Accentuate the Positive 2024 Geneameme

Looking back at 2024 in Genealogy

It’s become a tradition over the past few years that at the end of the year blogger Jill Ball, aka Geniaus, has thrown out the challenge to family history bloggers, to review their year in genealogy and find the positives in their blogging year by responding to given prompts, in a Geneameme. I look forward to it each year as it’s a great way to look back at what’s been happening in my world of genealogy and most importantly, it’s fun.

1. Google provided an answer to where exactly in Bradford on Avon, England, my ancestors 19th century home was situated. I found it’s still standing and occupied today.

2. I was the recipient of genearosity from my second cousin who only this week offered me all family photos that are in her possession.

3. This headstone gave me some extra information: Recently, I have been re-looking at headstone photos from the Heathcote cemetery, and in a few cases found information that I missed when I visited many years ago.

4. A useful record I discovered was my great great grandmother’s baptism record. This record is not a new find but has been missing from my files since digitising my paperwork during covid. I found it filed safely away, but in the incorrect file.

5. A newly found family member who shared information about our shared family member’s life in Perth. Before receiving this information, all I had was dates etc.

6. A geneasurprise I received was when I started a BlueSky account I found that many of my genie friends were there and many have arrived since. It very quickly became a very supportive genie space, and continues to be so.

7. My 2024 post that I was particularly proud of was….Not a post but an article that I wrote for Projectkin earlier in the year about my great great grandmother, Ellen Boyle - Famine and the Earl Grey Girl in My Family

8. DNA helped me to create quite a long list of people who share my DNA. I have promised myself to make contact next year.

9. I was pleased that after twelve years, I upgraded my Wordpress blog Tracking Down the Family to Substack.

10. Although Face to Face events have returned Zoom has brought much joy to my life this year as I’m rarely able to get to face to face meetings.

11. I dipped my toes into Wikitree this year after many years of promising myself to do so. I am still learning but looking forward to continuing in 2025.

12. I connected with a wonderful community of genies and family story writers on Substack.

13. By dipping my toes into AI I was able to play around with images. I haven’t done much more with AI as yet, but hope to explore it in more depth in 2025.

14. I was honoured to be a guest on The Family Histories Podcast, telling the story of my great great grandfather, Thomas Waters.

15. I found this presentation most useful. There have been many presentations that I’ve found useful and enjoyable this year from Mission Genealogy and Projectkin. They have been highlights of 2024.

16. A great repository/archive/library I visited was The Public Records Office of Victoria, known as PROV. I have visited in person twice during the year, but many times online.

17. I got the most value from this book: During this year, I have been researching the Earl Grey Orphan girls who came to Australia from Ireland, as my great great grandmother was one of the girls. I have found Barefoot and Pregnant by Trevor McClaughlin to be of huge value to my research.

18. It was exciting to finally meet Australian journalist, Jane Hutcheon on Substack. I have been a fan for years and have been enjoying her Zoom series, Forget me Not: How we Memorialise.

19. A geneadventure I enjoyed was the Rootstech conference, once again virtually.

20. Another positive I would like to see is online meetings and conferences to continue and in some cases be expanded to online. Being from a regional area, it is often difficult to get to face to face meetings. During this year, I have loved being able to attend meeting on Zoom from around the world.

I am also adding my own 21st prompt.

21: I was lucky to win a prize donated by the Australian Federation of Family History Organisation during Family History Month. My Prize was a one year subscription to the Queensland Family History Society.

A big thank you goes to Jill for the work she does to provide this Geneameme each year and for her constant support of bloggers.