Kiva Commemorative Loan in memory of Joan Miller

I read with sadness that Joan Miller of Luxegen Genealogy passed away on 4 Jan 2013.  Joan was co-captain (with Judy Webster) of Genealogists for Families, a Kiva lending team that I belong to.  Her daughter Heather has asked that loans be made via Kiva in Joan's memory.

So, in memory of Joan my 10th Kiva loan will be a commemorative loan to her.

If you would like to help a worthy cause, please join our group, we would love to have you onboard we have 225 members and to date we have made donations to the value of $40,350, how wonderful is that?

R.I.P. Joan!

Unlikely source for Queensland Rural Towns History

In genealogy always look beyond the obvious and it will get you far.  I stumbled across this website, ParanormalPARATEK.  They research paranormal activity (which is interesting work in itself), but did you realise they also research the property they are investigating?  They are putting together a 6 part series called "Queensland - Our history through time".  Seriously, if your research centres around rural country towns these timelines are a fascinating pictorial history..

Reasons and logic of sources in genealogy

Drive-by genealogists should learn a few rules.  An absolutely great article worth reading.  Sharon Tate Moody breaks down the "source" hierarchy for "drive-by" genealogists to learn.  Everybody should read!

A lot of us are guilty of releasing incorrect and unproven information. Yes, in my early days I was also guilty of this, hence my drive for cleaning it all up and removing a lot of unnecessary data and let the next person find the source themselves. Correctly entered sources are mandatory!

New England's History: Dainggatti Entry Page

For those interested in my Farrell family you will be aware that my grandmother's people are Dainggatti. Jim Belshaw has some excellent articles on his blog New England's History: Dainggatti not only of the Dainggatti but the New England history as well.

Thanks Jim for making the entry page for the Dainggatti it will make it easier to keep track of the relevant post's.

Journeying into genetic genealogy

I have been following the advancement of genetic genealogy for a while now, and one of my favourite sites for education myself is Blaine Bettinger’s “The Genetic Genealogist “, however, today I was reading Peter Calder’s article “Do you have traces of other peoples' DNA in your body?” in his Lost Cousins Newsletter and it really got me thinking it’s time to stop sitting on my laurels and do something about it.

As my father is deceased its time to get the DNA done before any more elders drop off their perches.  My reasons are twofold, on my paternal line I would like confirmation on a few of my grandmothers links and of course I would like to take the Lucas line back further.  On my maternal side, my mother was adopted and I would like confirmation along both of her lines as far back as possible, including confirming her father as a Cummins.