I'm Back, where have I been?

Hey everyone.  I am back!  Where have I been?  Read on...

I've pretty much taken a 3-year hiatus from doing much with genealogy and DNA, however, the baton has been picked up, the site will be refreshed and research has already re-started.

After Mum passed I really struggled with doing the research.  She was my research partner in the earlier years and in the latter my sounding board, go to person to nut scenarios and details out and just share the joy and tribulations.

I had to re-evaluate whether I had been doing it for her or myself and whether I wanted to continue.  Add to that medical issues which make computer time difficult it was a HUGE decision.  I swear she keeps throwing people at me from beyond, its like a knock-knock I've sent you this "NOW GET BACK TO IT GIRL!".  Nag for eternity?  MAYBE, I love you, Mum.

I started researching in 1983 when my firstborn was cooking, I had corralled my in-laws (consistently) and dragged information out of them.  Then there was my paternal grandfather, before he passed, oh boy did we have discussions.  I was so disappointed not to find the stories as he told them at first, but with fresh eyes and remembering it was "his" story I looked and researched again and found most of what he said in one form or another.  Research tells a slightly different story (thus far), you know what?  That is okay, in fact even joyous, because they were "his recollections from his memories” which he took the time to share with me and I hold that time very dear.

I will also be posting random “blogging” type posts, not just genealogy, this is at the request of my daughter, she reckons I need to put it in writing, some great ideas hiding there so we’ll see what happens.

Welcome back, I look forward to sharing, connecting and getting to know new cousins.

I do have a couple of Facebook Groups to help each other out and share information, feel free to join the relevant one, would love to see you there!

• Lucas & Cummins Heritage, this one is for all that research within our circle, including the DNA.

• Leahy Genealogy & Family History for all searching for Leahy’s and derivatives.
• Lahey and Leahy originate from two different Gaelic surnames. Lahey, Lahy, Lahiff, Lahiffe, Laffey, and Lahive all originate from the Gaelic surname O Laithimh, which itself is a variant of O Flaithimh. O Flaithimh derives from the Irish word flaitheamh, which means lord or ruler. By the 16th century, the name was found in Galway, Clare, Tipperary, and Kilkenny.
• Leahy, Leehy, O’Leghy, and O’Leahy stem from the Gaelic surname O Laochdha. In Irish, laochdha means heroic. O Laochdha is an old Munster surname, which, by the 1890s,  was found throughout Ireland. It is still most common in the counties of Munster: Counties Cork, Kerry, Limerick and Tipperary. (Source: irishamerica,com : Roots: A look at the Laheys and the Leahy’s.)

• Farrell Family Research and Connect this one is for all researching or are part of our Farrell mob.  This one is fantastic!

• Melrose Genealogy and Family Research this is for anyone researching the name Melrose or Melrose Abbey where the name allegedly stems from, come and help me connect them ALL.

Lastly, there is also a Facebook page where I post interesting stuff for all to peruse.

Cheers

Rhonda

Blogging and Social Networking

Following on from my first post I have continued my foray into social networking and blogging. Boy hasn't it been a journey!

So far I have jumped into facebook and linkedin, I have even learned about feedburner and rss which always seemed so difficult to me previously, but I believe I have it now, kinda easy actually when you take the time to read the actual tutorials instead of skimming over them.

One thing that struck me, there really does seem to be the same set of people who move around and into "social networking" scenes, each time I joined and then entered my address book it was the same people over and over again that kept popping up. Although I must say I ran across 3 cousins, 1 really grown up and that made me feel even older than my years as the last time I saw him he was a teenager ;) and now he's 23 (well almost). Now this aspect is a genealogists dream to re-connect to people so that is all GOOD. I also came across a couple of fellow researchers that I have been too busy to contact, the opportunity to renew those links is great as well.

While researching about blogging I came across an interesting article by Gerard McGarry about "Nobody Links Out Anymore" which I found at digg, being a fellow drupal watcher I found it interesting, maybe you will find it helpful too?

Well that seems to be a lot about nothing, but I have to get into the groove somehow and it's also reminding me to reference, reference and reference - I hear the echo of my teacher at TAFE there! That is something we family researchers should be doing with every breath we breathe.

Baby steps into the future

Tonight I have taken a few more baby steps into the 'modern' world of blogging..
Whilst researching genealogical DNA testing (thanks to maternal cousin Fay who had this done) I came across The Genetic Genealogist which is an awesome site on explaining genetic genealogy via Technorati, after reading through fascinating articles I found a contest being run where you can win a free DNA test, so me being me had to join up to Technorati and then MyBlogLog to enter.
Sooo, here I am getting back into blogging and learning what to do and how to do it *sigh* talk about confusing, should have just tried one at a time instead of doing both together, but hey I like challenges!
Would be cool to win the competition though, had been thinking of having a test for a while, actually would really rather have my elder uncle on my father's side do the test to try and nail down our dead-end Lucas Scots but I would really like mine done...mmmm... ponders the likely hood.
Well, that's a good start don't ya think?