Sep 212014
 

It has been a very hectic time recently, work has been very busy, had a nasty cold and have been preparing for the trip to Canada to speak at the Kelowna and District Genealogical Society Harvest Your Family Tree”conference.

I have come up for air and was surprised to find that I had been nominated, not once but three times, for a One Lovely Blog Award!

Thank you to Alona for the nomination: Helen is a good friend of mine, and she is a great genealogist and blogger as well. Very enthusiastic and passionate (not to mention knowledgable) on all things genealogy. I learn a lot from her and her posts.   

For anyone that doesn’t know Alona (is there anyone that doesn’t know Alona?) she has a number of blogs including the fantastic Memorabilia House which is a wonderful way of sharing family ephemera an their stories. She is the Social Media Queen for Gould Genealogy where she keeps us all updated with family history news and also writes the LoneTester HQ Blog. I really don’t know where she manages to find the time to maintain them all but I am very pleased she does.

The second nomination was from Sharon Fritz from Victoria of Strong Foundations blog


From Helen V Smith’s keyboard.  Helen is very well known but I include her here as I find her very inspirational.  Helen works full time but somehow manages to be very active in the genealogical community.  She has assisted me several times with research and inspired me to commence doing studies in genealogy, which I am enjoying immensely. Thank you for your support and assistance Helen.


The third nomination was from Sharn White of Family History 4 U who scored very well in the recent Genealogy RockStars  in the Australian category. Sharn writes a number of blogs. You can find out more about Sharn and her other blogs from this Geneablogger interview. She said “Helen’s blog posts are always well researched and brimming with fascinating information. A must read.”

From Helen V Smith’s keyboard.  Helen is very well known but I include her here as I find her very inspirational.  Helen works full time but somehow manages to be very active in the genealogical community.  She has assisted me several times with research and inspired me to commence doing studies in genealogy, which I am enjoying immensely. Thank you for your support and assistance Helen. – See more at: http://shazlex.blogspot.com.au/#sthash.UTWOznLY.dpuf

I was thrilled and honoured to get one nomination let alone three. I blog to share my thoughts  and sometimes you are not sure anyone reads or cares about what you write so it is humbling and yet glorious also to know that people read and enjoy your writings.


Here are the rules for the One Lovely Blog Award:
• Thank the person that nominated you and link back to that blog.
• Share seven things about yourself – see below.
• Nominate 15 bloggers you admire – also listed below (or as many as you can think of!).
• Contact your bloggers to let them know you’ve tagged them for the One Lovely Blog Award.

So seven things about me: 

I was born in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, a 5th generation Queenslander on my Mum’s side and first generation on my Dad’s. He was born in England and emigrated in 1949. I am 4 foot ten and a quarter inches (hey that quarter is important!) and would be dinosaur bait without my glasses. I have been researching my family history since 1986 and am totally addicted.

Me in Salt Lake City at RootsTech 2013

I am a professional researcher, author, speaker and do a fair bit of lecturing on  wide variety of topics. I have lectured in every Australian State and Territory, New Zealand, England and will be speaking in Canada in September and at Rootstech in the USA in February. I have also spoken on five Unlock the Past cruises and have been part of the organising team for the cruises. A family history conference while you are being pampered and looked after on a cruise and touristing works for me!

My partner died in 1995 and I have only fur-children, namely a long line of German Shepherds. Shannon at nearly ten is the current ruler of the house.

I am a scientist, Public Health microbiologist and Molecular Epidemiologist by day and the skills learnt doing this has stood me well in researching family history. After all 28 years of reading doctors’ handwriting gives great training! As a result of my day job I have a strong interest in health history, DNA, the diseases of our ancestors and environment in which they lived. 

I am also obsessed with books, of all types. I read everything except horror. I have even been known to read tomato sauce bottles if nothing else was around. I have a library of over 10, 000 books and probably 1500 ebooks now. I have a good genealogy collection of resources as I studied part-time and the only time to research was midnight or later and pre-internet days you either had the resources at home or you didn’t research at that time of night. For some strange reason libraries and archives don’t consider opening then.

I was born in the Year of the Dragon and have a large dragon collection. I like the idea of the protective Chinese dragon (or the Anne MacCaffrey type) rather than the St George and Dragon type.

I run the Quested One Name study which is registered with the Guild of One name Studies and am the Queensland regional Representative. I have lots of projects on the go and plan to live to at least 150 so I can finish as least some of them.

There are many wonderful blogs around and I am pleased to share some of the ones I enjoy with you (they are limiting me but I did sneak in the three lovely blogs above!). I don’t expect any of the bloggers to do anything further unless they wish to do so.

Judy Webster’s blog Queensland Genealogy and her website are places that any person researching Queensland should have bookmarked. Judy has been willing to share her vast knowledge with us all and she shares wonderful new resources she finds in the Archives. There are over 135 pages of indexes on her website.

Shauna Hicks, another very well known genealogist. She has done fantastic work as the Family History Month cordinator and Ambassador. She writes a couple of blogs 
SHHE Genie Rambles with the excellent 52 weeks in records series as well as her Diary of an Australian Genealogist.


Judy Russell The Legal Genealogist blog is another wonderful resource. Judy has a wonderful informative writing style and talks about many topics particularly the law and how it affects our ancestors (The USA (except for those parts based under the French system) was mainly based under the same law system as England as are many of the Commonwealth countries so much is also applicable in Australia, New Zealand, parts of Canada etc. Judy is also a fantastic speaker so definitely hear her if you have a chance. She will be the lead presenter on the Unlock the Past New Zealand cruise in 2016. She was also the Gold Medal Rock Star Genealogist!

CeCe Moore the Genetic Genealogist is another person who can take a subject that is perceived as difficult and make it readable. 

Elizabeth Shown Mills who I am sure needs no introduction. The author of Evidence Explained and now is also writing a regular blog also named Evidence Explained which should also be bookmarked. This gives clear examples and explanations of how citations are done.


Lee Jackson and the blog the Cat’s Meat Shop which gives wonderful context for the past. I am eagerly awaiting the release of his new book Dirty Old London: The Victorian Fight against Filth

Pauleen Cass who also writes a number of blogs one of which is Family History Across the Seas.  Pauleen wrote an excellent series on Beyond the Internet back in 2012 which is just as relevant today.


Kerry Scott of Cluewagon fame who writes thought provoking items with knowledge and humour.

James Tanner of Genealogy’s Star blog is another person who was a lawyer in another life and who writes thought provoking items.

Roberta Estes of DNA eXplained blog who writes as one would expect from that title about DNA, the tests, the results and much more.

The Quack Doctor Historical Remedies for all your Ills. It is always amazing when you read this and about other “health treatments” done in the past that any of our ancestors survived long enough to have us!


Julie Goucher of Anglers Rest blog and also the instigator of Worldwide Genealogy: a Collaboration I find this an interesting blog with the wide range of guest bloggers from around the world that write regularly for this. Disclaimer: I am one of those writers but as there are thirty or so other writers I see no reason why I should not tell you about it.  

Liz Pidgeon of the Yarra Plenty Library and the blog she writes is another you should be reading regularly, Her Twitter handle is @infolass and this is reflected in teh content of the blog.

Lorine McGinnis Schulze and her Olive Tree Genealogy Blog. This is a Canadian blog that also covers a wide area and range of topics.

I hope you will have a look at these. There are so many wonderful blogs around now and more are coming online every day. We are very lucky to be researching in a world where we have such a wonderful way of sharing our stories.



Sep 172014
 

1894 and 1897 Women’s Suffrage Petitions

In 1894 the Women’s Equal Franchise Association (WEFA) initiated a double petition – one for women to sign and the other for men. This was an important step in publicising and gaining support for the woman’s suffrage across Queensland.

There were branches of the Women’s Equal Franchise Association across Queensland and the report in the Warwick Examiner and Times 28 July 1894 showed the process. 

The Committee sent out petition forms across the state at least 150 copies of them per the article, then each area could determine if they wanted to submit their petition as a Queensland one or separately. Gympie along with the rest decided to submit as a Queensland submission. There were two petitions one signed by women and one signed by men.

The petition was presented to the Queensland Parliament on the 6th September.




The Warwick Argus (11 September 1894) reported the presenting of the petition, saying “the ladies gallery of in the Assembly was taken possession of early on Thursday afternoon by an eager throng of female suffragists, wearing white favours and looking as happy as if the hour of emancipation was at hand”

The petiton from 7781 women was bound and otherwise garnished with a profsuin of ribbons of a hue suggestive of temperance crusaders and the blue-stocking brigade” There was also presented a second petition signed by 3500 men.

A second group of women through the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union canvassed support again in 1897.

Through a project organised in a partnership between the late Dr John McCulloch, Dr Deborah Jordan and the Queensland Parliament, and with the contribution of the Queensland Family History Society, these two petitions have been digitally transcribed and developed into a database that is available to the public for free and is available on the Queensland Parliament website..

The ABC has written a nice article on the work involved in indexing the petitions. The well known Rosemary Kopittke and team were the prime forces in this indexing work.

Searching is easy. You can choose to search across all three petitions at once or in each separately. You can search and see if your ancestor signed any of these petitions and you can see their signature. There is a signature and an address so hopefully you will be able to distinguish your person.

You are able to download the image and on seeing the image you can understand some of the traumas undergone by the indexing team. Thank you Team.