May Research

 Yes, I know it's June but time has flown by.

The end of April saw us leave for Roadtrip 2024, 28 days through country New South Wales. 11 main stops, many side trips and 3,057kms, saw us back home 22 May.

Now how could I research while away, you ask? I didn't! May was my month to travel to cemeteries and take photos of family graves, and when home add them to my family tree program, Brother's Keeper.

I had used FindAGrave and the Australian Cemeteries Index to check the location of the graves I needed and I had notes on what I wanted to photograph all packed to go.

Tamworth and it's two cemeteries was the first place to stop. A lovely lady in the first cemetery printed maps of, showing the location of the graves. So much easier as it was raining and I could just jump out, take the photo and jump back in. The second cemetery as more challenging and I didn't find the grave I wanted.

Moonbie cemetery was next and here were the family graves, I needed. It is a beautiful, small cemetery and flat to walk around.

Armidale cemetery proved to be a challenge and I'm now wondering if there was a headstone at all.

Coonabarabran was the next one on my list and I discovered there are two, close together but listed differently. These two were red dirt, no grass and in one, being on a slope, there were ruts where water had washed through. No luck on the first search, so we went to the tourist information centre (doubled as the local family history society),and asked if there were any books showing the location of graves. The chap was very helpful, copied the map and back we went. No luck.

I will say that my darling Hubby waited while I did this, Moonbie was the only cemetery he walked around.

Home and both of us have chest infections and felt dreadful, so things didn't get done. Photos are now on my program and I've found others I had and scanned them as well.

                               Including a stop at Uralla and the grave of Captain Thunderbolt.