Z is for ...

Z is for…

I thought X was a hard one to write about!  

As far as I can see I have absolutely nothing Family History related to do with “Z”! 

So as far as I can see Z is going to have to be for… Z at the end of the A to Z Challenge! 

I started this challenge with high hopes of completing it and I am happy to be at the end with this Z, even though I have nothing to write about. 

I looked up genealogy words starting with Z and did’t have much luck. I found the following: 

zincographer
A designer who etched in relief a pattern on zinc plates used for printing.

zitherist
A player of a simple, flat many-stringed instrument; rare: a bard or minstrel.

Well as you have probably guessed by now I haven’t found a Zincographer or a Zitherist in my Family Tree. 

I guess I could always take up the playing of the Zither! Then again maybe not, I have enough hobbies! 

So thank you for reading and I look forward to seeing other’s “Z” posts.

Y is for ...

Y is for … 

I haven’t as yet found any Y christian names in my Family Tree.  

So what am I going to write about for a Y.

“Years”, of course. 

We as Family Historians have many numbers running around in our heads, which often turn into “years”. We deal in years with monotonous regularity.  

Our ancestor’s lives are made up in years. Our research depends on us finding years of birth, death,marriage, schooling, voting, traveling, immigrating….to once again name just a few. 

The more years we can find the more we can tell about our ancestors. The years give us background for putting flesh on the bones of our ancestors by way of stories.  Year dates can give you a place to search for social history to add interest to your family's story if you don’t have a lot of facts.  

When I see building facades with year numbers on them, my thoughts immediately start trying to connect ancestors to that time frame. It is amazing how many times I have caught myself thinking “so and so” was born or living at this time. I find that since starting my Family History journey, I can recall many years, without to much trouble.  Although I do tend to sometimes to mix them up!  

Family Historians I feel, view years in a far different way than the normal population. I know I do!!

X is for ...

X is for... 

This is a joke, right? 

X is for...? Well this is supposed to be a challenge and X certainly meets this criteria!

The only thing I can think of to write about for this challenge without cheating and checking what other Family Historians have written about is...

X

This was often the mark made by our ancestors who were not blessed with the luxury of a formal education. Many an “X” appears instead of a signature on shipping lists, muster forms, census forms, marriage, birth, death applications to name just a few.  

But as my research is still in it’s early days( I have only been researching for about ten years after all) I have not found an “X”.  

Yet!  

I look forward to reading some other's "X" posts.

W is for ...

W is for... William, Wilson, Wedding, Wills, Wells.

As I am writing this in the car after attending a beautiful wedding on the weekend, I guess the most suitable subject for this challenge is Wedding. 

I have spent the last three months sewing a Double Wedding Ring Quilt for this couple. It gave me great pleasure creating this quilt but believe me it was a challenge! I spent many an hour sewing and thinking. 

Thinking of other weddings, my own included. My husband and I were married on a bright stifling hot summer day over 43 years ago. I think it was about 40degrees in “the water bag” so the saying goes. 

I had 3 bridesmaids and all my nieces and nephews involved in the wedding party. This consisted of 3 flower girls, 3 accompanying page boys, 2 pageboy ring carriers and one just sitting page boy(he couldn't walk yet) and 2 nephews who were ushers! It truely was a family affair! 

Weddings are such a great occasion. To me it is a joining of more than just two people, it can be the joining of whole families. This special  wedding on the weekend was a combination of two cultures, Australian and Vietnamese, and it was done so well.

I am sure there have been many special and different weddings in my Family Tree, I wish more had been documented over the years though!

V is for ...

V is for ...Valma, Vera, Vanessa, Victoria. 

I am going to write about another favourite Aunt. I really only have memories of two aunts and I have already written about one for the L challenge. I had other aunts but I don’t remember them.  

Aunty Vera was my mother’s eldest sister. She was born in 1911, married in 1942 and died in 1980. 

What do I remember about Aunty Vera? I remember her smell, I am not sure what scent she wore but I remember she always smelled the same and I loved it. 

Aunty Vera was always well made up. She never went anywhere without putting on her “face” and “lippy”!  

As a teenager I remember when she visited us and stayed over she would always give me access to her makeup bag. 

The treasures I would find there. My Mum wasn’t into makeup other than face powder and her signature red lippy.

But Aunty Vera had the works...the cleanser, toner, blushing sticks, multitude of lipsticks, foundation and much more that I can’t remember. 

I remember her staying with us when I was a teenager and being allowed to use her makeup. She had this roll up stick of “something” I am not sure what it was exactly, but it was applied to the face. I used it every day she was there and I thought I was the “bees knees”! 

Aunty Vera was also tall and elegant. She epitomised the word lady!

U is for ...

U is for....

Well U is for a lot of things, but unfortunately not much relating to Family History. I have one Ursula in my Family Tree, but once again as she is a living relative, I will not write about her.

So my “U” word will be University.What does University have to do with Family History I hear you ask? For me a lot. 

University was the biggest influence in the creation of my Family History Blog.

To be more precise The University of Tasmania. Tasmania is a state of Australia and is a little island on the southern most tip of Australia. 

I started this journey of learning in July 2015. I saw a post on Facebook advertising a Diploma of Family History. As I was retired and dabbled in Family History research it sparked my interest. So of course I had to read more and I clicked on the link. 

The initial unit of the course was of short duration and the last assignment was due at the end of September. As my husband and I were going overseas in the October of that year, this looked good. 

The course was free. I have never turned down a bargain. So this also looked good! 

The course was fully online. I am Mobility Challenged so I do like online things. So this definitely looked good ! 

The course was on Family History. How could I not do this, I asked myself?  

So I signed up and I began a wonderful learning journey. I had only gone to school to the age of 16 in 1971. I was apprehensive and nervous. How was an old duck like me(60years young) going to cope with University?  

Once I started I soon found many of my fellow students were of the same vintage or older than me. As it was fully on line we came from all around Australia. 

Two and a half years and a total of 8 units later found my husband and I and a cheer squad of my eldest sister and a dear friend travelling to Tasmania for my Graduation Ceremony to receive my Diploma in Family History. 

University taught me many things, not only helpful in my Family History journey. It taught me that I am never too old to undertake a challenge. It awakened a thirst for knowledge that I really never knew I had.  

University for me was an outlet for my “little grey matter” to come out and play.

T is for...

T is for…Taylssa, Terencce, Thedore, Thomas, Timothy, Tobias, Toli. 

As most of the above “T” ancestors are either still living or have already had posts written about them, I will diverge to another of my favourite “T” words. 

T is for … Trove! 

In Australia we are very fortunate to have access to an incredibly large free online search engine. It was created by the National Library of Australia. 

It has many categories that can be searched leading you directly to the source and not just a list of websites. The most fascinating and largely used category ( especially by the Family Historian) is the Digitised Newspapers from the years 1803 to 1954. But there are many other categories worth checking out. While writing this post, I logged into my Trove account and in the last hour there had been 19,039 searches. 

The only problem with Trove is that it can be a great time waster. Many a time I have logged into Trove to look up just one thing, and found myself hours later happily saving  many things that I have found but hadn’t planned on. 

If you haven’t discovered Trove yet, do yourself a favour and check it out.

https://trove.nla.gov.au