An ANZAC Experience, National Family History Month 2016 & Other News - Genealogy Notes 16 - 22 Jun 2016

A few days spent in Brisbane gave us the opportunity to visit the Spirit of ANZAC Centenary Experience which is a travelling exhibition touring Australia. It is currently in Brisbane for two weeks, finishing 30 June. Tickets are free but you need to book, probably to keep control of numbers at any one time.
Everyone is given a headset and you wander through listening to the commentary or background sounds. Max's distant cousin Archie Barwick is one of the soldiers who features in the exhibition as his war diaries are very detailed. The diaries have been digitised by State Library of New South Wales so I have looked at them before and it was good to see them used again in this context.

The combination of sound, visual and props makes this quite a moving exhibition because you can almost imagine yourself at Gallipoli or the Western Front.

At the very end there is a section with all the countries that were involved in WW1 and the number of their military war dead. Staggering and that didn't take into account any civilian casualties.

One of my distant cousins Frederick Trevaskis was killed in the 3rd battle of Ypres. I found this part of the exhibition extremely sad as over 6,700 Australians died alongside of him.

Very glad we made the effort and if it is coming to a city near you, make it a priority. The next stop is Mackay so heading up the Queensland coast. Book early as some times were booked out. We ended up late afternoon and went to dinner afterwards at South Bank at the historic Ship Inn built in 1865.

If you can't see it in person there is an interactive virtual tour that you can do. Full details on the website.

While in the South Bank area, we also popped into the Queensland Museum which is another place to spend a good few hours. I can never go past the Queensland dinosaurs and they seem to have added quite a few since I last took my young son there over 25 years ago! Wandering around South Bank also reminded me of Expo 88 which I also took him to, but at 12 months old I suspect his memories of that are a bit vague. Hard to believe that was almost 30 years ago.

After returning home I had to spend quite a while adding lots and lots of events to the National Family History Month website. At the moment there are 98 events across Australia with no events yet in South Australia, Northern Territory or the ACT. Hopefully we will get some soon for those three states and even more events for the other states.

The early bird prize for genealogy/family history societies who add an event to the NFHM calendar closes on 30 June so only one more week. The prize is a gift certificate for any online course from the National Institute for Genealogical Studies, from a choice of over 200 courses. The certificate can be used for fundraising eg raffles or lucky door prizes during August or can be used to reward a society member for their volunteer work and presented to them during August.

The NFHM Facebook page is also getting lots of visits but we would always love more Likes. If you haven't visited yet, pop over now and have a look. More information about NFHM and our sponsors and prize giveaway are on the NFHM website.

On 1 July 2016 this blog will be 5 years old. Where did that time go? I've been browsing some of the old posts and its been an amazing few years with lots of new personal genealogy discoveries. Technology and social media are definitely changing how we do family history. This time last year I was talking about changing the format of this blog but that never happened. You may remember I broke my right elbow last July and managed to complicate my life for just about the rest of 2015.

I'm still thinking of a revamp but don't want to tempt fate again this year. With a week to go to my blogiversary I'll give it some more thought. This coming week I have a few work jobs on so not that much time for personal research but there will be a visit to the Brisbane office of the National Archives of Australia coming up in early July. There are quite a few items I want to look at and given my success at Queensland State Archives the other week, I'm looking forward to it.

Until next time, happy genealogy researching.

Serendipity & new resources - Genealogy notes 23-30 Apr 2015

I am starting this week's Diary post with one of the best blog posts for genealogy/family history societies I have seen in a while. It is Long Lost Relatives aka Susan Petersen's An open letter to genealogy societies and I can relate to all of her points and mostly agreeing. Although regular readers will know that I am still pretty much a paper based reader but then that is probably because I do most of my reading in bed and the only technology in the bedroom is the ancient clock radio. I am a member of five societies at the moment and renewal is coming up and I am seriously thinking of letting my membership lapse for some of them. Why pay for something that you don't use or get value for?

Part of the Anzac Day parade on Bribie 2015

Anzac Day was huge on Bribie Island and Max also had his RAAF reunion here so there was lots of social activities over the weekend. The parade on Bribie was bigger again this year and it is great to see all the schools involved too. For a small island, Bribie has two primary schools and one high school and an amazing number of children when seen all together. The distance was too far for Max and his walking stick but we watched the parade and attended the service at the Bribie RSL.

Max before the service at Bribie RSL

Last week I wrote about her I was trying to see if Mum was the last of her generation and I said there were two olders cousins still unaccounted for. The very next day I received an email contact via Ancestry from the son of one of those cousins (which was a little spooky or is that serendipity) to say that his mother and her older sister are still alive. Wow. Since then he has updated me on that side of the family as I have not been in touch with them since the 1980s.

Finding cousins (several times removed) is so much easier these days, especially if they have put their family history interests online in a subscription database or one of the free sites. If they are blogging their family stories that is another plus as Google can search and find them for us. I find it ever so much more effective than the old genealogical research directories that we paid to put our names into together with a broad date range and county.

In the last month I have been contacted on three different family lines because they have found my interests online somewhere. The information all three has filled gaps in my own knowledge of the family and I am going to meet one of them in a few weeks to see family memorabilia in person. We live a few hours apart but will be meeting somewhere in the middle. All very exciting.

Serendipity also played a role in my Week 37 Military Histories and Unit War Diaries entry in my personal blog challenge 52 Weeks of Genealogical Records in 2015. While I knew about those resources I had not used them before so if I hadn't gone to the talk, I would not have been inspired to look. We never know when and where we are going to find clues for our family history. If you have not seen or used these resources read my Week 37 post.

Work continues on my Occupations course for the National Institute of Genealogical Studies. When you start to focus on a particular subject area it is amazing how many 'new' resources you discover as one thing always leads to another. This is my way of saying I am easily distracted by fascinating websites and start looking for my own families instead of keeping up the writing. Really the internet just has to be the most fantastic resource for family history but it's not all online yet.

Updating my talk on what the voyage was like for Sunday's seminar at Southern Suburbs Branch of the Genealogical Society of Queensland also made me realise how much easier research has become as I first gave a version of this talk back in the 1980s. Newspapers are now digitised and online (but not all), as are photographs of ships, many shipboard diaries have been digitised and again, I was distracted and went looking for information on my families. However, my talk now has some fascinating new snippets on my own research so a win win.

My next blog post and article for The In-Depth Genealogist were finished just in time (end of the month is the deadline). The blog is a series of posts on some of my favourite research institutions in Australia and as we have so many great archives and libraries I suspect it will go on for quite some time. With the articles I am taking a subject approach and like the examples above, I am finding new information myself just researching and writing these posts and articles.

I am pleased to say that some events are starting to come through for National Family History Month which is now only three months away. Next week I will be doing a blog post on it to let everyone know what is new this year and what they can look forward to in August. Remember to remind your local society to add their August events into the web calendar to be eligible for the wonderful sponsors prizes for societies.

It is a very wet weekend here so I have stacked up all my paper genealogy magazines received over the last couple of months and am planning a nice time sitting back reading. I also have quite a few digital copies to read too but sitting at this desk is not quite as appealing as the recliner lounge. I must learn to use my IPad better - I do have some digital books on there but most of my magazines are on the laptop.

No doubt there will be lots of things I will want to follow up from my reading so I'm guessing before too long I will be back at my desk, one of my family history folders on the table beside me, looking up a website to see if I can find anything on the family that I have not already got. Just as well we need to eat, drink and sleep otherwise I would always be at this desk!

Only one more month of autumn then winter will be upon us. But then winter up here is not quite like it is down south. While I miss those wonderful autumn colours, I don't miss those frosty mornings. Have a great genealogy week and I hope you are making as many exciting discoveries as I am. Until next time.

Military, Podcasts and Congress - Genealogy Notes 24-31 Jan 2015

What a week, four days without internet due to a provider issue. Nothing worse when you have a problem, make a complaint and then it does not get acted on. When you contact them again they are surprised that it isn't fixed, on checking it seems that it wasn't actioned so yes not fixed. Now resolved but it did make me realise how dependent we are on the internet. Some times I deliberately turn off and tune out, but this last week I was running to a few deadlines and it was inconvenient.

But where there is a will there is a way and I wrote various pieces without the internet and then once it was back, all I had to do was check and confirm links and do some blog posting.

It is sad to think that in two months time AFFHO Congress 2015 will be over and we will be waiting for 2018 and the next Congress which will be in Sydney. But before then we still get to attend 2015 and my interview with speaker Carole Riley is here. She is doing four sessions including land records, gold miners, social media and technology such as Dropbox and Evernote. I have heard Carole's talk on Evernote and it was very inspiring and to be honest, I was a little amazed at all the things she does with it.

I found time to write Week 29 in my personal genealogy blog challenge 52 Weeks of Genealogical Records in 2015. This week's topic was on Military Records and there are just so many aspects to this topic so I focused on dossiers as they have been indexed and digitised and are online free courtesy of the National Archives of Australia for the Boer War and World War one.

I remembered to check the January podcast from Genies Down Under as Maria had asked me to contribute a tip or two to Episode 39: Mistake stuff for genies - what to avoid to increase the quality of your research. Maria also asked me to contribute to Episode 40 on Superstar stuff in family history - messages from Aussie family history gurus which will be available in February. Lots of great advice coming up.

During my down time I also took the opportunity to input more of my own family data into Family Historian from scratch. Some of the certificates I entered I haven't look at in nearly 40 years and it really is amazing what you forget. My own birth certificate has the name of the doctor and nurse who delivered me and I was surprised to see that it was my old family doctor that I remember from childhood. He was assisted by Nurse Snowball which I thought was an odd name, unusual in itself but also odd for Queensland where it snows very infrequently and then mostly in border areas.

My mother, me and baby brother 

However I have to say redoing your data entry from scratch is very time consuming, although I was also getting used to Family Historian my new genealogy program. I am quite impressed with some of the features and I am scanning certificates and photos and linking as I go so that takes a bit more time. I did a Legacy Family Tree GEDCOM of my son's paternal side and simply imported that into Family Historian which was a much easier option but that was without any tidying up for consistency or looking for missing citations from an even earlier genealogy program. At some point I will have to do a clean up but for the moment the focus is still on reentering all my own family, including citations and standardising place names.

My article and blog for the Going In-Depth digital genealogy magazine published by The In-Depth Genealogist is due tomorrow. I have had both pieces written for about a week but keep tinkering with them as it is a bit nerve wracking writing for a new magazine who may not be so familiar with my style. Also their style and procedures are a bit different to what I am used to, but once I get into the swing of it perhaps those nerves will go away. There are a few 2013 issues on free access here if you are not familiar with this online magazine.

The other exciting thing for the week was that I joined the Bribie U3A (University of the Third Age) and enrolled in a Bribie Island history course. While one of my families were part of the Island's history, there is a lot that I don't know or have not thought about for years. So I am really looking forward to this in Term 1. The topic is so popular they have a ongoing group which also meets each term to talk about new discoveries, anniversaries, and anything else connected to the Island and surrounds.

I couldn't go on the 7th Unlock the Past genealogy cruise to WA but I have been enjoying Helen Smith's blog posts (plural so don't miss any) on the cruise and associated shore events. It is not quite as good as going yourself, but reading about it and seeing all the photos that Helen has taken is the next best thing.

I was also pleased to see that Helen is giving a talk at Bribie Island Library in June so that is in my diary as Helen's talks are always full of info. The Your History Our History program from Moreton Bay Region Libraries has lots of great genealogy talks from Feb to Jun so if you are in the area, all of their libraries are hosting talks.

Well that is my week in review and if there are no more internet dramas, I have a list of personal research follow ups I want to spend time on next week. I love the research, not so keen on the data entry but I love the option to press a key and generate great reports. Till next week, happy researching.

Genealogy notes 25-29 Apr 2014 - Inverell military seminar

The last few days have been spent travelling down to Inverell, NSW and back to attend the Inverell District Family History Group's military seminar day. It is not a quick trip - 7 hours drive and on the way down we went via Ipswich, Warwick, Stanthorpe, Tenterfield, Glen Innes and finally Inverell. On the way back it was a similar trip except after Warwick we went Allora, Grantham, Gatton, Kilcoy and Woodford just to vary the trip a bit.

The great thing about the drive especially once we got to New England was all the autumn colours. The poplars, maples, oaks etc put on a truly beautiful display and by the time we arrived in Inverell we were homesick for our time in Canberra which always had the most magic autumns. The smell of wood smoke also brought back many memories. Of course here in Queensland there are no seasons (not really) so it was very good to see it all again.

It was the Inverell District Family History Group's 30th birthday and to celebrate they had a one day military seminar and a 30th anniversary dinner which we also attended. The registration satchel included various giveaways including pen, pencil, rubber, post it notes, notebook, flyers from NSW transcriptions agents, and various tourism leaflets.There was also a lovely set of black and white postcards On the MacIntyre: Homesteads and Gardens of Western New England and a CD Index to Misc Newspaper Items: People, Places & Events in the Inverell District.

There were five talks and four speakers (I gave two talks). As some people were travelling quite a way, morning tea was first and the talks started at 10am. I thought this was an excellent idea as to make a 9am start some people would have had to leave home before a somewhat chilly dawn. That was the other thing that travelling south reminded us of - it is colder down there!

First up was my talk on the Australian Women's Register and how it can be used when researching female ancestors and women's organisations. As usual I have place the Powerpoint slides on my website - go to the Resources page and scroll down to Presentations. The second speaker was Warren Skewes (Transcribing the Fischer Diaries) talking about war diaries he has transcribed. Warren also brought along a display of war memorabilia from his own private collection which was really interesting to look at. When ever someone holds up original diaries and other items I always hope they have them stored somewhere safe and that there is a back up copy.

After an excellent lunch, Jennifer Milward from the Australian War Memorial gave a talk on helping you to research Australian military service in WW1. Every time I hear a talk about the AWM, I am amazed at how much is on their website apart from the People databases. You really need to explore all the tabs on the home page! For example, check out what is under the War History tab.

The next speaker was Christine Bramble (Great War Nurses from the Hunter Valley) whose talk was 'Almost falling through the cracks - the wartime story of Matron Ida Greaves RRC'. The acronym is the Royal Red Cross and Christine's talk was fascinating and highlighted someone whose war history was almost forgotten until her research using an amazing personal family archive. I think Matron Greaves would be a worthy addition to the Australian Women's Register which my first talk was on.

I gave the last talk of the day and it was titled - To Blog or Not to Blog, That is the Question! This talk was all about blogging, what it is, why do it and how to go about it plus a few of my favourite blogs. It is also on my website, go to the Resources page and scroll down to Presentations.

Afternoon tea and the raffles draw ended an excellent day of talks and conversation. We also had a small display of Unlock the Past books for sale which was appreciated by the various local genealogy societies who don't always get the opportunity to see the books before buying. This kept Max busy during the breaks but he also had time to look at the various military displays around the room too.

The 30th dinner was enjoyed by a smaller group and I really enjoyed the roast pork, vegies and apple sauce with pavlova for dessert while others enjoyed roast beef and an apple pudding. After some brief presentations and speeches it was time to cut the 30th birthday cake which was then thoroughly enjoyed by those present. Not that we were still hungry! Then it was time to end a long but fantastic day remembering our military ancestors.

After the extended weekend we are back on Bribie catching up with things, then we have to go down to Brisbane for the funeral of one of Max's cousins. While sad affairs, funerals are also a time to catch up with family members and now that we are back in Queensland we have been catching up with his mother's family. We are also hoping to have Mum out of hospital in the next few days so I'm not too sure how much genealogy will be happening! Still these days it is amazing what you can do with tablet, wifi and just a few spare minutes. Until next time happy researching.

Genealogy Notes 19-25 Apr 2014 - Military Musings

Today is ANZAC Day and everyone's thoughts are centred around our military ancestors and the centenary of the start of World War One. Kintalk (Auckland Libraries) have organised their usual Trans Tasman ANZAC Day blog challenge and I posted my story on Jack Russell aka Thomas Henry Alphonsus (Alfred) Spencer who fought in both World Wars. Read his story here. I am also looking forward to reading the other blogs in the challenge.

Week 14 of my personal genealogy blog challenge, 52 Weeks of Genealogical Records in 2014 is on Cemetery Records and you can read about it here. Each time I do one of these blogs, I find out a little more about one of my families as I revisit the research or look at things from a different angle. The weekly challenge also means that I do not let it slip down my to do list.

Findmypast.com.au have been releasing 100 records in 100 days and part of this exciting project is the release of thousands of military records for ANZAC Day.  The new collections contain nearly 700,000 detailed records of soldiers who served as part of the Australian Imperial Forces between 1914 and 1918.

The new records available on findmypast.com.au include:

•             Australian Embarkation Roll 1914-1918

Transcripts contain details of approximately 330,000 AIF personnel, recorded as they embarked from Australia for overseas service during the First World War. They include full names, rank, age, trade, marital status, address at date of enrollment, next of kin details, religion, date of joining, unit embarked with, and further remarks. Many of the next of kin addresses recorded are in the UK.

•             Australian Nominal Roll 1914-1918

This list contains details of approximately 324,000 AIF personnel who served overseas during World War 1. It was recorded to assist with their repatriation to Australia from overseas service. The transcripts include the soldier number, full name, final rank, awards, date embarked, and the date returned to Australia, killed in action, or died of wounds. The records also include soldier’s’ unit of service at the time of death or at the end of the war, and non-effective entries – how that person became no longer effective (for example, if they were returned to Australia).

Read more about the records and their ANZAC Memory Bank which contains personal stories here.

I have not had much chance this past week to do much genealogy but I did catch up on my back issues of the Journal of One Name Studies and I am really excited that there will be a meeting of the Queensland branch of the Guild of One Name Studies (GOONS) on Bribie Island on 31 May. At least I won't have far to travel! The other big reading catch up was with Quarterly, the journal of the Association of Professional Genealogists and it is always good to read about what others are doing.

I am a member of Kiva's Genealogists for Families team and took up another three $25 loans to help families in other countries. It is a great project and you can join me on the team here.

I am heading to Inverell, New South Wales today so that I can give my two talks at the Inverell District Family History Group seminar tomorrow. There is a military theme to the day and I am looking forward to hearing the other three speakers. I will be writing about that when I get back home. A busy weekend ahead and I hope everyone finds some time to think about their military ancestors and maybe even do some research and writing. Until next time.

Genealogy Notes 10-12 August 2013 - NFHM update and a new sponsor competition!

I have to confess to a laptop/social media free day on Saturday - it was all building my new vegie gardens and swimming in the pool to celebrate this absolutely incredible August weather we are currently having. You would never know it is winter here on Bribie Island although my memories of Brisbane in August are cold westerly winds especially at Ekka time! So having had a day of relaxation I'm now back in the excitement of National Family History Month.

First I need to share some more news from one of our sponsors, the National Archives of Australia. Regular readers will know that I have just returned from a meeting of the centenary of WW1 advisory committee. I've always been interested in the Boer War as Mum had two uncles who served in both the Queensland colonial contingents and also in the Commonwealth contingents. What I didn't know was that NAA has put the contingent lists for their Boer Ward records into ArcHive their exciting new website that allows researchers at home to help transcribe the documents and make them more accessible to everyone.

Well there are 187 Boer War records waiting to be transcribed! You can search for whatever kind of records that you might like to work on. It's a bit like an Aladdin's cave - too much choice but all good! NAA even gives a rating for difficulty eg easy or hard but looking at some of the 'hard' ones as a long time researcher I can easily read the handwriting (but then I did work in archives for a long time too). Most of these appear to be nominal rolls which make for fascinating reading while you transcribe. Why not register and give it a go!

Now for the National Family History Month update. I've added a few more entries but I think most events are now on the web calendar. I've seen references to events on Twitter, Facebook, Google +, blogs and list servs so it looks like there is a lot of genealogy going on this month! I was going to try and capture all the references but there is just too much but Geniaus aka Jill has added a widget to her blog to show all the tweets for #NFHM13 throughout August. Read her blog post about it here.

There is a late sponsor - Momento which is a online photo book company and they have offered a $150 voucher for a NFHM competition. So I have placed the competition details on the NFHM home page and I've decided to get everyone to help me think of great ideas for NFHM 2014. As national coordinator for the first time this year, it has been a steep learning curve and I've built on existing practices as well as introducing some of my own ideas. But I'm sure that there are lots of other great ideas out there so put your thinking caps on and submit an entry.

I know I have international readers so I'm sorry to say that the NFHM competition is only open to individuals in Australia. If anyone wants to submit an idea/comment please do so but you won't be eligible for the prize this year. Also entries must be within the competition time frame and must include your name and postcode. It will be drawn on 30 August when the NFHM sponsors' prizes for genealogy/family history societies are also drawn.

I rather like the idea of a competition for individuals but at this stage I'm not sure how much work I've just let myself in for. Still it's a learning experience and someone will be an excited winner. I'm looking forward to 30 August and the prize draw and notifying all the lucky winners. But that will also mean NFHM will be over and that's a bit sad but we can all start planning and looking forward to NFHM 2014. (A little birdie has told me that it will be a month again next year so that's fantastic news!)

We have more Melbourne friends arriving for a two day stay so I'm going to be a bit busy entertaining them here on beautiful Bribie Island but I hope everyone continues to have a great genealogy month with all those events across Australia and if you are stuck for something to do, don't forget my 31 Activities for Researchers & Societies for NFHM! Until next time.

Genealogy notes 4-9 Aug 2013 NFHM seminars & talks

Last Sunday I headed to Brisbane airport for what proved to be a hectic few days in Melbourne and Canberra. I'm glad I made the effort to attend the 10th anniversary of Family History Feast at the State Library of Victoria and it was a great opportunity to catch up with my Victorian genealogy friends and colleagues. I have written a  review of the day and it's significance to me on my website and if you haven't already seen it, you should read my Family History Feast Melbourne Aug 2013 blog. Why should you click on that link? The day had a military theme and all five talks were great and there are lots of links to follow up from the talks.

While in Melbourne I also took the opportunity to catch up with friends and dinner first night was in that iconic British pub The Elephant & the Wheelbarrow in Bourke Street and the second night was at Cookie after happy hour drinks at The Moat. One thing about Melbourne there is no shortage of good places to eat and drink and the weather was reasonably kind and not too cold and wet.

Then it was off to Canberra where I was the NFHM guest speaker at the Heraldry & Genealogy Society of Canberra. Before the meeting I was shown there new (to me) premises at Cook and I was very impressed with all the rooms and meeting areas. Almost made me wish I still lived there but then I remembered how cold it was outside! My talk was on Google Tools and as well as talking about various tools, I highlighted some of the changes to searching recently. I do miss the use of the ~tilde facility and I have trouble finding things that I once found easily and now that I know the various filters are under Search Tools that helps too. But I do wish websites didn't change all the time - I never seem to be able to find things again or perhaps I just need to practice more! As usual I placed a copy of the presentation on the Resources page of my website, scroll down to Presentations.

While in Canberra I managed dinner with friends at Timmy's Kitchen one night and the next night at Taste of Himalaya, both at Manuka and within easy walking distance of my motel which had copies of the National Library of Australia's quarterly magazine The Library in the foyer. Great idea to bring the NLA to the attention of tourists and other travellers. But if you can't get to Canberra, you can still download The Library for free here.

I also managed lunch at Belluci's at Manuak with a long time friend who is convenor of this year's Australian Society of Archivists conference which is in Canberra on 15-17 October. I'm planning to go to the 2013 conference and it was great to chat about the program and speakers plus the social events that are great for networking. I've missed the last couple of ASA conferences so I'm really looking forward to catching up with old friends and colleagues.

My primary reason for being in Canberra was to attend the National Archives of Australia's advisory committee for the centenary of World War One. I arrived early so that I could check out their two current exhibitions Design 29: Creating a Capital (all about the selection of Griffin plans for Canberra) and Banned which is a fascinating look at books that have been banned in Australia. I knew about the more well known ones but I was surprised at how many were detective stories or looked to be detective stories judging by cover and title.

The advisory meeting provided an update on NAA's planned new website Discovering ANZACS (previously titled Australians at War) which is now a joint project between them and Archives New Zealand. That's a very exciting project and I can't wait to see that launched. There were reports from others including an update on Australian War Memorial projects and the convenor mentioned Inside History Magazines' project to have a database of all WW1 centenary projects - it's called World War Onelink. I managed a plug for National Family History Month as well and I think we definitely need to have a military theme next year.

Then of course it was back to the airport for the long trip home made even longer by delays at Brisbane airport which meant we didn't leave Canberra on time. While wandering around the Qantas lounge waiting to board, I found Issue 3 of the National Museum of Australia's magazine The Museum. It's a glossy publication which show cases their various collections and exhibitions and I must find time to visit there again on a future visit to Canberra. Most times I seem to fly in and fly out! Good news - it's online and some of the articles are free too - click here.

Anyway after finally given the go ahead to board and depart Canberra, Brisbane airport was still having delays and we must have been ordered to fly on past Brisbane as we continued heading north and as we passed Redcliffe I got a bit excited. We were going to fly over Bribie Island and I could see the different suburbs, the canals and the bridge but then we turned and flew back down over Moreton Island before heading into Brisbane. I obviously wasn't meant to get home early as someone forgot me and I sat around the arrivals/departures pick up area for quite a while. After a long day I eventually made it back  home to Bribie.

Today is another one of those glorious sunny, warm, blue sky winter days and I'm going to go for a nice walk and if the pool's warm enough I might even have a swim! Although I do need to sort out all the info I bought back and follow up on all those good research ideas - I wonder when the next rainy day is? Continue to enjoy National Family History Month and I hope you are having as much genealogy fun as I am! Until next time.