The Ancestors' Geneameme

Many genealogists took up my challenge in the recent Tech Savvy Genealogists Meme so I thought I'd put together another Geneameme (new term just coined). Once again this is the result of a quick personal brainstorm, I have tried to make the statements generic so that the meme has international relevance. 

I invite anyone with an interest in genealogy to participate. If you don't have a blog and wish to participate you can send your responses to me in an email and I will pop them into a blog post on the GeniMates blog. Please let me know when you participate by a comment on this post or by email and I'll collate a list of responses on this blog.
 

It would be appreciated if genealogists would let the meme run its course before copying and republishing it with alterations and amendments.

The Ancestors' Geneameme

The list should be annotated in the following manner:
Things you have already done or found: bold face type
Things you would like to do or find: italicize (colour optional)
Things you haven’t done or found and don’t care to: plain type
You are encouraged to add extra comments in brackets after each item 

Which of these apply to you?

1.  Can name my 16 great-great-grandparents
2.  Can name over 50 direct ancestors
3.  Have photographs or portraits of my 8 great-grandparents
4.  Have an ancestor who was married more than three times
5.  Have an ancestor who was a bigamist
6.  Met all four of my grandparents
7.  Met one or more of my great-grandparents
8.  Named a child after an ancestor
9.  Bear an ancestor's given name/s
10.  Have an ancestor from Great Britain or Ireland
11.  Have an ancestor from Asia
12.  Have an ancestor from Continental Europe
13.  Have an ancestor from Africa
14.  Have an ancestor who was an agricultural labourer
15.  Have an ancestor who had large land holdings 
16.  Have an ancestor who was a holy man - minister, priest, rabbi
17.  Have an ancestor who was a midwife
18.  Have an ancestor who was an author
19.  Have an ancestor with the surname Smith, Murphy or Jones
20.  Have an ancestor with the surname Wong, Kim, Suzuki or Ng
21.  Have an ancestor with a surname beginning with X
22.  Have an ancestor with a forename beginnining with Z
23.  Have an ancestor born on 25th December
24. Have an ancestor born on New Year's Day
25.  Have blue blood in your family lines
26.  Have a parent who was born in a country different from my country of birth
27.  Have a grandparent who was born in a country different from my country of birth
28.  Can trace a direct family line back to the eighteenth century
29.  Can trace a direct family line back to the seventeenth century or earlier
30.  Have seen copies of the signatures of some of my great-grandparents
31.  Have ancestors who signed their marriage certificate with an X
32.  Have a grandparent or earlier ancestor who went to university
33.  Have an ancestor who was convicted of a criminal offence
34.  Have an ancestor who was a victim of crime
35.  Have shared an ancestor's story online or in a magazine (Tell us where)
36.  Have published a family history online or in print (Details please)
37.  Have visited an ancestor's home from the 19th or earlier centuries
38.  Still have an ancestor's home from the 19th or earlier centuries in the family
39.  Have a  family bible from the 19th Century
40.  Have a pre-19th century family bible

A new beginning for Wollarobba

I drove past Wollarobba, a very handsome early 20th century home, every day for about eight years of my working life and didn't spot it nestled among the trees in Willow Park, Hornsby.

This clipping from  "The Shaping of Hornsby Shire" relates the early history of Willow Park and Wollarobba.

Restored stained glass windows that
had been hidden by black paint

The old tenants have moved on and Wollarobba has been refurbished by Hornsby Council at a cost of $400,000. It was officially opened as The Wallarobba Arts and Cultural Centre last Sunday, October 9th. 

"Artists, art enthusiasts, students and art educators now have a new hub in central Hornsby with facilities and activities including community art studios, a purpose-built printmaking room, art classes, an artists’ lounge and a professional gallery space. The Hornsby Art Society also has an office in the centre." (Source)


I attended the Official Opening and was most impressed by the facilities, the sympathetic and economical restoration job and the beautiful building. I had my camera with me to record some happy snaps of Mr Geniaus (Robert Ball) who was the MC at the ceremony and who assisted the Mayor, Nick Berman, in the cutting of the ribbon. It was Robert's last official public duty after 19 years as the General Manager of Hornsby Council.

Welcome to Wollarobba

MC Robert Ball

Ribbon cutting - Nick Berman, Robert Ball

Wollarobba Foyer

Artist talk in the Artists' Lounge

Refurbished verandah at Wollarobba

Wollarobba Cupcakes

Local caricaturist, Mick Joffe, captures Robert Ball

A new approach to tagging

I have written before that I am a Tag Queen, this penchant for tagging is not restricted to my photo collection. I also tag my collection of links on Delicious, my books on Librarything, my resources on Zotero and my blog posts.

Until recently I had all of the tags (labels in Blogger) for this blog listed  in a Gadget at the bottom of my blog template. I had been dissatisfied with this arrangement for a while and created a separate blogger page to display my tags but I just haven't been able to get the html code right to have my tags display on the Blog Topics Page. The untidiness of the huge list of tags on my template has continued to disturb me.

Other geneabloggers have a number of blogs for different topics but I find it more convenient to keep most of my posts in one blog. I therefore need to make it easy for readers to identify posts of interest to them from within my blog.

General Blog Tags

I will continue to add specific tags to all my posts but I have created a more general set of around 10-12 tags that I will display in the Tags Gadget that I have moved to the menu on the Right Hand Side of my blog template.  Having reflected on my blog I will use these general labels: Android, Australia, Blogging, Events, Genealogists, History, Libraries, Resources, Rootstech, Social Media, Societies, Technology. Hopefully these will give an indication of my posts' content.

In the future I will try to add general tags to all posts and, if time permits, will retrospectively tag older posts.

I must be an author

I have been ignoring messages from the Copyright Agency Limited because at first I thought they were hoax emails and more recently because I just couldn't be bothered joining the agency to redeem some funds they say are owing to me.

The Copyright Agency Limited or (CAL) website states "CAL is a non-profit rights management organisation. We collect, and distribute to rightsholders, copyright fees and royalties for the use of text and images, including uses of digital content. CAL is a company limited by guarantee whose members are rightsholders, including writers, artists and publishers."


I am having an administria housekeeping day today so thought I would check CAL out and find out which of my words have been shared and how much CAL wish to pay me for their use. I can't remember writing anything that may attract payments under the CAL scheme.


An email received from CAL in May contains this info: 

"The amount we are holding for you is $411.49.

In order for you to claim the money it is a requirement of the Attorney-General’s Department that you become a member of CAL.Membership is free."

I have just completed the 7 page online registration form to join CAL and read through some old emails from the agency. It appears that I am owed some funds for an old website that I haven't updated for a year. The $411.49 will help defray some of the cost of my genealogy habit.