Lilian's Tree

I have come to the conclusion that six hours sleep does not make for a happy camper! Having turned the light of at 11.30pm and having the alarm sound at 6.30am is not good but as a good genealogist, I bravely soldiered on, until 3.45pm when I had to call it quits. But I digress. Another beautiful morning greeted the 600 attendees, 300+ who had partied the night before, as we made our way to the ICC, for Day 3. Martyn, thought that a sing-a-long would be one way to wake us up, this was greeted with groans and laughter, but sing we did. Paul Milner was this morning's speaker on English Research -Eighteenth Century Sources and Indexes. This is my time frame, so I paid attention and tried to absorb what Paul was saying. Very intersting and useful. Another delicious morning tea was waiting for us after this session and a chance to again have interesting conversations or view the vendor stands. Again the choices for the concurrent sessions were excellent and I chose to listen to

Saturday night was the Congress Dinner, in the Grand Ballroom of Rydges Hotel, Pitt Street. Good food, excellent speaker and wonderful company made for a fantastic night. There was just one tiny problem, NO TABLE CENTRES!  What is a formal dinner if the table isn't dressed accordingly? Well it seems that both Heather Garnsey and Martyn Killion had a solution for that, make your own! Below are some photos of Cheryl Ann and Jennie making Table 3s', Harbour Bridge. Yes, the theme for the Congress was Bridging the Past & Future, hence the bridge. Much laughter ensured, as these two ladies constructed the model. Our table finished first and we each got a Caramelo Koala Bear. The evening's speaker was Mark Tedeschi QC, and he spoke about John Hubert Plunkett and the Myall Creek Murders. You can read about the Massacre at this link.     http://www.myallcreekmassacre.com/Myall_Creek_Massacre/Home.html                                                Jennie Fairs working

At 10.00am on Friday 9 March 2018, at the International Convention Centre (ICC), Darling Harbour, the 15th Australasian Congress on Genealogy and Heraldry, began, with three concurrent sessions. And the choices were difficult, with a very varied range of topics. A1, was my first choice, with Jill Ball's Beaut Blogs: ideas for tarting up Geneablogs. What a fantastic session it was! Jill has such enthusiasm, for blogging that she really engaged her audience, especially as she used some parts of other bloggers, blogs.                                                                    Jill Ball. This was followed by a break and a chance to catch-up with friends, there only for the day. Back into the room and I attended the talk from the National Archives of Australia about Linking the Obscure. Very interesting, lots of useful information. Lunch and a quick dash outside for a photo of those, who are doing or have done the University of Tasmania course, then I filled in on the

#Congress_2018 has been and gone and I'm only just getting around to blogging about it. So lets rewind to Wednesday 7 March. I was asked to be the 'Welcome Person', as people arrived for early-bird registration. This was set-up in Glover Cottage, next door to Richmond Villa, home of the Society of Australian Genealogists. It was very slow, with only around 50 people taking advantage of this, by the time I left around 2.00pm and Jill Ball took over. There was early registration on Thursday 8 March, as well but I didn't go into the city until lunch time. This was very busy and Jill Ball's blogs GeniAus    http://geniaus.blogspot.com.au/   has all the gossip. Once ensconced in my hotel room, I was joined by Alison Wolf and Ruth Standring for afternoon tea. Discussions about what sessions we wanted to go to, dinner, on both  Thursday and Friday nights, plus catching up with each others news. Ruth and I walked down to Pancakes at The Rocks, Darling Harbour, (very

After fours days of watching Rootstech sessions, you might be forgiven if you thought that I had gone a bit, 'crazy!' But no, I haven't. You might also wonder what a parrot has to do with genealogy, well... Yesterday Helen Smith and Judy G Russell, genealogists, arrived, for #Congress_2018 and Jennie Fairs and I took them out, to Symbio Zoo, just south of Sydney at Helensburg.  https://symbiozoo.com.au/ This little zoo is home to a wonderful array of Australian native animal and birds. We had cuddles with a koala, fed a kangaroo and a paddy melon, (small wallaby), saw a sleepy wombat and Tasmanian Devil. Then there were the birds, beautiful native birds. Yellow Tailed Black Cockatoos, Sulpher Crested Cockatoos, Gang Gangs, Finches of various types, Tawney Frogmouths and two pairs of  Eclectus Parrots. It was one of males that wanted to play peek-a-boo.                                              Imogen, the koala was lovely to pat.                              

Another 4.30am start to the day but after the end of the first session, I went back to bed for two hours! It was cool, and dark at 4.30am but now there is a lovely breeze and the temperature is 28C, at 11.30am.                                             What 4.30am, looks like. Audrey Collins works for The National Archives, in England and is a friend, so it was only fitting that I watch her session on 'Civil Registration Indexes of England and Wales.'  Having English ancestors this talk was very helpful in how to search the indexes and explained how they were organised. She also mentioned a website, UKBDM, https://www.ukbmd.org.uk/ that I hadn't heard about and am now going to 'play' around on it. It was a really good presentation and I now have a better understanding of the indexes.                                                          Audrey Collins. I've watched some of the Rewind Sessions, that were on between the live streams and today&#

Feeling very sleepy but the day is young, so well... The second session was preceded by a Rootstech Rewind, featuring Tan Lee from 2015,  a Vietnamese-Australian telecommunications entrepreneur, is a co-Founder of  Emotiv . She was named the 1998  Young Australian of the Year . Her talk was about her life journey,  it was very moving. Beautiful. I then settled down to watch Understanding DNA Testing for Genealogy, with Jim Brewster, from Family Tree DNA.  While it was good and I learnt new things about my FamilyTreeDNA results, which might be helpful, it did get technical . Sorry to see that the room wasn't full again. Jim Brewster My third session of the day is with Amy Johnson Crow and Curt B. Witcher on 'How not to leave your genealogy behind.'  They both spoke about how we leave our genealogy, for future generations.  Amy asked, 'Who knows your password?' For genealogy, photos, etc. She mentioned Legacy Contacts. Where you set-up who can access

I'm going to break these post up because yesterday I had a technical glitch and lost 2/3's of the post. Not Happy! So Day 3, 3 March, here in Sydney, 21C and 6.00am. I've just watched Myko Clelland, give a great presentation on FindMyPast's British and Irish Hidden Gems. It was going really well, then Myko got a blank screen, thankfully not the blue screen of death. A tech guy was called in but Myko continued on witht he presentation, first without his notes but then with then. (They had been handed to an official). He really knows his stuff and the audience were enjoying themselves. It was great to see a full house.  Even with the handout, I still took four pages of notes and learnt new ways of using FindMyPast. Yesterday I mentioned the cost is a factor in going to Rootstech but one of the main reason, if not the BIGGEST reason in attending RootsTech, is the friends you meet and make. My first trip, in 2016 was amazing. I only had to open my mouth and I

Well Rootstech started in Salt Lake City, on Wednesday 28 February 2018 at 9.30am, after registration. BUT for us Aussies, it was 3.30am Sydney time 1 March 2018. Myself and several others, Helen Smith, Pauleen Cass, Jennie Fairs and Alona Tester, to name some, oppted to stay DownUnder and miss the fun and snow. [insert a very sad face, here. :(  ] Cost is a huge factor for us Aussies, when we travel but this year we have our own #Congress2018  or to give it it's correct title the    15th Australasian Congress On Genealogy and Heraldry.    Not on the same scale as Rootstech, it is still the biggest one held her in Australia, every three years and we have choosen to attend that.  But I digress, more on Congress, in other posts. The organisers of Rootstech have selected 19 different sessions, from lectures to the general sessions, to be lived streamed. Great if you live in the USA but not so good for us. Alarms are being set for either 3.00am, to hear the 3,30am session or like

Thomas Joseph Abberton was born 30 March 1865 [i] , the elder of twins, at Mummel, near Goulburn. The other twin was a girl, Francis Maria. Their parents were Thomas Abberton and Mary Torpy. Thomas Joseph was their second son and eighth child. I don’t know anything about his childhood but can assume that as the school was located on what had been Abberton land that he would have attended, sometimes. He would probably have worked on the family farm and maybe helped in the post office, that his parents ran. I do know that his future wife, Louisa Nicolls, was appointed teacher of Mummel School in 1885 [ii] and that this is where they would have met. Thomas and Louisa married 1 January 1890. [iii] They had seven children, Fredrick Thomas 1891-1935, Sidney Michael 1892-1928, Marianne Clara 1894-1975, Matthew Henry 1896-1958, Leslie John 1898-1917 WW1, William Patrick 1900-1978 and Michael 1903-1903. Louisa also died in 1903 [iv] , just after Michael. In 1904 Thomas w