Greetings from Victoria

Hi - I am Anne and I am the 7th collaborator from Australia and the only one from Victoria so far.  Jill, Diane and Sharon are from New South Wales, Helen and Caitlin from Queensland and Pauleen from the Northern Territory (bit of an eastern states bias).

I blog at http://ayfamilyhistory.blogspot.com.au/ and although I started in 2012 only regularly blogged last year.

Although I have been researching the family history for over twenty years I have found the recent move to blogging a terrific way to revisit my research and to communicate it to others. My daughter reads my blog posts :) and I guess in the main she is my intended audience, as well as any other family members that are interested.  A database is a terrific way to collect information but it is only a useful tool to store the information and to talk with another enthusiast.  Writing a blog post means I revisit my sources and make sense of the facts. It is never a quick process!

I have found geneamemes really useful inspiration as sometimes I become overwhelmed by all there is to write up and freeze in front of the blank computer screen.  I participate occasionally in SepiaSaturday posts (http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com.au/)

Historical photographs of any age or kind (they don't have to be sepia) become the launchpad for explorations of family history, local history and social history in fact or fiction, poetry or prose, words or further images.

I was inspired by the notion of Trove Tuesday - writing on a Tuesday about a discovery through Trove - the National Library of Australia's research service which includes digitised Australian newspapers (http://trove.nla.gov.au ). The idea for this blogging prompt was started by Amy Lehmann in 2012 (http://branchesleavespollen.blogspot.com.au/p/trove-tuesday.html ).

I recently participated in a blogging challenge for Australia Day initiated by Pauleen Cass. It was an excellent example of where I had done the research and had the facts but it wasn't organised. A great opportunity to get more organised.  It also highlighted some further areas of research to follow up on.

I read other people's blogs - two of my favourites are The Legal Genealogist (http://www.legalgenealogist.com/) and Western District families (http://mywdfamilies.wordpress.com/). 

This is my first collaborative blog and I look forward to further working with everyone in 2014.