Neil has written quite a few military books which can be found in his online catalogue at Mostly Unsung.

After a short break where I raced up to the 12th floor for a cup of tea and a bit of sunshine, it was back to the 2nd floor for another session with Thomas, this time on Pinning Your Family History. (A trip like that in half an hour makes you realise just how big this ship really is). I got a Pinterest account when it first came out but then realised it was just something else I would have to do and maintain. However, I can see the benefits from Thomas' presentation and it could certainly be used as 'cousin bait' as these sites are searchable by Google.  Other sites mentioned included Google Maps (I have tried this but I could make it much more interesting having seen Thomas' examples), What Was There, HistoryPin and Uencounter.me. Some of these sites were totally new to me which is why it is great having visiting overseas speakers. Thomas also covered copyright and his advice is to use your own images but if the people concerned are still alive then you should also get permission as not everyone wants their image online or it may not be a flattering photo, or it is embarrassing in some other way.

I missed all the other great talks in streams 2 and 3 but hopefully other geneabloggers attended different sessions to me and I will get to read about them in their blogs. The after dinner session was Kerry Farmer talking about immigration and as I have heard Kerry before, we took the opportunity to go to the comedy show in the ship's theatre. On the long trek back to our end of the ship we were a little peckish (believe it or not) so we stopped for some pizza and hot chocolate at one of the little free cafes on the 5th floor or the promenade as it is known.There is always something going on somewhere on the ship.

Day 3 was in port at Melbourne and as we lived here for 9 years we decided to simply stay on board. We tried out the spas and the swimming pool, fell asleep reading on the deck chairs, toddled into lunch and this afternoon I have caught up with emails, Facebook, Twitter and blogs. Tonight after dinner is a panel session on the future of genealogy with myself, Chris Paton and Thomas Macentee so that will give a good cross section of views from Australia, the UK and the USA. I will report more on that next Diary.

Tomorrow is another full day at sea with a fantastic line up of speakers and talks. Stay tuned for an update unless of course, you are one of my lucky fellow travellers on this cruise!

Genealogy notes 19 Nov - 7 Dec 2012 - Canberra news!

The last couple of weeks have been a blur. We moved into the rental unit and carried our stuff up all 27 steps but at least there is more room than the caravan. We finally found our 'dream' house and pending the pest and building inspection on Monday, we will settle on 14 January and then we will have the awesome job of unpacking our two container loads of 'stuff' now in storage in Brisbane. I have found it really hard writing articles for Inside History Magazine and Irish Lives Remembered without easy access to my own research files. It's not all in my database!!

We are getting into the swing of island life and attended the Blessing of the Surf at Woorim last weekend and have been sampling the various restaurants and clubs on the Island. Somehow when you are not in your own home, it seems that you are always on holidays even though we are not! The weather has been hot in south east Queensland but we always seem to have a breeze and are a few degrees cooler than Brisbane. However that didn't prepare me for two days in Canberra where it was 3 degrees in the mornings and snowing on the Alps.

Getting to and from Canberra was a bit of a marathon with the distance and time differences but it was all worthwhile. I attended the first meeting of the National Archives of Australia's advisory committee for the centenary of World War One. They really need an acronym for that! It was good to hear what they have planned between now and April 2014. The main project is a new website and the working title is Wartime Australians which will build on the existing Mapping Our Anzacs website but will include a lot more records than just the service dossiers. There will be lots of opportunities for individuals to input their own stories as it progresses so stay tuned.

As part of the overall briefing we were reminded about the various features of the Mapping Our Anzacs website and also a brief look at their Destination Australia website (which I first heard about back in August at the State Library of Victoria's Family History Feast day - you can hear Mark Brennan's talk here).

One of the hazards of this gypsy life I have been living is that I have missed all sorts of family history news and about a month ago NAA launched their ArcHive project which is where they have digitised accession consignment lists to increase access to collections. There are the usual OCR problems so they are asking the public to help them transcribe the lists (a bit like correcting newspaper texts on Trove) and quite a few people have already signed up. Another worthy project to be associated with and they have prizes!

It was strange being back in the Parkes building and attending a meeting in the Bruce Room and it brought back lots of good memories of my time with NAA - if only those winters weren't so cold! I also ran into a few old colleagues and found out whose doing what these days.

The other meeting I managed to squeeze in during my brief time in Canberra was with the President of the Australasian Federation of Family History Organisations (AFFHO) and we chatted about National Family History Week (NFHW) which is in August each year. As the new co-ordinator I have written a discussion paper which highlights some issues and which I hope will get lots of comments and feedback. An edited version has been published in the December 2012 issue of NewsFlash and can be read here.

If you haven't yet liked the NFHW Facebook page you can do so here.

Historic Newspapers UK invited me to trial one of their newspapers so after some thought I selected the date my  GG grandfather Robert White died in Wiltshire and as I like illustrated newspapers I picked one of those. I don't expect to find any reference to him but it is just after the end of World War One and I thought it would be good to see what the news was at that time. The copy arrived quickly and I haven't had a chance to open the box but I might put it under the Christmas tree as a present to myself - I suspect none of the other family members would think of a present like that for me!

With most of January taken up with our move into the new house, I have started to give some thought to the talks I am giving on the next Unlock the Past 3rd genealogy cruise which leaves in February 2013. I'm already excited about going on the Voyager of the Seas as I have seen it on the news and current affairs programs not to mention the newspapers. So that plus the exciting genealogy program lined up means it will be another great trip.

Finally I've gotten behind with my KIVA Genealogists for Families project news because my email program was filing all the updates in the Spam folder. I've got quite a lot of repayments which means I can now take out new loans and help others. If you would like to join the project team click here for my invite link.

With Christmas fast approaching I'm not sure how much genealogy I will manage but at least I can now stop looking at real estate sites. So that must mean some free time! Until next installment, happy researching.

Genealogy notes 18-28 Aug 2012 busy busy!

Well as the title suggests it has been 10 busy days since I last logged on. Everything seems to happen at once. I've had all the dramas of packing up the house, getting ready for my Sydney trip, finalising my next two publications for Unlock the Past and to complicate life I cracked a filling in my tooth needing a visit to the dentist, had to visit the doctor for another mole removal (fast growing and changing colour), a biopsy and thankfully not malignant this time and a specialist visit which I had put down as unnecessary but the CT scan showed something not quite right so I'm now considering when can I schedule in an operation which involves drilling a little hole in my head!

I had also been congratulating myself on having got through winter with hardly a sniffle when in the last few days I seem to have come down with a nasty chest infection. By this time tomorrow I need to be on a plane to Sydney so lots of fruit and vegies today! I'm actually looking forward to  my two talks  at the Society of Australian Genealogists as it gives me a chance to catch up with Sydney friends. I've got some meetings arranged, dinner with an old friend and after my talks I'm spending the weekend with a friend at her unit right on the Harbour to relax before the big move next week.

During the last week or so I have been doing a little experiment with the National Family History Week Facebook site (I'm the new co-ordinator in case you missed that news) and by placing a couple of messages on that site and my own Facebook site I managed to have a rather dramatic upsurge in statistics for the site, mainly thanks to my cyber friends. It would be really good if those reading this could also visit the NFHW Facebook site and hit the Like button (if you haven't already) as I am trying to prove the power of social media in promoting events like NFHW. I'm working on a strategic plan for 2013 and I'm hoping that we can make the week bigger than ever.

Now that all my family history files are packed away in boxed I feel quite empty. Although I have most of the data in my software program I don't have all my paper documents or photographs scanned yet so I can't just pop up and look at something. I'm also a bit worried that we won't find another home with a study as big as this one. When we do finally resettle somewhere, it will be a toss up what I unpack first - the domestic stuff or the family history!

Observant readers will notice that I've added a few pages to this blog - one on My Families and a more direct link to my other website and finally a page on the Genealogists for Families project which is a really good way of supporting families around the world.

The other thing I managed to do was finish the next installment of my articles on Irish Loved Ones - Missing Down Under for Irish Lives Remembered. The new issue is due out on 5 September and remember it is free online.

For anyone on the Queensland Coast don't forget the Unlock the Past road show is heading your way in the next few weeks. All details on my Events page and I hope to meet lots of new people on the trip.

Although it's a way off I've also been planning for my trip to Rootstech 2013 next March, looking at airfares, accommodation and registration. I've always wanted to go to Salt Lake City so this is a good chance to do it and go to what promises to be a great genealogy conference too.

Anyway the rest of the packing won't finish itself plus I need to sort myself out for the Sydney trip, will it be cold and wet like last time or will I see some early spring? Till next time.

Genealogy notes 28 Mar 2012 - Day One at AFFHO Congress

Well Day One is over and already my notebook (still paper and pen I'm afraid) is starting to fill up with new ideas and things to follow up. The day started with John Bannon's opening address which recalled my years with the National Archives of Australia. John is the Chair of NAA's Advisory Council and he is a good spokesperson for their achievements and future directions. It was a good introduction to the AFFHO Congress and touched on many topics that I think will be mentioned again and again in other presentations.

Colleen Fitzpatrick, a forensic genealogist, was the first keynote speaker and I really liked her dry sense of humour that came out at various times even though she was largely dealing with a very sad topic - the death of nearly 1500 people when the Titanic sank in 1912. Colleen was involved with the identification of The Unknown Child on the Titanic and it was fascinating to see what steps were involved including exhumations and tracking families backwards to find common ancestors before tracking forwards to find living descendants. For a fleeting minute or two I wondered if I could exhume a few of my more difficult to trace ancestors but I suspect it's not that practical! It was a great talk and I'm now keen to read some of her publications as were others judging by the lineup of people waiting for her to sign their copies.

Just as I was about to go in for morning tea, one of the conference organisers grabbed me and said that they didn't have a copy of my two talks and as I had previously sent copies in separate emails I was a bit puzzled. Checking with the technician my talks were indeed missing in action. This was a bit deja vu as I had got up in the middle of the night looking for my spare USB stick when I realised I had left my USB with the copies of my talks on it, in my other handbag in the caravan down at Brighton. I always have a copy with me in case something goes wrong. To my horror, I found that I didn't even have a spare USB as I had cleaned out my laptop bag. Borrowing a USB from the technician I quickly went back to the hotel, did another copy and then raced back to the speaker's room and had my talks uploaded. At least it was sorted out before my first talk later that day!

However it did mean that I missed morning tea and the first twenty minutes of Kath Ensor's presentation on Unlocking Ancestors' Stories from Mental Asylums which is a topic that I give talks on too. Many of my ancestors were in various institutions and the records are fantastic as they usually have detailed biographical information. Kath's talk was on Victorian mental asylums and Public Record Office Victoria has many of the asylum admission books and case books digitised on their website.

Then it was lunch time and a chance to chat with people and it is great to see so many Canberrans here that I knew while living in Canberra a few years back. The strong contingent is because the next AFFHO congress is in Canberra in 2015. They have already done a lot of planning and have a website up and are starting a free e-newsletter to keep interested people informed of progress. Of course, I signed up there and then!

There is also plenty of time to wander round the exhibits and I managed to chat with a number of people, Ben from Inside History magazine, Paul from FamilySearch, Vicki from FindMyPast Australasia, Alona and Anthea from Gould Genealogy and Kim from MyHeritage to mention just a few. I will do a better list of exhibitors when I'm not racing the clock in the early hours of the morning! So far I've only bought one book but temptation is strong!

After lunch Daniel Horowitz was the keynote speaker on How we Share and Preserve Memories in a Digital Era and he is the founder of MyHeritage so basically the talk was about how MyHeritage lets people record their family history and share it with other family members. I'm always a bit wary about having major sponsors give keynote addresses as it can tend to be just a promotional talk for their products which some attendees may not want to listen too. Of course the reality is that congresses need sponsorship and if it was in a concurrent session, they wouldn't get as many people. Having said that, I did enjoy Daniel's presentation and it was good to see how MyHeritage operates and while I have a few family names in it myself, I realised I am not making full use of all the social networking facilities.

I missed the next session as I always like to review my talks before giving them and take time just to gather my thoughts. I also spent a bit more time going round the exhibits before I wandered over to the room where my session was. I was pleased to see that the Chair of the session was Don Mountain a long time friend from Canberra and a fellow HAGSOC committee member back then. I hadn't done Ancestors in Church before so I was a bit nervous as to how people would receive it as it is so broad ranging and I can't cover in detail all religions and denominations. I was pleased with comments afterwards when people said it had given them new ideas to follow up which is exactly the type of feedback I like.

I also used my session to give a plug to Geniaus' blogging beads and to raise the profile of the various Geneabloggers present at this conference. We are the ones with the bright, colourful, maybe small or large, beads hanging around our necks and we are all writing up our thoughts and comments on the various speakers and other activities. I'm amazed at how quickly Geniaus (perhaps that's why she's called that?) gets all her congress photos up - see her blog for all the latest photos!

I also missed the opportunity to get together for dinner with other members of the KIVA Genealogists for Families project (founded by Judy Webster) due to other commitments but there are a few of us at Congress as well. Geniaus even has those photos up - check it out here. It's a great way to help other people in mostly developing countries to set up or run their own businesses. I've got six loans and most of those are almost paid off and with the repayments I use them to finance another loan to someone else. If you haven't heard of it before have a look!

Today is another big day starting at 8.30am so I better finish this off now and get moving!

Genealogy notes 6-17 Dec 2011 Hitting the Genealogy Road

Hard to believe it is twelve days since my last Diary post - so much has happened but not all genealogy related. Having been away for almost three weeks there was lots to catch up on in regard to snail mail, bills, emails, weeds in the garden, shopping and just getting over the trip.

I did do my overview of the Unlock the Past genealogy cruise and my last Update from Australia (should be published in a day or so) for MyHeritage plus I have done some updates on my own website. In particular I have listed events that I am involved in in 2012 and I added a link to the Genealogists for Families project on my homepage. Keeping websites up to date is not that easy but you don't always have time to go back and look at every page and time does have a habit of slipping away all too fast.

I'm still to do my traditional Christmas cards but have sent a lot of emails - somehow it is easier to sit and type then handwrite cards and then mail them, yet the time involved is probably not all that different. We haven't done any Christmas lights or decorations this year as we haven't been here but the caravan looks good with the tinsel here and there. My family stopped giving Christmas presents a few years ago now but we did pick up a few little items on the cruise.

Plus we had to pick up our new caravan and start getting that ready for the trip up to Brisbane and back. Today is our big day - in a couple of hours we will be hitting the road, driving through Victoria and New South Wales to reach Brisbane by Christmas eve. We're taking the Newell Highway as I also want to pop in (or is that out) to Lightning Ridge where my gg grandmother was for a time. I've never been out that way so really looking forward to it. I wonder how she got out there from Brisbane??

I have done the Newell before and really like driving through western NSW but it is a bit remote in places. It's 2723km not counting the side trip out to Lightning Ridge and then of course, we are returning via the Pacific Highway but I haven't looked at distance yet. Either way it's going to be a big trip.

I'm not expecting a lot of phone or internet connection so tweets and updates may be few and far between but I'm keeping a log as this will be our first 'grey nomad' trip. Although I will have a good internet connection once we get into Brisbane, I'll take this opportunity to wish all my family, friends, colleagues and internet buddies a happy and safe festive season and a very happy New Year!

Thanks for reading my Diary in 2011 - it's been appreciated.

Genealogy notes 27-29 October 2011 Genealogists for Families

About a month ago, Judy Webster a good friend of mine in Brisbane sent me an invitation to be part of a new group she had established, Genealogists For Families within KIVA. I hadn't previously heard of KIVA and at the time of her note, I was busy with a deadline hovering over my head. Like most busy people I have a 'to do' list on my desk and I added Judy's request to follow up later.

Again like most busy people, my 'to do' list is never ending and something else always seems to crop up. I regularly read Sydney friend Geniaus' blogs as they are always relevant and interesting so when I saw her blog title, It's Taken Me a While, I immediately wondered what she was referring too. As I started reading, it could have been me writing that blog because I still hadn't got back to Judy. So once I finished reading, I went back to Judy's request.

I signed up for Genealogists for Families then and there and managed to take something off my to do list! Click here to join

I then spent quite a bit of time trying to decide which projects I would personally support as they all sounded worthwhile. I decided on the $25 loan option as that would allow me to support two loans. I ended up choosing one from Mongolia as I had spent a week travelling through Outer Mongolia in 1996 and had slept in a yurt and visited with local families. The other project I chose was from Peru, a place I have always wanted to visit (Machu Picchu is on my bucket list).

The very next day I received two emails telling me that both projects had been totally filled and that the recipients had their loans and I would receive progress reports. I was surprised as I had thought it would take longer to fill the loans. I then decided to support another project and again spent some time trying to decide but eventually picked a project in Kenya and just this morning I found out it has also been fully funded. It's terrific that these loans get funded so quickly.

My partner is now interested in KIVA and how it allows people to establish or run their own businesses or helps them out with special projects. He will probably fund a couple of projects too so I am looking forward to see what his choices will be.

The other really good thing is that Judy's idea is now gaining fantastic support from genealogists around the world and within a month of starting Genealogists for Families, there are 45 members with 62 loans with a total amount loaned of $1550. While this doesn't sound like much, it is supporting 62 people with their businesses, farms or whatever and is not just a charity handout. The loans are expected to be repaid and at that point, you can then reinvest that original loan money into new projects. In other words your original gift keeps on giving if you want it to. I think that's what I like best about KIVA.

Despite my tardy start on the team, I totally recommend and support the  Genealogists for Families team on KIVA and I would love to think that some of my readers might do so to. Check out the links and if you can't get involved now, help us spread the word to genealogists everywhere. Click here to join.

As I indicated in my last Diary update, I am having a lovely weekend alone and have made some nice progress on my Wiltshire families thanks to purchasing my ggg grandmother's marriage certificate (she married  again aged 70 years). However I will report on that next time as I am still looking for a few more bits and pieces. Until next time.