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Stony barriers
This blog is the final of four blogs written for National Family History Month 2016 and describes volcanic stony barriers that are a little more than they seem. A land of sweeping plains? Thousands of years ago my favourite place may have been part of a verdant plain. Thousands of years ago before the volcanoes were active.…
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DNA – More than just matches
Next time you log in to your FamilyTreeDNA test check your Family Finder matches. There are now four tabs under the Family Finder – Matches screen. Just as I haven’t stopped purchasing birth, marriage and death certificates I am sure that I am far from finished purchasing DNA kits. Particularly when I am excited about…
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Wool staplers and wool classers
The 1891 shearers’ strike is just one consequence of the many pressures applied to the wool industry which has been in decline since Hargreave’s invention of the spinning jenny. some of these pressures include: the mechanisation of weaving through the use of power looms, the mechanisation of shearing through the introduction of powered hand pieces…
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Census records – one of my gateway sources
I call some of the sources I use my gateway sources. I find them critical to breaking down brick walls. Do I stand at the gateway afraid to go any further? Do I stand in the open gateway thinking about how to approach a completely new set of sources that may contain family stories? Passenger…
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Victoria Land Titles – Introduction
Almost always I have found family stories in Victorian land titles. So where should one start looking? Certainly not by searching current online databases for family historians. Most of the interesting family stories remain buried in files, memorials and research notes in either the Registrar General of Titles’ General Law Library of land titles at Laverton or…
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World War I – Walking Wounded
If you are researching your World War I veteran ancestors don’t neglect Repatriation files. WWI stories aren’t confined to those servicemen who didn’t return. Nor are they confined to those servicemen who were granted land under the Closer Settlement Scheme. Stories about World War I veterans can also be found in Repatriation files held by…
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Autosomal DNA and Probability
The general wisdom is that matches on autosomal DNA are only accurate for up to four or five generations (or to second cousins). Beyond this limit any matches that may occur probably occur by chance, not by inheritance. This is because there is always the probability that any match of any kind of 5% or…