Tuesday 14 January 2014

Hello from London!

Hi, I’m Frances Owen. We might have met when I’ve been blogging, tweeting, Facebooking or Google+ing under my online name, (A) Rebel Hand.

It’s exciting to be part of this new worldwide genealogy collaboration, and I’m very honoured to have been asked by the wonderful Julie Goucher to contribute. A big thank you for organising it to Julie and everyone involved.

Welsh coast: Llangranog, Ceredigion, by Jayne Toyne, geograph.org.uk (Creative Commons)
Llangranog, Ceredigion (Jayne Toyne, geograph.org.uk)
I first became aware of family history as a child, when my father drove us around his native West Wales talking about who used to live in this place, or how we’re related to that distant aunt. It sounded like storytelling, wonderful tales about semi-legendary characters. I wish I’d asked him to write it all down. Still, a spark had been lit.

In 1994, my mother came back from a visit to her relatives in Australia with the thrilling news that we were descended from an Irish rebel and transported convict. Zap! That spark turned into a blazing flame and I was hooked on genealogy. She and I went to Ireland to do more research and started swapping emails with helpful Aussie rellies. Eventually we had so much family information that we published it as a book, A Rebel Hand: Nicholas Delaney of 1798.

Most of my research until late in 2011 was into Australian and Irish genealogy, history and local history. Then I found out that one Aussie 3x great grandmother was supposed to be a famous New South Wales ghost. Well, I had to know more. She and her husband/partner were both convicts, too, and I was inspired to look at other branches of my family tree.

Another convict ancestor came from Deptford, on the Thames, and my research broadened into London history and genealogy. And now I’m starting to look at the Welsh side of my family. Dad would have been pleased.

A side effect of my genealogy sleuthing has been learning about the history of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in the UK, Ireland and Australia, and of the places my ancestors came from. I’m fascinated by the social history, the day-to-day lives of people, the conventions of those times.

It was in November 2010 that I started blogging as a way to share my family history interests and discoveries. I soon found that there was a big world of geneabloggers out there, commenting, helping, sharing joys and sorrows and joining in challenges and memes. It was a wonderful discovery. There’s so much collaboration in the history, local history and genealogy and this new blog is a great example. If you’re not taking part already, why not join in? Here’s how.

I’ll finish by sharing some of my favourite blogs and websites for research, all free to view:
  • Claire Santry’s Irish Genealogy News is just what it says, all the latest information about genealogy for Ireland north and south.
  • Old Bailey Online, a collaboration between historians, has not only digitised the proceedings of London’s Central Criminal Court but gives lots of information about London life from 1674 to 1913.
  • Trove, where you can search Australian newspapers, books, manuscripts, images and much more dating from 1803. A lot of people using the digitised newspapers also collaborate by correcting the optical character recognition (OCR) transcriptions.
  • Welsh Newspapers Online, a new project from the National Library of Wales (Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru).

Working together is so rewarding. Please join us in this new worldwide adventure by commenting, asking questions or even writing a post!

24 comments:

  1. Welcome to World Wide Genealogy and I look forward to reading more of your posts.

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  2. Welcome to World Wide Genealogy and I look forward to reading more of your posts.

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  3. Welcome to World Wide Genealogy and I look forward to reading more of your posts.

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    1. Thank you, Sue! I'm looking forward to yours, too - I lived in Scotland for some years so it'll be great to learn about some Scottish genealogy from you.

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  4. I'm looking forward to reading more about your research and findings. My mother wrote down everything she remembered early in my research and even though some have proved to be a little off, it's been great having it. I only wish I'd thought to have my Uncle Louis write down his memories. When it was too late everybody told me he remembered everything.

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  5. I'm so lucky - my mother did the same. I can only imagine how you felt when you heard that about your Uncle Louis, Kristin...

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  6. Great post Frances your ancestry is so interesting!

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    1. Thanks, Kerryn. I hope we all find some interesting ancestors. It's probably not so hard if some of them are Aussies...

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  7. Hi Frances, I am looking forward to reading more of you posts.

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  8. Great to hear more of your story Frances. How fortunate to have had those wonderful stories passed on to you, written or not, and both parents with an interest in ancestry. I'm now jealous of both you & Kristin.

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    1. Thanks, Pauleen. Yes, I was very lucky. It's probably that Celtic storytelling and genealogy thing.

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  9. Ditto Pauleen's comments. It was lovely to get to know you a bit more via this post. I wonder what we'll all write about next month!

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    1. Thanks, Jill. This is such an adventure - I love collaborative work and I'm so looking forward to finding out what we all come up with each month!

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  10. Great to have you here Frances. I look forward to reading more about your and your "take" on history and genealogy!

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    1. Thanks, Julie. It was all down to you (and I have a notion Jill is implicated as well...)

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  11. From one Frances to another. Great post, look forward to more. I am still learning.

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    1. Hi Fran (my favourite name)! I hope I never stop learning. Looking forward to reading yours.

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  12. Frances! That was Wonderful. I laughed quite a bit on the "Lore" and how we all find out there are some Truth to it! I'm so glad you joined us. Giving us the perspective outside of the US. I love that History from Ireland and Wales. Will look forward to more! Cheers!

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    1. Thanks, True! There's always something more to find out about our ancestors. Isn't it great to have this international meeting place?

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  13. Hi Frances! I think it is wonderful how your father sparked your interest in family stories. I look forward to reading your posts and learning more about London, Wales and Ireland.

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    1. Hi Yvette! Thank you. I was lucky with my Dad.

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  14. I am from the United States with British and Irish ancestors. I am loving learning about this international research resources. Thank you.

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    1. My pleasure! Good luck with the Irish ones...

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World Wide Genealogy Team