Family History

I have been researching my family history for over 25 years ( I was still at school when I got hooked). When I first started, family history wasn't trendy, there was no internet, and you had to manually go through thousands of different records to find what you were after.

Birth Death and Marriage Indexes were on microfiche, sorted by year. If you didn't know what year a particular person was born was born, you had to wade through dozens of microfiche to find them. Even if you did know the year, you might still not find them, because it depends on how the clerk registering the event spelt the name. One of the surnames I'm researching is Elliott, but this has variously be registered as Elliot, Eliot or Eliott. Multiple this out numerous times for each of the names you're researching... you get the picture.

The earliest ancestor I have found was Petrus Beaglehole who was born about 1574 in Cornwall England. Thankfully, Beaglehole is not a common name, so it has been very easy to trace. Thank goodness I don't have any Smiths or Jones in my line :)

My earliest ancestor to arrive in Australia was Catharine Malone who arrived in 1793. I have 7 direct ancestors who were convicts. My Family History Database has over 7,500 names in it, and it's still growing...

I have a link under My Favourite Sites to my family history website for anyone who would like to have a look.