On her Geniaus blog Jill has challenged her readers to Accentuate The Positives of their genealogical research for this year. Here is my response to Jill’s meme.

An elusive ancestor I found was my 2x great grandfather William Scadden.  The trail petered out after the 1871 UK census.  Up to this point he had resided since birth in Camborne, Cornwall but in 1881 I found him living in Liverton, Yorkshire with his daughter as his wife had died in 1875.

A precious family photo I found was a photo of my Grandma from 1938 courtesy of Trove.

An important vital record I found was the marriage of my 3x great grandparents James Wigley and Jane Carousa.  I wrote to the Nottinghamshire Family History Society and they went out of their way to not only provide information from their database they also went to the Nottinghamshire Archives and sent me a copy of the original marriage register page!!  This means I now have a definite surname for Jane and can continue the search for her.

A geneasurprise I received was a gentleman contacted me via my blog about a Bible he had which he thought may have belonged to my 4x great grandfather Joseph Greenway.  Here is the blog post I wrote about it. https://blog.kyliesgenes.com/2013/05/joseph-greenways-bible/

In 2013, in amongst life, I managed to post 28 blog posts.  I was pleasantly surprised when I counted them up as I didn’t think there were that many!  🙂

My 2013 blog post that received a large number of hits or comments was about my blog being listed in Jill’s Inside History list of Top 50 Blogs. https://blog.kyliesgenes.com/2013/07/inside-history-magazines-top-50-blogs-of-2013/

A social media tool I enjoy using for genealogy is still Google Plus the same as last year.  I’ve greatly enjoyed the Google Hangouts On Air which I’ve watched live too.  When I get my new headset I hope to participate too.

A genealogy conference/seminar/webinar from which I learnt something new was put on by the State and National Archives Adelaide office.

I am proud of the beginners genealogy course I taught at Teen Challenge SA.  The participants learnt some basic research skills and how to use www.ancestry.com.au for building their family trees.

I taught a friend how to (see above)

A great repository/archive/library I visited was the National Library in Canberra.  My sister and I had a week in Canberra for researching and we had an absolute ball!!!  

It was exciting to finally meet my cousin Joanne who I have corresponded with for several years and who has helped me enormously in my research and is always happy to share her findings!!

Another positive I would like to share is my sister and I made family history folders for our Mum, Brother, Stepfather and Auntie and Uncle for Christmas presents which included some never before seen photos, stories and newspaper articles.  Our grandfather had died when Mum, Auntie and Uncle were young and my sister and I were able to trace part of his life via his work with the Royal Life Saving Society which was copiously documented in newspapers and when I inquired of the RLSS they gave me a complimentary copy of their book on the history of the society which we also gave to Mum for Christmas.  I have been dying to share some of these revelations however I had to wait until after Christmas.  The photo of my Grandma (above) is one such photo we found.

Yesterday I posted a request for help in finding a book with details on a friend’s ancestor.  Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

I shared the blog post on Google Plus and Jill and Julie shared it with their circles for me too

and today I have the answer from Judy on how to access said book!!!

I hadn’t previously heard of Family Search’s Free Book Lookup Service so I checked out the link Judy sent me https://familysearch.org/blog/en/google-books-free-copies-pages-family-history-library-books/ and followed their instructions.

Basically if they have the book you’re after in their library they will scan the page or pages you need and will email them to you free of charge!!  I am eagerly awaiting the book pages now!

My friend Jill aka Geniaus has made a list of her ideas of Christmas gifts for genealogists.  I liked her list so much I thought I’d make one of my own.  I love all the no cost ideas Jill has in her list – family stories, photocopied birth, death and marriage certificates, scanned photos, certificates or awards, newspaper clippings, postcards and letters.  I would love to receive any of these!!

Some of my own ideas are-

• credits for Scotland’s People or  Roots Ireland
• money towards Ancestry and Find My Past subscriptions
• money towards certificates and transcriptions
• help when grave hunting in large cemeteries
• genealogy society membership
• genealogy trip companion
• genealogy bookshop voucher
• magazine subscriptions
• polypropylene sleeves
• archival paper

There are probably lots more but these are all I can think of at the moment.