Lilian's Tree

After all the wonderful sessions, on Thursday, we all rolled-up for Friday and Saturday's sessions, determined to miss nothing. There wasn't enough time between dinner and bed for us to 'play' with what we had been shown and I do think that sleep was an after thought, for some people. The rain, forcast, for Sydney arrived and we were reaching for umbrellas and dodging puddles, on our way into the venue. Friday and Blaine stared the day discussing, "Ethical and legal consideration for DNA evidence."  Blaine discussed naming a beneficiary, for our DNA tests, when we are gone. To always read the terms and conditions of every test, we take. To give information to those, we want to test, for us. How ot impart senstive information, we find. Ethics is something we all should be aware of and consider carefully. My next session was with Shelly Crawford, from ConnectedDNA. She mentioned other tools you can use to look at clusters but, really I think her pro...

Something a bit different, this month. I read a review for, "Murder, Misadventure & Miserable Ends. Tales from a Colonial Coroner's Court." by Catie Gilchrist and went, 'got to read this one'. The book is about Henry Shiell, Sydney City Coroner from 1866 to 1899. The book looks at the seedy side of Colonial Sydney, with its seedy streets, dangerous industries and few safety regulations. As the blurb says, "any death that was sudden or suspicious would be invistigated by the coroner." There is a photo of Bondi Beach and until I read the caption, I didn't think that it was Bondi Beach, as it is isolated. This book gives a good look at what Sydney was like in the 19th Century and as such has allowed me a glimpse of what life was like for my ancestors. An interesting read, for both the dark side of the city and for a look as to what life was like then.