ABOUT ME
I first became interested in my family history in 1980 when I was a young stay-at-home Mum with two small children. I approached my mother, who could always be relied upon to embellish a story, to tell me what she knew about our ancestors. Mum, always proud of her paternal Irish heritage, claimed that we were descended from Irish convicts. So I set out to discover if this was true.
Before the internet, tracing the family tree, meant visiting record offices and libraries and painstakingly searching through records. Many a letter was sent off to England and weeks would pass before receiving a reply. It was a great thrill to receive a certificate or letter and add another branch to the tree. I did find convicts in the family but they were English convicts from my mother's maternal side, so Mum's story was half right just the wrong side of the family. On my Dad's side I found that I was a fourth cousin once removed to Dame Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of England, so that was very exciting.
During the early 1980's I visited and corresponded with many cousins and collected lots of information including many photographs and documents. I am forever grateful to these cousins. I initially traced my ancestors back to when they first arrived in Australia and was happy to leave it at that. Occasionally I would hear from a relative and I would have a burst of interest again but mostly my research petered out.
Years went by and my husband and I were planning to retire. We had left Sydney and built a lovely home on the NSW Central Coast. In 2008, I was at my local shopping centre and saw a group of ladies selling raffle tickets for the Wyong Family History Group. I stopped, bought a ticket and had a chat. I joined the group soon after and my research took off again.
I purchased a laptop computer, a family tree software program called 'Family Historian' and started putting all my research onto my computer. After attending a workshop on "Family History in the Modern Era", and being inspired by the presenter, Jill Ball, I decided to put my research on the internet. It's a great way to share my family history research with family members and hopefully, the many photographs I've collected over the past 40 years will not be lost. At the bottom of each Family Page is a list of Sources which include copies of Birth, Death and Marriage Certificates. So help yourself to any information, just remember to acknowledge me and this Website as the source of the information and provide a link back.
My family history research will always be a work in progress and I hope to be updating and adding to it for many years to come. Where possible I try to verify my facts with sources and have resisted the urge to make assumptions and claim ancestors based on a guess, but if you find any errors please let me know. Also please contact me if you have any comments about my Website or have any information to add. If you have any photographs or documents, I would be grateful for a copy. I look forward to hearing from you.
Before the internet, tracing the family tree, meant visiting record offices and libraries and painstakingly searching through records. Many a letter was sent off to England and weeks would pass before receiving a reply. It was a great thrill to receive a certificate or letter and add another branch to the tree. I did find convicts in the family but they were English convicts from my mother's maternal side, so Mum's story was half right just the wrong side of the family. On my Dad's side I found that I was a fourth cousin once removed to Dame Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of England, so that was very exciting.
During the early 1980's I visited and corresponded with many cousins and collected lots of information including many photographs and documents. I am forever grateful to these cousins. I initially traced my ancestors back to when they first arrived in Australia and was happy to leave it at that. Occasionally I would hear from a relative and I would have a burst of interest again but mostly my research petered out.
Years went by and my husband and I were planning to retire. We had left Sydney and built a lovely home on the NSW Central Coast. In 2008, I was at my local shopping centre and saw a group of ladies selling raffle tickets for the Wyong Family History Group. I stopped, bought a ticket and had a chat. I joined the group soon after and my research took off again.
I purchased a laptop computer, a family tree software program called 'Family Historian' and started putting all my research onto my computer. After attending a workshop on "Family History in the Modern Era", and being inspired by the presenter, Jill Ball, I decided to put my research on the internet. It's a great way to share my family history research with family members and hopefully, the many photographs I've collected over the past 40 years will not be lost. At the bottom of each Family Page is a list of Sources which include copies of Birth, Death and Marriage Certificates. So help yourself to any information, just remember to acknowledge me and this Website as the source of the information and provide a link back.
My family history research will always be a work in progress and I hope to be updating and adding to it for many years to come. Where possible I try to verify my facts with sources and have resisted the urge to make assumptions and claim ancestors based on a guess, but if you find any errors please let me know. Also please contact me if you have any comments about my Website or have any information to add. If you have any photographs or documents, I would be grateful for a copy. I look forward to hearing from you.
Last updated 15 Feb 2017
Last updated 15 Feb 2017