Opportunities

 I recently visited an older relative with my mother. My "Aunt" was doing genealogy long before I became interested she did the hard yards, visiting State Records and building the story backwards piece by piece.

The wonderful thing is is that she has produced a family history for part of my ancestors that goes back to England and she didn't just concentrate on the direct line, she spread out and looked at siblings.

On the last trip to visit we had spoken about what she had and I was directed to a number of folders where the information was contained. Well it was contained, my excitement was far from it! Inside these folders were photographs with names and birth, marriage and death certificates as well as confirmation cards. 

This recent visit I took my flippal and asked if I could take the folders with me overnight to go through and scan - she was happy to entrust them to me! What treasure I found there (which I now need to download and sort) for my files. Due to the volume of information I am planning another trip to organise to borrow the folders in daylight hours and get documents photocopied!

Whilst in the area, we also visited another "Aunt" who had been going through her photographs and had sorted some from her mother's album to give to my mother. Talk about a treasure trove! The best was a photo of my Great Great Grandparents! But in going through what had been put aside there was a service record for one of her ancestors which she knew meant nothing to her children. She asked if it was of any use to me, I said I could definitely include it in my tree information and she handed it to me.

On returning to visit the first "Aunt" I showed her this document, it was on parchment! She was just as excited to see and feel it as I was! The person it was concerning is not directly related to either of us but that did not matter it was the understanding of the history that we held in our hands. The 40 odd year gap in our age melts when things like this come up....we are both like kids in a candy store!

(I found a number of blog posts that I have not published so am just doing so now. This one is from 21 June 2022)