gathering dust

While I have been chatting to my maternal grandfather's cousins about that side of the tree, my dad has been chasing birds. Not the feathered variety, but those of his maternal ancestry. See our line in Australia stems from Robert Bird born c.1819 most likely in Norfolk to - if his death certificate is correct - Richard Bird and his wife Susan nee Frost. In 1837 he was caught stealing a horse with Robert Greenwood and transported out here on the Bengal Merchant in 1838. We have a reasonably clear picture of his descendants, I don't think it is completely exhaustive but for the most part we know the lines of his 10 kids for at least a generation or two. However, speaking to Nana (who at 101 is still sharp as a tack) and her remaining sisters there are all these cousins  all these other Birds who they remember fondly from their childhoods that we just cannot place as descended from Robert. So there are a couple of possibilities. They aren't actually related by blood...

My system works pretty well. Most of the time. But with the more information I collect on collateral lines and associated individuals it is getting a little unwieldy. I don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water. I like my system. But it needs rejigging and perhaps some compromising as to the creation of sub-folders. I'm not a fan of having too many sub-folders. This is my primary genealogy folder, the hold all if you will.  Files are organised into family lines - my maternal grandfather and grandmother, my paternal grandfather and grandmother, my other half's maternal and paternal lines - I use folder colorizer  as an immediate visual aid and an underscore to keep them at the top. The TBS file is kind of embarrasing, shorthand for To Be Sorted. The stuff I have been lazy about filing correctly. The Excel files are the lists of books from the State Library, and various uni and local libraries; and State Record NSW files that I want to follow up on my ...

Once again the lovely Jill over at GeniAus has given us a geneameme , this time challenging us to think about the positives of the past year. So here is my 2013 in review. An elusive ancestor I found was Thomas Henry Tozer , my maternal great-great grandfather. After having a hissy fit of frustration over his elusiveness I posted to a couple of rootsweb mailing lists asking if anyone had any suggestions or clues and TADA! A bunch of lovely people suggested I check out the record in the Victorian BDM indexes for a Thomas Toyer. Yep, transcription error. I paid the immediate gratification fee (I love the image download facility of the Victorian BDMs, I really do) and there it was a z like I write mine, easily mistaken for a y. So instead of feeling silly that I had passed over that record a million times I am instead glad that I reached out and people were willing to help. Genealogists are pretty generous people. A precious family photo I found was of the above mentioned Thomas Henry....

The common ancestor is an idea with a long history, and if you have been around the internet or genealogy circles anytime since the late 1990s, the concept that westerners are all descended from Charlemagne is probably something you have come across. This concept originates in Darwinian Evolutionary theory and is pretty well supported by mathematical models, genetics (well mitrochrondial DNA), computer modelling and all kinds of other neat science-y stuff. ( Mark Humphrys  gives the most complete overview, it's pretty fascinating) As a scientific concept I totally get it. Go back far enough and everyone on the planet right now has a common ancestor - Every one (in theory) has 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 ggrandparents and so on until you have more potential ancestors than existed on the planet at that time. I was still pretty skeptical when my grandmother showed me her family tree which included Robert the Bruce. Skeptical to the point where I found copies of Rob...