November went by in a bit of a blur - recovering from surgery, celebrating my birthday and getting ready for the Unlock the Past genealogy cruise in December. Once we were home from that trip, it was get ready for Christmas and the New Year. A whirlwind couple of months.
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| Cruise speakers with Alan and Anthea Phillips |
Blogs
In my review of the year I realised I had written no blogs for my Genie Rambles on my website and not as many as I had hoped in Diary. Plus there were the two guest blogs for the Genealogical Society of Queensland.
In a last minute rush I have written a report on the genealogy cruise, read it here and revisited an Aussie Christmas blog from a few years ago, read it here. Updating it made me realise how much has changed in the last few years.
I am also going to be part of Geniaus' annual review of our achievements in the past year. 2024 has been a strange year for me, mostly focused on my PhD research, but still finding new things on the family. Read my Accentuate the Positive Geneameme 2024 here.
As part of my plan to move all my research online, I am republishing articles I wrote for various journals in the past. To start with, I have done all my articles between 2015 and 2017 for Going In-Depth for the In-Depth Genealogist, now defunct. I had forgotten how much of my own family history I had written about so this will be another way via Google for relatives to find my research. See the articles on a new page of Diary called Genealogy Downunder.
Books
In some ways not being well is good as you can lie around and read. Over the last two months I have read quite a few and have gained some new books thanks to Santa and the Unlock the Past bookstore on the cruise. Looking forward to picking up some new hints.
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| Some of my Christmas reading |
Conferences and Travel
The March AFFHO Congress is coming up fast. I am registered, booked my accommodation and the only thing left to do is finish my talk and handout.
The ACT/NSW conference is in Woollongong this year and in person. I am considering going but it is also the same time that I was planning to go to England. Need to sort out my travel plans for 2025 as there is quite a bit of travel coming up, Bali (holiday), Sweden (family), Ireland (family history) , England (family history) and in Australia, Darwin (a history conference) and Broome (bucket list).
And don't forget a virtual visit to RootsTech 2025. It's free and online. I am giving two talks. But I will miss the in person experience that I had in 2023.
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| 2023 was a great experience |
Resources
Wow so many new records from Ancestry, Findmypast, MyHeritage and FamilySearch. And let's not forget Trove and all those wonderful newspapers. I honestly can't keep up although I know most of my family lines need updating.
Talks
2025 always starts early for me as I accept invitations to speak at various events. There are quite a few in the first six months of 2025 and you can check them out on the Events page of my website. Looking forward to catching up with everyone again.
What's coming up next?
I am still planning to publish at least one of my family histories online through NED. It is just taking longer than I thought to tidy up and make the endnotes consistent.
This will make my family research available through Trove for other researchers. Not so much a family history, but a record of my research on each of the families. I don't want all the hard work of the last, nearly 50 years, lost when I am no longer here.
Always lurking in the background is my PhD research on 1750 women incarcerated in colonial Queensland gaols. Never short of anything to do there.
As always, have fun researching. Until next time, Shauna
