Lilian's Tree

Wishing all my fellow bloggers a Happy and Safe New Year. My Jan/Feb copy of Inside History had arrived with the topic being Sports Stars. The Don is on the cover. Wonderful book reviews, a guide to what is new online and so much more. If you don't subscribe, do so it is a quality Australian magazine.

I've just spent a lovely hour chatting with friends on Google Hangout. Tonight we focused on the positives we had in the past year, relating to out genealogical research.  Several people said that they had broken theirs or other peoples  "brick walls" down. That is always a great thing. I had success with finding the birth of my Great-Grandfather,  in Germany. I used Family Search for this and once I had found him, I went to my local LDS Family History Centre and was able to order the film it was on. For those who haven't looked at Family Search, try it. There is so much on their site that I could easily spend hours just going through each section. www.FamilySearch.org

Wishing you a Merry Christmas. May your day be filled with Family and fun.

Just back from 2 days in Canberra and we spoilt  ourselves by staying at Rydges, Lakeside. Our room was on the 11the floor with beautiful views. Looking toward the lake, we had this view of Parliament House. Looking the other way was Black Mountain and the Science Dome Sunday we spent time at the Australian War Memorial, with lunch in their outside café and viewing Afghanistan: the Australian story exhibition.   This was very moving. The highlight of the day was the very moving Last Post ceremony, where they tell the story of one of the Diggers, whose name is on the Roll of Honour. I was asked if I would like to lay a wreath and I did so to honour 2 uncles. Yesterday we went for a walk along the lake shore. It was lovely as it was early and very still. I stopped to take a photo of this And found this as well. We went to the National Library and viewed the exhibit It was very interesting and the maps on display were amazing. It is free to view but yo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmmNQryzbcs&feature=share GeniAUS' Hangout on Air - Society Spotlight  Here is the link for the chat I took part in. Thank you Jill for all your hard work in making sure we were all set up. Now I've got the hang of it I might try it myself.

Last night I took part in a live chat about Genealogical Societies. I don't know the correct name for the topic and Jill or Les might correct it but it was really good. I used Google hangout and found it really easy to use. Jill raised the topic and there were eight people on the chat, with some lurkers. We talked about the societies we belong to and I was able to explain what I'm trying to do with starting one up. It was very interesting to hear about different societies that are around and I've learnt about two overseas one that I'll  have a good look at.

Todays talk was on Griffiths Valuations and it was good. I now have a better understanding of how to read the entries and find the maps, using the web site www.askaboutireland.ie and selecting Griffiths Valuation. I haven't had any luck, so far but I might have to rethink my belief that they did come from County Galway and expand my search. I'm also going to recheck their arrival paperwork and see if I've missed something, sometime a fresh look revels hidden gems.

Where did the rest of November go? Last week my husband and I celebrated our wedding anniversary, with a lovey dinner out. On Saturday, last, I went into town to SAG and attended the talk, by Kerrie Farmer on Scottish resources on-line. Kerrie's talks are always wonderful and I came away inspired to tackle my Scottish problems. Today I have a talk on Griffiths Valuations and tomorrow, Writing Group. The Writing Group, is a newly formed group of 'budding' writers.  Most of us attend a workshop, last August/September, in at SAG, on how to write up your family story. We liked it so much that we asked if we could form a group and are now in our second month. We have the time-slot until June next year, when it will be re-assessed, so come and join us. We help each other out, with problems, ideas, support and feedback. Next year I'm presenting a talk on how to do Indexes and then one on Appendices. We email each other ideas for topics and then those with the knowledge o