World War Two Letter

Thanks to Ros, the moderator of Aus-sagen mailing list for finding this letter being sold on ebay.  James Alexander Alcorn was a distant cousin.  He wasn’t called James but Lex instead.

He enlisted in the RAAF in Feb 1941.

 

In Mar 1941 Lex married Rona Mary Presgrave.

 

This letter Lex wrote to his parents is dated 8 Jul 1942.

 

On 16 Jul 1942 James Alexander Alcorn died in a flying accident over the North Sea, only eight days after writing to his parents.

Headstones

I went to Centennial Park Cemetery today, I got a few photos of headstones but couldn’t find all of the ones I was looking for.  I also found that there is no headstone for my paternal grandmother’s grave.  I think I will make a digital memorial (picture) and put it on my family tree and send it to any family members who would like it too.

William Burnett Willison (my grandfather)

William Henry Willison (my uncle)

Phillip Rushton Buring (my cousin)

It was reasonably hot today and with high humidity so I didn’t stay at the cemetery looking for those I couldn’t find, I’ll go back another day when it’s not so warm.

To Share Or Not To Share

Just recently on a genealogy mailing list there has been discussion of the ‘dangers’ of sharing your family tree online. These discussions came under the heading Cautionary Tales where people spoke about the ‘terrible’ things which had happened to ‘their’ data because they had shared it online – their data was merged into other people’s trees on multiple family tree websites, some felt that their data had been stolen and others said that they felt violated.

What a sad situation, I much prefer to encourage people to share what they have with the people around them.

I think these sentiments stem from a misunderstanding of what the culture of the Internet is and how it functions.  Sharing is the driving force of the Internet.  If American universities, back in the 1960s, had never asked to use the military’s network and share their resources then there would be no Internet or World Wide Web as we know them today.

I openly share my genealogical research, I would like attribution for it, where possible, but I’m realistic enough to know that that isn’t always going to happen and that’s fine by me.  I choose to treat others how I would like to be treated.  I share my time, money, resources, knowledge etc and sometimes if others do the same for me that’s a bonus.  I actually get such a buzz from helping people though that I don’t care if they help me in return!!

One list member, though, Merilyn, shares similar views and spoke up on the aforementioned mailing list saying, there’s nothing to be afraid of and encouraging everyone to share their data.  Yay!!

What do you think?  Are you happy to share your family research online?

First Post, Not The Last Post

Having just changed from Blogger to hosting my own WordPress blog there may be some teething problems.  Please let me know if you find anything which isn’t working.  This is the fun, exciting, experimenting time so please bear with me  🙂

I’ve changed the name of my blog from “Blog, Blog, Blog” to “Genealogy – Arts – Tech Blog” to try and cover three of my interests.  I’ve also put in two new pages – Arts and Technology to try and keep these interests separate.  I don’t know how this will go as my interests do blur together, it will be a wait and see thing.  If it doesn’t work I can always change it!!!  🙂

If you use Networked Blogs please re-follow my blog by scrolling down the page until you come to the Networked Blogs widget on the left hand side and click Follow This Blog.  I have redirected the old Blogger blog to this address but you may like to change your Feed Reader to point directly here.  The feed address is http://feeds.feedburner.com/Genealogy-Arts-TechBlog

Ok, I hope you enjoy the blog’s new look and layout!
Stay tuned for more posts, Kylie