Adventures in Ancestry

21/07/2026

My new scanner has arrived!

This is the Canon CanoScan LiDE 400. I chose it because it is light and connects easily to my laptop, making it a portable option at only 500g. This way I can scan photos held by other family members without needing the internet or removing them from the owner. I'm planning to take it interstate when I head to Queensland to visit family.

I'm still learning the settings but thanks to Kevin Futter for his image adjustment expertise and help getting everything up and running.

11/07/2026

Today I finally sat down and began to bring my rather disorganised digital collection of family history related material into a better organised and easier to access state.

I used to have my family photos, family history images and documents pretty decently organised back in the day. Around 2020 my computer hard drive died and, unfortunately, nothing was recoverable. Luckily, I had stored material on numerous devices, with some on our home network hard drive and also assorted USBs. This meant I was able to claw back a decent amount of my records but because I was copying and moving so much data in all directions, it eventually got a bit chaotic. Numerous copies of the same thing, untitled scans and poor labelling meant I was struggling to find items I knew I had.

After thinking about it for some time, I decided that I do a lot of research focusing on specific people and I decided I wanted all material to be stored together in one folder, no matter the format. So, I wrote out a hierarchy that lists all the family surnames in my trees to grandparent level, with each having a folder. Within each folder I added names of two more generations. I have a Sorting folder for quickly copying or moving material into. This way I can easily look at each item later, make changes to the labels and then drop it into the correct surname folder. I can also add specific folders where I want to collect material on a subject, such as ancestors who did Military Service.

When you research using digital technology it can be a real struggle to keep records under control so that they are available to the researcher when they need it. It needs a plan, a methodical approach and a commitment to regularly saving and updating your data in at least two different places. Don't let a faulty storage device risk your many years of research!

31/05/2026

Adventures in Ancestry is a service providing family history research support on multiple levels.
• Individual one on one, in person or online
• Small group workshops
• Presentations on a variety of family history related topics
• Helping beginner researchers to set up their own trees
• Working to unravel family mysteries and “brick walls”

I was born in Melbourne, Australia and have had a lifelong interest in history. I trained as a teacher, completed a Grad Dip in Library and Information Studies, and worked in public, secondary school and university libraries for over 30 years. I have spent the last 17 years focused on my own family history research, as well as helping others in my role as a librarian. During Covid, as online support, I was able to help a number of people improve their family trees and clarify family connections. I have strong experience in a wide variety of Australian and UK research and am familiar with many other primary sources. In 2015 I completed the inaugural “Introduction to Family History” unit at University of Tasmania. My strengths are in unravelling family stories and mysteries and placing them in the contexts of history and geography, as well as aiming for a high level of accuracy in my research.

Contact details
Email [email protected]
Text or call 0416054666

14/05/2026

My workshop at Glenroy Library about researching military records went well yesterday. There was a good turnout and lots of questions from participants.

I have been spending a lot of time in military records lately and I'm always on the lookout for good reference material. "World War One a history in 100 stories" came up in my feed a few days back and I was pleased to win the ebay bid. It arrived yesterday.

This book was published in 2015 during the WW1 Centenary, and the team behind the book partnered with Monash University to create a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), which I took part in. The stories were interesting and had their fair share of tragedy. I am glad to have it in my library and will be flipping through it when I have the time. The stories are also available online.

https://onehundredstories.anu.edu.au/resources/find-out-more/one-hundred-stories-origin-purpose-and-musical-performance

02/05/2026

My next Adventures in Ancestry talk is not far away!
This workshop will be held at Glenroy Library (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) on Wednesday 13 May from 2.00 to 3.30pm. This is a free activity and booking is recommended.

Discover how to access military records from both World Wars and understand the experience of your military ancestors.
More than 400,000 Australians enlisted in the First World War and over 1 million served in World War II.

Join me if you are in the area as I discuss accessing and understanding military records as part of family history research, and resources that will enhance your understanding of what your ancestor experienced during their military service. This presentation will cover WWI and WWII Australian and Commonwealth records.

Discover how to access military records from both World Wars and understand the experience of your military ancestors.

04/04/2026

My next Adventures in Ancestry talk is at Glenroy Library (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia) on Wednesday 13 May from 2.00 to 3.30pm. This is a free activity and booking is recommended.

Discover how to access military records from both World Wars and understand the experience of your military ancestors.
More than 400,000 Australians enlisted in the First World War and over 1 million served in World War II.

Join me if you are in the area as I discuss accessing and understanding military records as part of family history research, and resources that will enhance your understanding of what your ancestor experienced during their military service. This presentation will cover WWI and WWII Australian and Commonwealth records.

Discover how to access military records from both World Wars and understand the experience of your military ancestors.

01/03/2026

Although I have been working on my family trees for nearly 20 years, there have been times that decisions were made about how I built my tree and what to include or ignore.

Like most researchers, I have done my best to create trees that are as accurate as I could make them but I chose to have a number of trees that I work on. This is largely because I am an adoptee. Having both a biological tree and an adopted parents tree generally works really well.

Splitting up your tree has both benefits and limitations. One limitation is that you may miss family connections that exist between your various trees. There is a probable relationship that I have with my adoptive father, going back 200 years to a tiny island in the English Channel.

Recently, another family researcher has revealed an ancestor may have been French Canadian. This is fascinating because I spent a lot of time researching my adoptive mum's family line that goes back many generations to the settlement of New France and Quebec. Because of my experience doing the research of that area I know that there is a high likelihood that the families possibly connected across the way. This is a project for another day.

27/02/2026

I am currently preparing my next public presentation which will be on the topic of researching your family's military history.

I will give more info once dates are locked in but it's probably going to be adjacent to ANZAC Day, which is 25 April here in Australia.

Although it will focus mostly on Australian records, I will be touching on records to be found from other sources.

21/02/2026

Although I go to the State Library of Victoria quite regularly to use their research facilities, I hadn't gone on one of their free tours until this week. I can highly recommend it. I learnt a lot more of the interesting history of the library.

My connections to the institution started back in the early 1980s, when I was a student living and studying in the city. Having little spare money meant I spent a lot of time wandering around both the SLV and the Natural History Museum, which was once under the same roof and both were free to access.

Things have changed a lot since then. The old museum has moved to the more modern Melbourne Museum in Carlton and the once dim La Trobe Reading Room has had its old copper coverings removed from the dome and now dazzles with natural light. As the photos show, there is a lot of history in the architecture, even as we sit down to access databases on our computers and devices, accessing WiFi and scanning hard copy materials to our email.

One point worth adding. There are no librarians on the Library Board of Victoria. There has been a push to "streamline" library staff, proposing serious cuts to staff and services, especially Reference Librarians, who have already been significantly reduced in numbers since 2019. As useful as technology is, the importance of trained and experienced staff on the floor cannot be underestimated. I watched hundreds of people flowing in and out the entrance doors every minute and all day, desks and chairs were full of students and researchers, tourists taking photos flocked in every available library space. Staff were all engaged at every level. Whilst the beautiful building is an obvious asset, it's the people working there who make it worth the visit.

11/02/2026

I have decided I have become a bit complacent with my reasonably profficient use of Ancestry.com over the years, so I'm up for a new challenge!

I'm going to see what MyHeritage.com is like to create trees and what new records I have access to. I believe they have a lot of French records which could be great for my French Marion ancestors. Currently being debated as to whether we have French or French/Canadian origins.

Trying to upload my GEDCOM files now. I hope the technology behaves 😎

Create your family tree. Take a MyHeritage DNA test for ancestry and genetic testing. Access 38.7 billion historical records for genealogy research.