-
The Land Nobody Remembered: Elenor McGuinn’s 44-Year Probate
Sometimes the most revealing genealogical records are not the ones created at the time of an event, but the ones that were forced into existence decades after the fact. That is the case with Elenor McGuinn, whose probate was granted some 44 years after her death, bringing her long-forgotten Dubbo land back into view. A…
-
What to make of AI in family history research
After researching both sides of my family for several years, I don’t mind admitting I have a few brick walls that, despite diving into deep rabbit holes and subscribing to various sites, remain firm and impenetrable. I was having a chat with my son about this, to which he replied, ‘Have you tried using AI?’…
-
A voyage to remember
Of Scots-Irish origin, my mother’s family the Wilsons, had left their birthplace in Fermanagh in the late 1860s and moved to the Paisley area of Renfrewshire, just south-west of Glasgow. Their migration to Scotland was understandable, as within the area where they settled in Linwood, there was a cotton mill close by, where the girls…
-
Integrating historical context into family stories
Meetings of GSQs Writing Group in 2026 have focussed on a theme of integrating a wide range of material in our stories to add context to a family narrative. My previous blog post discussed the integration of maps. We followed this up at our April meeting when we considered how best to add context by…
-
Properties of George Evans late of James Street, Fortitude Valley
When the Evans family celebrated Proclamation Day on the 10 Dec 1859, “George Evans of Fortitude Valley in the said Colony” was a “freeholder”, having already purchased two blocks of land in 1857, located on the corner of James and Stratton Streets, now known as Arthur Street, Fortitude Valley, where his growing family had been…
-
Mabel’s story
There were four girls and six boys in my grandfather’s family. They were the children of a Victorian vicar who had married into the landed gentry. It was unthinkable that these women had any role other than daughter or wife. Edith (Edith Emma Sale 1867-1963), the eldest girl, found a role as companion to her…
-
My new genealogical buddy: ChatGPT
Recently I attended a GSQ seminar presented by Andrew Redfern on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in genealogy. I thought that I would try out ChatGPT and chose to ask it about the parents of my 3X great grandfather William Thorburn. Many Ancestry trees, including my own until recently, show William’s parents as James…
-
Reading an Inquest with AI: The Death of Alfred Tinney
When I used AI to work through the handwritten inquest into the accidental death of my two-times-great-grandfather Alfred Tinney, it helped me draw together the details and reconstruct a likely sequence of events. I was pleased to find the inquest into the death of Alfred Thomas Tinney, my two-times-great-grandfather, because it promised to reveal more…
-
George Evans of Brisbane, a Pioneer Ancestor
George Evans, a Welshman from Liverpool arrived in Brisbane in 1851, when Queensland was still known as the Colony of New South Wales. His obituary reported that he was “one of the oldest and most respected residents of Fortitude Valley. Landing in the colonies in the early days, he formed one of the ‘Overlanders,’ afterwards…
-
The Case of the Mysterious Paintings
She sat in her comfortable arm chair, the perfect picture of the endearing aunt. The tea had been made, the table set and we settled in for a good chin wag. But suddenly her face darkened, ‘He knows I would like some of them. Why doesn’t he give them to me?’. Her grievance was that…
-
A Chat with Friends: Part 2
I hope you enjoyed reading my first post last week, when I had you looking back at when you started your genealogical journey. This post is looking at advice for the younger you and advice for someone just starting as well as are your family interested Again, just initials for privacy and these are their…
-
A Chat with Friends: Part 1
We welcome a new member to our GSQ Blogging Team. Lilian Magill is a long time blogger with her own site and is taking a rather novel approach when sharing her first two blogs with us. Welcome Lilian! A Chat with Friends. Part 1 I have decided to ask friends questions about their genealogical journey.…
-
Some Pioneers of Brisbane, New South Wales
Elizabeth was a maternal great grandmother of my late wife, Helen Jean Barlow. She was born in Brisbane, Australia, in August 1854 and christened Elizabeth Marion BOWLES in October of that same year.[1] St John’s Church of England, then located on the corner of Queen and George Streets, was a former convict workshop, which was…
-
Family history is not a finite study
Family history research is not a finite study. Don’t you just love it when, whilst doing your family research you make a new discovery but, after analysing this new data, you find that you have opened a can of worms! This new knowledge has resulted in an entire new set of questions! An answer to…
-
Getting to know Catherine
My small collection of personal records about grandmother Catherine, who died several years before I was born, has allowed me to become more familiar with her. These records join with family oral history to add revealing details not included in public and official records. One of the most interesting of these is a post card…
-
Ireland: a Q&A of understanding what lead to the Plantation
So many ‘Rabbit Holes!!!’, so little time… Question: Where to now? I wanted to know more about the term “Irish Landed Gentry” and just what exactly was meant by the term “Plantation” and its relevance in my family history so perhaps I would find more avenues of investigations into my Spunner family, which I have…
-
What do headstones tell us?
I’ve been thinking a lot about headstones recently. This follows a trip to Victoria in early March 2026, after being invited to give two talks; one with the Mornington Peninsula Family History Society on Ann Simmons, a convict transported in 1823 to Van Diemen’s Land with her daughter. Ann features in a chapter in the…
-
The Power of Full-Text Search
About a year and a half ago, we were given a present as family historians – have you unwrapped it yet? Full-Text Search on the FamilySearch website (https://www.familysearch.org/search/full-text) means a plenitude of unindexed record sets can now be interrogated to find mentions of our ancestors. So what exactly is ‘Full-Text Search’? FamilySearch is using Artificial…
-
A Woman of Character
The little girl scrambled under the whirling machinery to retrieve the cotton bobbin, breathing air filled with micro threads that made her cough. The images in the restored cotton mill at New Lanark, Ayrshire, showed a smiling, happy child but, nonetheless, there was a dark lining to the narrative that made it ‘a lovely day…
-
Susannah Armstrong Davern: A woman of resilience
Susannah Armstrong was not afraid of challenges. Her life was full of life-changing decisions that propelled her in various directions. Sometimes good and sometimes bad or sad. With that said, some things in her life offer up some mysteries. I cannot find a birth certificate or baptism for Susannah, so we cannot be certain of…
-
Tell me a story of the olden days
These days much of my research concerns the first residents at the Moreton Bay penal settlement in addition to the work devoted to extending my own family’s origins. As many of these original settlers have become favourites, one of my endeavours has been to create unique descriptions of their Moreton Bay years encouraging them to…
-
From gaol to ‘the smarter end of Queen Street’: the changing face of Brisbane
In 1825 the Moreton Bay convict settlement moved from Humpybong, Redcliffe to Brisbane and more permanent growth. Building centred around North Quay, George, and Queen Streets but it was not until the arrival of Commandant Patrick Logan in 1826 that substantial building began. The widest and highest, and most significant building in Brisbane, the convict…
-
Betty’s Story
This year marks 180 years since the first recorded burial at Nundah Historic Cemetery in 1846.[1] To commemorate this milestone, the Friends of Nundah Historic Cemetery have published a book of 180 very short stories about individuals buried there. I volunteered to write a couple of stories, including one about Phillip Harley Baker (1945-1946), an…
-
Bonshaw Tower: Home of our DNA Clan
My attendance last November at the Angie Bush GSQ DNA Interest Group seminar brought back memories of the multi speaker DNA event held in the Nazareth Lutheran Church, Woolloongabba in 2019. At that event I nervously presented a short PowerPoint of my brother’s Big Y-DNA results and heaved a sigh of relief when it…
-
Our new GSQ Blogs page is coming!
For some time now, Deb, our GSQ Archivist and I, Bobbie, have been working on developing a new blogs page, which will be linked to the main GSQ website as it currently is. The domain page is available, and for the last three weeks we have been setting it up alongside our other work. We…
-
Bridget Connor: My Irish Orphan 2nd Great-Grandmother
Bridget Connare, survived the worst of the Great Irish Famine, as a ‘pauper’ in Loughrea Workhouse, County Galway. She was one of 4114 Irish Orphan Girls carefully selected by Lieutenant John Henry, the British Emigration Agent for the Colonial Land and Emigration Commission in Ireland, to come to Australia under the Earl Grey Scheme. Between…
-
Accentuate the Positive: 2025
Each year GeniAus Jill Ball sets a challenge to fellow genealogists, this is the eighth year I have participated. I feel that no matter how many challenges a single year can throw at you, it is a good point to sit and think about the positive aspects of that year 1. I treasured time spent…
-
My White Christmas Memories
I’m Australian born so my experiences of Christmas were quite different to those I had during my time spent after marriage whilst living in England. Hubby was in the Royal Navy and at the time of our first winter there, we lived in the Navy ‘patch’ near his posting to HMS Royal Arthur in the…
-
Christmas at Grannie Bell’s
My mother always enjoyed telling a story and as the year’s end approaches, I am reminded of one of my favourites from her childhood, “Christmas at Grannie Bell’s”. Grannie and Pop Bell were Mum’s maternal grandparents. Grannie’s parents, Gottfried and Augusta Kuhn were of German heritage, having come to the Colony of Queensland as young…
-
The Hallams’ Pioneer Days in the Whitsundays
I’m planning to write a longer story about the Hallam family and their pioneering life in the Whitsundays. This blog shares some starting thoughts. My great-grandparents, William (Billy) Hallam and Mary Josephine Sheehy, raised nine children, all born in Bowen, North Queensland. What strikes me about Billy, a man of short and nuggety build, is…
-
A Comedy of Errors or Just Bad Luck
As family history researchers or genealogists, we know that to find our ancestors in the records, we need to try all sorts of different spelling of their surname. One of my late wife’s paternal great grandmothers was born Alice Iland, though some records show that surname as ‘Ireland’, ‘Island’ or even ‘Ilund’ or ‘Hyland’. We…
-
The Ground Beneath Their Feet: Discovering Family Stories through Land Records
Family history often begins with names, dates, and events of birth, marriage, and death, captured within certificates, registers, and electoral rolls. Yet sometimes the most revealing records are not about people at all, but about land. The soil our ancestors walked upon, purchased, and cleared, land long cared for by its Traditional Custodians, holds traces…
-
Mary Ann’s Cottage
A few years ago, I came across a blog post titled, Musings, where Neil Ennis wrote about his cycling trips around the world. One post from 2010, ‘Along The Old North Road‘, caught my attention while I was searching for information about my Franz family.[1] I found details about a Bed and Breakfast cottage called…
-
My Mum, the Nurse
“Tip it in! Tip it in!” This was the ditty that my mum, trainee nurse Rene Morris, sang with her fellow trainee nurse friend, Ella, as they emptied their patients’ pans as part of their nursing duties at Mount Morgan Hospital in central Queensland. Being a trainee nurse in the late 1930s and early 1940s…
-
An Heirloom in our Family
This handsome Scottish clock known affectionately as “James the Clock” stands proudly in the foyer of our home. How and why did this old timepiece make its way across the seas? James Gowans (1806-1886), the clock’s maker is my husband’s 3rd great-grandfather. The son of John Gowans and Janet Sibbald he was born in North…
-
William F Thompson of Newbridge in Co Kildare, Ireland
The very first record I found for William Thompson, my paternal great granduncle, listed him as a “car owner”. A google search enlightened me to the fact, that in the 1860’s cars were hackney carriages and jaunting cars pulled by horses and not the motor vehicles that we know today. William, born in Ticknevin, Kildare…
-
Thomas Thompson: the Patriarch of the Family
Thomas Thompson, my 2nd great grandfather, was described by his children on their marriage and death records as a gentleman, a farmer and a man of independent means. However, a letter that he wrote to his daughter, Eliza, dated May 15th 1855 survived, cared for by 3 generations of her descendants, that reveals he was…
-
‘Duels were now only fought by snobs’
Most of us would think that duelling was a barbaric and outdated way of settling an argument. Duels were originally fought not to kill the opponent (although many were killed) but to restore one’s honour by demonstrating a willingness to risk your life for it. This practice mostly fell out of favour in England by…
-
Francis Theobald Heffernan c.1840-1908: A nineteenth century literate bushman
This sample of poetry, carefully copied into a school exercise book by his grandson, Philip, came from an original collection of twenty poems gathered by Francis Theobald Heffernan, my great-grandfather. His original book is held within one branch of his descendants. Australian poets, Andrew B (Banjo) Paterson and Will Ogilvie feature, having written a…
-
Still walking in ancestral footsteps
A few weeks ago, I wrote a guest blog on my trip to Ireland in May looking for my Irish ancestors. This time I have followed it up with a trip around Northern and Central Queensland in July following in ancestral footsteps here. I was fortunate to have a paper accepted at the Australian Historical…
-
My coalmining ancestors
GSQs Writing Group met in June 2025 and we considered the subject of writing family stories around a theme. The writing exercise for the meeting was to develop a plan for doing this. It is usually the case that members interpret the brief for the writing exercise differently and so the plans received from members…
-
A Tough Lady – Continuing the Next Genealogy Journey
From my observations of family and friends, women who marry a serviceman need to be tough. They may be left alone for months at a time while their husbands are away or if they accompany their husband on his postings, they could rarely call one place ‘home’ for very long. Their children may be born…
-
Why Addresses Matter in Family History
My late mother’s address book still lives in the top drawer of the kitchen in our family home. She always had it within easy reach. For her, it was practical and unpretentious: a small black book with Address Book stamped in gold on the front cover. The pages are a patchwork of entries in different…
-
Looking for connections
A recent trip to Tasmania led me to discover a new chapter in the life of William Wall, an 18-year-old groomsman, who was transported to Van Diemen’s Land in 1835. After gaining his freedom in 1840, marrying Mary Long in 1841, William tried tenant farming for the Van Diemen’s Land Company in Emu Bay at…
-
Knowing your grandparents
Randy Seaver is an American genealogist and prolific writer on his blog, Genea-Musings. Each week he poses a “Saturday Night Genealogy Fun” question. A while back I was inspired by his question which sent me down some rabbit holes. His question: Did your grandparents know their maternal and paternal grandparents? This is my response to…
-
My childhood homes
I was born Dianne Fay Alley to Sydney Alley and Jean Wiltshire in 1948 in Brisbane but when I went home with my Mum, I was Dianne Fay Richardson and my parents were Bert and Fay Richardson. Yes, I was adopted, however I wasn’t told that until Bert (Dad) and Fay (Mum) had both died…
-
Walking in ancestral footsteps
In May this year I went to Ireland to walk in my paternal ancestors’ footsteps. This was something I had wanted to do for years. With only four nights in Dublin and three nights in Belfast, it was a whirlwind trip. I am hoping to do it again but that depends on health and mobility…
-
Carey Bay – My one place
At the recent Congress in Brisbane I spoke about leaving a large footprint for future generations. While my presentation concentrated on our personal histories I believe, that as generous genies, we should endeavour to record the history of places that are important to us. I am undertaking a one-place study in an attempt to meet…
-
The Temperance Pledge of days gone and my Porter family
I am a very lucky family historian who inherited my paternal great-grandparent’s (Porter) family Bible. It lay in the bottom of my father’s wardrobe for many years, but then Dad passed it on to me. On the downside, very little was written in the Bible until my mother and I entered a small number of…
-
A “Do Not Do” list for travelling to Ireland for family research
This is going to be a bit of a “Do as I say – not as I Did” story. A cautionary tale perhaps. So here we go. Early last year I was looking through our calendar of things to be done and spotted an April sized hole in 2025. “Do you want to go to…
-
Mary Geary: The Market gardeners’ daughter
On my 15 July 2024 story I introduced my Neville line and the fascination it has held for me for many years.[1] Now I aim to write about the child of the last Neville in my direct line, that is my 2 x great-grandmother Mary Geary, who I briefly mentioned in my blog of 7…
-
The Fever Ship Minerva
Mum was moving into a retirement unit, and we sat on her bed as she tipped out a box of old photos and cuttings. I picked up some yellowed pages, stapled together in the corner. I flipped through the pages until I came to a longer entry for “FRANZ, Frederick Leopold Theodore”. I read how…
-
Where are you going, my pretty maid? Why go to conferences?
This blog dedicated to the memory of Marg Doherty, image of Marg below. “Ooh, look is that the American guest speaker over there? She was fabulous the last time I saw her! Must NOT miss her sessions or a chance to chat with her.” Conferences are such good fun. They are great places for learning;…
-
The Cambus Wallace: tragedy and souvenirs from the sea
On 3 September 1894 the ship Cambus Wallace, buffeted by strong winds, was wrecked at Jumpin Pin on the ocean side of an isthmus connecting North and South Stradbroke Island, about 24 kilometres north of Southport. Thomas Welsby, who arrived on the scene soon after, described the result, ‘In less than twenty-four hours the…