Went to Mount Torrens (in the Adelaide Hills, SA) today to find these ancestor’s graves. It was very cold but lovely sunshine!! My dog Ezri and I had a picnic lunch in the sun.

Like most dogs she loves to roll in the grass.

Mapping Our Anzacs is a great website for researching any ancestors who served in World War One. I find it easier to find people on here than the National Archives website because it is dealing only with WW1.

A page of my grandfather’s records.
William Burnett Willison

I found this information at the Australian Light Horse Studies Centre

2986 Acting Corporal William Burnett WILLISON, a 31 year old Farmer from Parra Hills, South Australia. He enlisted on 6 June 1916; and at the conclusion of the war Returned to Australia, 25 September 1919.

This is the ship William embarked on. The 9th Australian Light Horse Regiment, AIF, 22nd Reinforcement, embarked from Adelaide, South Australia on board HMAT A41 Bakara on 4 November 1916.

I haven’t looked into the site much yet but there appears to be a lot more information there.

I spent a lovely day yesterday reading poetry and doing craft with my Mum. She introduced me to CJ Dennis! I’d heard of him and The Sentimental Bloke before but hadn’t read any of his poetry.

A Spring Song
The world ‘as got me snouted jist a treat;
Crool Forchin’s dirty left ‘as smote me soul;
An’ all them joys o’ life I ‘eld so sweet
Is up the pole.
Fer, as the poit sez, me ‘eart ‘as got
The pip wiv yearnin’ fer – I dunno wot.

I’m crook; me name is Mud; I’ve done me dash;
Me flamin’ spirit’s got the flamin’ ‘ump!
I’m longin’ to let loose on somethin’ rash…
Aw, I’m a chump!
I know it; but this blimed ole Springtime craze
Fair outs me, on these dilly, silly days.

I love it!! This is just the first two verses, I love the language, the way words are used, the rhyme and rhythm, the old Aussie slang. I apologise to those who can’t understand this poem, some of it I don’t understand either but I can get the gist of it if I keep reading so hopefully you can too.

This is a great video someone’s made, a recitation of The Play from The Songs Of A Sentimental Bloke. This will give you an idea of how it sounds and how Australians spoke in the early 1900s.

Yesterday I wrote about uploading your family tree to other genealogy sites. Thankfully I got messages from Bobby and Geniaus letting me know that on www.genesreunited.co.uk anyone with a paid subscription can see everyone in your tree dead or LIVING!! Here are there comments:

Bobby. said…

Hi Kylie,
I also got excited about genesreuntied. I added my tree and chose to keep living people private in the settings which is something we all have to do. Sure people made contact with me and that was great. However, what they dont tell you on their website is that even though you can make ‘living’ people private it is still shown to paid up members. I started seeing my close family members being added to trees, and i wondered how this could be. Made further inquiries and found out all my info was being shared to all paidup members on the site even though i chose to hide living folks. So be careful and probably best to upload a gedcom without living folks. Needless to say I no longer go there or have my gedcom on any website except my own.

Geniaus said…

Kylie, I had the same experience as Bobby and found out when a not too happy cousin complained about her details being made public on Genes Reunited. I only have a gedcom for people not living on that site and do not update it. Like Bobby I now have my data on my own site http://www.geniaus.com where I have full control over what is seen and not seen. Regards, Geniaus

I’ve deleted my current genes reunited tree and will make a new gedcom without living relatives for uploading to various sites.

Please be wary of all family tree sites and check what their privacy settings are, as I should’ve done 🙁

If you think you may have ancestors who served in World War Two go to the World War Two Nominal Roll website. From the site:-

The World War Two Nominal Roll was created to honour and commemorate the men and women who served in Australia’s defence forces and the Merchant Navy during this conflict.

This site contains information from the service records of some one million individuals who served during World War Two.

You may search for service record details by specifying name, service number, honours, place (of birth, of enlistment, or residential locality at enlistment). Once you find an individual service record you can print a certificate, if you wish.

Do your search:

Here’s a result:
(This is my uncle Bill Willison’s certificate. He passed away in May 2002 and is greatly missed.)

Above the search result it says:

In addition to viewing this service record, you can also produce a certificate of this service record

Click on ‘Produce a Certificate’

You can print the certificate but make sure you check it in print preview first. It may not print very well. Instead I like to save the certificates as an image, keep a copy on my computer and also upload a copy to my online family tree. Here are the steps to do this.

When you have the certificate showing in your web browser, as above, press the Print Screen button on your keyboard. It may be abbreviated to Prt Scr.

The computer creates an image containing everything which is showing on your computer monitor (screen) at that time.

If you use the Microsoft Windows XP or Vista operating system then open Microsoft Paint by clicking on the Start button > All Programs > Accessories > Paint. This will open the Paint program. On the menu bar at the top left, click on Edit and click on Paste. This will put your screenshot in the Paint program.

Click on the select tool near the top left hand corner of the screen. Drag the select square over the certificate so that the square is around the parts of the certificate you want to keep. It may take a couple of tries to get it where you want it.

Click on the Edit menu and click on Copy:-

Click on the File menu and click on New:-

Click on the Edit menu and click on Paste:-

The final image:

Now you have a nice image which didn’t cost anything other than a bit of time. It may seem like a long process at first but the more you do it the more you’ll get used to it. You could also print it and it should come out very nicely. Hope this is helpful to someone!!! Kylie 🙂

Went to the display Australia’s Christian Heritage at Adelaide Christian Centre today. I was very impressed. It was a large work, very detailed historical facts, well presented, easily readable and understandable, large print, and well balanced – not too busy with too many things in the presentation.

I’ve got a nice stack of leaflets to read through – Captain Charles Sturt, Proclamation of South Australia, The Christian Settlement of South Australia, and some great books and websites to look up as well.

You Can Be Another Great Australian – The Challenge of Australia’s Christian Heritage by Margot Ogilvie.
Discovering Australia’s Christian Heritage by Col Stringer
800 Horsemen by Col Stringer
colstringer.com
Australian Christian History Research Institute