I took the photo above as I was walking my dog, Bindi, this morning. The kids in a house in my street had lovingly made tributes to our soldiers and displayed them outside their house. Australians were encouraged to show their appreciation for our military, both past and present, in […]
I love genealogy. It delivers me history and plots all in the one package. The novel that I am working on (in between short stories that is) is the fictionalised story of one of my ancestor couples. Note I said fictionalised. Part of that fictionalisation is name changes. I have […]
Like many of you, I am enthralled with the television series Victoria. And while I know about being careful with historical accuracies on both the small and big screen, I think we are all aware that the relationship between Queen Victoria and Prince Albert is always said to have been a great […]
Okay here comes another one of my assignments. This one is from my ‘Certificate in Genealogical Research’. We were asked to review a relevant lecture or presentation. I chose to review An Afternoon of Irish Research with Greg O’Connor, which was conducted on 21st August, 2010 at The Bowlers Club, York […]
I research stuff. I just do. Research is necessary for my writing but I also do genealogy. And I also have, “I wonder …..” moments on other things. I love it – most of the time. But sometimes, I don’t like the results of that research at all. Take the […]
I wasn’t looking for anything on any sort of slavery. I was simply looking for a suitable Irish Catholic name from the 17th century that I could use for Padraig’s friend in my tale on ‘The Parting Glass” (now called Goodnight – and God be with you all). I came across a […]
The Black Death – we all know the term. And we all know the basic story: if you got the plague you got horrible boil things that were black and puss-filled, and you dropped dead quickly. And I guess that is it in a nutshell. But there was way more […]
This is our beautiful dog, Bella. Unfortunately, Bella has terminal cancer and each day is a bonus. We had our third “Oh God, this is it” moment with her this morning. Luckily, for the third time, (and following a dose of big-time pain killers), she is much more comfortable and […]
Today, I put up our Christmas tree. I always put it up on or by the first weekend of December. Not before December. Always before the end of the first weekend though. Tradition is tradition – particularly for a genealogist and writer of historical fiction stories. Every year, for about […]
