All Things Bookish - with the SAG

Most Friday afternoons at 4:00pm members of the Society of Australian Genealogists gather for an informal collaborative online Discussion  via Zoom. In each session members discuss a theme suggested by the host for that week.

I am proud to have been one of the volunteer hosts for these sessions since their launch, I hosted my first Friday Hangout with the SAG in April 2020. 

Our theme yesterday was "All Things Bookish". I shared the graphic below, that listed a few discussion points, prior to the event  on social media.

Before the event I was delighted to hear from three members who had something to share. Thanks to Fleur, Jennie, Jennifer, Isaac, Sally, Heather, John, Judy and Danielle who came online with Bookish Bits to share. Thanks also to the many attendees who added to the discussion through posts in a very lively concurrent chat.

As we progressed through the session I gave up on taking notes of the books suggested and promised to share a list here on my blog. Following is a list of books recommended and details of two future events. 

Where possible I am providing a link to bibliographic records from Trove so you can see which libraries hold copies. If these are not yet in the Trove Catalogue I will link to publishers or vendors.

Books

Goodwin, Nathan  The Dover Trunk Murder (Fortress Dover Book 1) August 30 Release 

O'Farrell, Maggie Land 

Burke, Caro Claire Yesteryear

Strout, Elizabeth The Things We Never Say

Leevers, Jo The Museum of Second Chances

Scott, Victoria The Echo of Lost Stories

Holder , Geoff  Edinburgh (Bloody Scottish History)

Hepworth, David  Hope I get old before I die

Slaughter, Karin Will Trent Series

Cummings, Karen  Genealogy Methods and Techniques : a practical guide to research

Parker, Phillip The Royal Puzzle Book

Moore, Gareth  Around the World in 80 murders Puzzle Book

Leonhardt, Lynne  Step up Mrs Dugdale

Sepetys, Ruta  Salt to the Sea

Logan, T M  The Weekend

Bonhomme, Edna History of six plagues around the world

King, Turi  The Secrets of our DNA 

McGue, Julie Ryan  Twice a Daughter

Williams, Sue  The Duke's Secret

McKinty Adrian  The Cold, Cold Ground (Sean Duffy #1)

Lester, Natasha The Mademoiselle Alliance

Stockett, Kathryn  The Calamity Club

Mclean, Paula  The One Remaining

Mason, Meg  Sophie Standing There

Moore, Susan M The Psychology of Genealogy

Moore, Susan et. al. The Psychology of Family History: exploring our genealogy

Trump, Mary L Too Much and Never Enough : how my family created the world's most dangerous man

Bradford, Barbara Taylor  A Woman of Substance

Wright, Michelle Good Boy

Hannah, Kristin   Winter Garden

Simons, Paullina  The Bronze Horseman

Lautrec, Danielle  The Good Genealogist  2nd Ed. Book 1

Lautrec, Danielle The Good Genealogist Book 2 Tools  

Radden Keefe, Patrick  Say Nothing

Roach, Mary  Replaceable You

Garnsey, Heather Unravelled... : the life of Elizabeth Fulloon, superintendent of the Parramatta Female Factory, 1824-1827

Events

9 September 2026 Heather Garnsey Discussing Unravelled at Hawkesbury Family History Group - Register Online to attend via Zoom.

18-20 September 2026 Danielle Lautrec Book Launch - The Good Genealogist NSW/ACT Annual Conference Port Macquarie.

Jill's Recent Sightings

Borrott, Narelle Belonging in Thalaba: Settlers and Their Descendants

Frydenberg, Erica  Do Not Forget Me Street: remembering the Budapesti Schindlers

Purkeljc, Tony From the Mountains to the Plains: The Life of Tony Purkeljc

Metropolitan Memorial Park My Wishes Booklet

Gleeson, Damian John  John Joseph Therry : Irish landlord, merchant, and priest in colonial Australia

Dunn, Cathy  Norfolk Island Marine settlers Atlantic 1791.

NSW History Awards Shortlist

Prime Minister's Literary Awards - Shortlist

National Biography Award 2026 Winners

• Ennis, Helen  Max Dupain : A Portrait
• Sahhar, Micaela  Find me at the Jaffa Gate

Thanks again to all the SAG Members who contributed to yesterday's Hangout. I'm now off to see where I can beg, buy or borrow some of these titles. 

Please let me know of any errors in the list 😉

A Late Night Night or an Early Morning

In a recent post I shared my excitement about being chosen as a subject for a Wikitree Challenge. 

As the event, The 2024 WikiTree Challenge 11,  will be launched on zoom at 2am tomorrow (my time in Australia). My immediate issue is do I go to bed early and set an alarm for 1:30ish or do I try and stay awake? I'll see how my day pans out. 

Promo for the WikiTree Challenge

I'm now sitting in my geneacave dealing with a range of emotions:

* Gratitude for the invitation to have my family chosen as the focus of this project

* Delight to have a light shone on my band of ordinary ancestors and forebears that includes labourers, convicts, indigenous Australians, Irish immigrants, sportsmen and a pioneering priest.

* Appreciation for the Wikitreers who have signed up to work on my tree

* Apprehension as my sometimes dodgy research will be on show to a band of experienced genealogists

* Embarrassment that my Wikitree is not too deep or wide

* Pride that Australian Genealogy research is the focus of the eventt

* Excitement that the volunteers may learn a little about Australian History as they climb my tree

* Joy that my tree is receiving the love it deserves

* Suspense as I ponder on what the volunteers may dig up

Roll on 2am.

Worldwide Genealogy - A Genealogical Collaboration

Back on 30 December 2013 English Genealogist,  Julie Goucher, announced a collaborative Project in which I was involved. 

Worldwide Genealogy - A Genealogical Collaboration was a collaborative blog on the Blogger platform to which a team of bloggers contributed posts on an allocated day. In the first year of publication there were  215 posts but this had dwindled to 3 in 2018 with the last post written by Helen Holshouser published on March 30. Life is busy and somehow the wheels fell off the project.

There is some wonderful content in the posts, some of the information may be outdated but some of the issues discussed are still pertinent. The good news is that the blog is still live on the internet and the posts may come up in search results. But I wonder if it will remain there. 

My first post in the Worldwide Genealogy Blog

As I own the copyright on my posts I am going to copy my contributions from that blog into this GeniAus blog. My blog is preserved on the Australian Web Archive at Trove so I know that my words will be available in the future. 

I'll post them with their original posting date and acknowledge that they were originally posted on the Worldwide Genealogy Blog. 

Virtual Genealogy Association - New South Wales Chapter

I know that several of my genimates have joined The Virtual Genealogy Association  and are enjoying the educational program of webinars served out as part of their membership (Great value for $US20 per annum). Already there is an impressive library of a dozen webinars on a wide range of subjects given by an international team of experts.

What you may not realise is that there are closed Facebook Groups for Chapters within the organisation where members with shared interests can chat and collaborate. Most of the US States have Chapters for members with interests in a particular States.  International Chapters include those for BeNeLux, Canada, Ireland, Norway and South Africa. In Australia we have had Chapters for Queensland and Western Australia and now there is a Chapter for New South Wales for which I am an administrator.

If you are a member of the The Virtual Genealogy Association  how about joining me in The Facebook Group (please only apply if you are a financial member).

For my Fellow Geneabloggers

G'day to my Blogging Genimates,

I am presently preparing my Beaut Blogs presentation (goo.gl/6AMJju) for Congress 2018 (www.congress2018.org.au).

I am reaching out to you via the blogging medium as I don't have email addresses for everyone I know and I am also hoping to reach bloggers unknown to me. I am seeking your assistance in two ways. 

While my presentation is well underway I want to ensure that I haven't overlooked anything really important. I'd love to know what elements you think makes a blog beaut (stand out from the crowd). No need for an essay - just a thought or two. If you have any thoughts to share please add a comment to this blog post or drop an email to jillballau@gmail.com.

Secondly I want to use, in my powerpoint presentation, screenshots from your geneablogs to illustrate various elements of beaut blogs. If you are willing for me to use your blog as an example please let me know via a comment on this post or in an email to jillballau@gmail.com. 

Please don't be shy. I want my talk to reflect the thoughts and work of many members of the geneablogging community.

Thanks in anticipation,

Jill aka GeniAus

A First Cousin Once Removed

Some time last year when Mr GeniAus tracked down the contact details of his father's first cousin he immediately contacted her by 'phone and asked would she mind if we visited some time.  Then life got in the way.

Finally on Sunday we made our way up the motorway to the Port Stephens region where the cousin resides. We had armed ourselves with some ancestor charts, a narrative on some of her Ball ancestors, copies of photos and some chocolate biscuits. Can you believe I left my camera behind in our accommodation in Newcastle? Luckily Mr GeniAus and I both had our mobile 'phones. I had my laptop in the car but didn't take it into the house initially as I didn't want to overwhelm this octogenerian. 

Mr GeniAus' Grandfather - there is a strong family resemblance

We organised our arrival for 10:00 am so the cousin wouldn't feel obligated to feed us. Of course we stayed longer and enjoyed lunch with the cousin and her husband. The cousin was most interested in her family history but didn't have any certificates or documents to share. She corroborated stories we had heard and gave us some names and dates that provided enough clues to track down references for some BDMs  and burials. She was able to help us identify some family members in our photos and we set her straight on one she had mislabelled. 

It was a Win-Win day - we came away with images of two studio photographs of Mr GeniAus' Great-grandmother one of which was with his Grandfather. This was so special because the only photos we have of these two are a couple of blurry amateur images. The cousin was delighted because of the documents we had prepared for her. 

The icing on the cake was when I fetched my computer from the car and read the cousin an account of her parents' wedding I had found on Trove. When we got home Mr G printed off a hard copy and have mailed it to her with a copy of her Grandmother's will.

I had a fun day today going through the notes and finding references including articles from Trove to add to my database.

Collaboration Rocks.

From now on they'll have to ask

Am I being Bah Humbug?

A while ago I found an unsourced tree that had quite a number of my ancestors listed online at a fellow genealogist's website. I immediately thought how mean-spirited or lazy this chap was for not sharing sources. It didn't bother me personally as I was using his site for clues from which I went off to seek sources.

I've been mulling over his practice for some time and think I may follow his lead. I like to share and collaborate with fellow genies, that's why I have my tree on the web in a public space. What I expect is that if anyone republishes what they find at the GeniAus Family site they will acknowledge their source.

I regularly see on Ancestry and now on MyHeritage  bits and pieces from the notes I share copied into online trees without acknowledgement. What makes me giggle is that I am a poor typiste and make quite a few keyboarding errors, these are replicated in those trees. Copy and Paste has a lot to answer for.

I stopped putting photos on my GeniAus Family site  when I saw so many of them subsequently appear on Ancestry, I have yet to see one sourced as coming from me. Could so many distant cousins really have copies of those photos in their collections? The photo with the most shares, an image of my Kealy ancestors' home in Ballyfoyle, was taken on my last trip to Ireland. As I have another trip to Ireland planned I'm going to try for a sharper image which I may just keep for myself.

The original photo of the Ballyfoyle home from which the shared one was cropped

The cropped and enhanced (by me)  photo I find all over the place

I am about to upload an update to my site that includes names, dates and places but no sources or notes. I know that some folk will still copy my stuff but if they want more information they will have to ask.

Am I being mean-spirited?

Accentuate the Positive 2014 - Geneameme Responses

Thanks to my busy genimates who have got behind me and posted responses to the Accentuate the Positive 2014 Geneameme. I left it a bit late to post but will try to do better next year (and I may even find some new questions).

Because I got responses from all around the world I decided to post the collation of responses as my monthly poston the Worldwide Genealogy Blog.

Just one click from here will take you to the report of some Glorious Geneayears. 

Follow Friday - Worldwide Genealogy

I have just found the time to sit and read the first fifteen or so posts on the Worldwide Genealogy Blog and I am gobsmacked. What a diverse and interesting range of people are participating in this amazing activity. 

So what is Worldwide Genealogy? 

To quote its founder, Julie Goucher " It is really quite simple! Each day a blogger from across the genealogy or historical community will post to Worldwide Genealogy. The posts will be about something related to either genealogy, history or local history."

Most of the bloggers including me have committed to a monthly post. So far there are bloggers from Australia, England, Scotland, The United States and Wales. It would be grand to have some other countries represented. Julie still has a couple of spots vacant and would love to hear from you if you are interested.

When the word gets out and others bloggers start reading the posts I am sure there will be a queue of bloggers anxious to join in.

Worldwide Genealogy demonstrates the value of collaborative projects in genealogy.

FM'S TRADITION OF BLOG CAROLING!

My mate FootnoteMaven has once again issued this call:

"Yes, Geneabloggers it's time for fM's favorite Christmas tradition. From the comfort of my blog, with Hot Toddy in hand, my flannel jammies and furry slippers on, I will blog my favorite Christmas Carol on Sunday, December 21. (I sing so much better online than in person!)

So my fellow GeneaBloggers, I challenge each of you to blog your favorite Christmas Carol - Blog Caroling. We'll all sing along! (Blog Caroling is posting the lyrics, youtube video, etc. of your favorite Christmas carol on your blog.)" 

This year I have selected a traditional Australian carol "The Three Drovers" (1948, Words by John Wheeler  and Music by William G James) performed by The Sydney Philharmonia Motet Choir. I love this carol because it relates to Christmas in our Australian environment and is set to beautiful, joyous music.

Lyrics

Across the plains one Christmas night
Three drovers riding blithe and gay,
Looked up and saw a starry light
More radiant than the Milky Way;
And on their hearts such wonder fell,
They sang with joy. 'Noel! Noel! Noel! Noel! Noel!'

The air was dry with summer heat,
And smoke was on the yellow moon;
But from the heavens, faint and sweet,
Came floating down a wond'rous turn;
And as they heard, they sang full well
Those drovers three. 'Noel! Noel! Noel! Noel! Noel!'

The black swans flew across the sky,
The wild dog called across the plain,
The starry lustre blazed on high,
Still echoed on the heavenly strain;
And still they sang, 'Noel! Noel!'
Those drovers three. 'Noel! Noel! Noel! Noel! Noel!'

Here are links to my  posts from previous years::

2010  http://geniaus.blogspot.com.au/2010/12/blog-caroling-downunder-style.html
2012 http://geniaus.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/blog-carolling-with-fm.html

Blocked

I just read a blog post from someone I know and, as I was impressed by the content, I left a positive and complimentary message on the post. I wanted to give positive reinforcement to this blogger who has only managed a couple of posts this year. I may even have been able to help with the mystery that this blog post was aiming to solve!

After I tried to post my comment I received this message "Comments on this blog are restricted to team members". I took a look at the blog and noticed that quite a few people joined the blog but none had bothered to comment on the post!

I am a fan of blogging because it is a collaborative medium that encourages conversation and communication. If this blogger does not want to encourage that conversation  then why does she have a public blog. In my opinion she should make it private and visible only to those who are members of the team that is allowed to participate in the conversation.

I was annoyed that I could not post my comment after I had made the effort to extend the hand of friendship. I am giving this blogger the benefit of the doubt and presuming that she does not understand the commenting system on blogger.

Do you think I should ask her why she has her blog set up this way when next I see her?

The Book of Me, Prompt 2 - Birth

This post is in response to Prompt 2 in The Book of Me, Written by You activity.

I was going to keep this post private but realised that I am not sharing anything too personal so am copying it to here from my personal blog.

The Prompt for Week 2 is Your birth

Do you have any baby photos?
I have a few baby photos, some appear to have been taken in the street by street photographers and some are candid shots taken on a camera like a box Brownie. I don't think anyone in my family owned camera so I imagine that photos were taken whenever camera owner appeared on the scene.

A street photo - probably the first photo taken of me. That's Mum on the left and Dad holding the precious bundle

From the look of the pretty dress I think this may have been taken at my baptism. I wonder what happened to that dress.

Where were you born?

Birth notice from Sydney Morning Herald

As my birth notice states I was born at The War Memorial Hospital in Waverley. I have previously blogged about this hospital that is now mainly a respite and rehabilitation hospital for the elderly.

Who was present at your birth?
Mum, a nurse and Dr Walter McGrath. Dr McGrath was our family doctor for quite a time. He has a library named after him.

Dimensions?
Mum told me I was 6lb 6oz. I was probably short as I still am.

What day was it? Time?
I was born on a Thursday. Mum is a bit forgetful now so I can't get any further information. My dad was a bowerbird so I have the hospital bill for Mum's confinement.

Did you have hair? Eye colour
I had a mop of dark hair. My eyes ended up being blue. I don't know what they were like when I was born.

Are you a twin?
I was the one and only.

What's it all about? The Book of Me, Written by You

You may have noticed that I am participating in The Book of Me, Written by You a 15 month meme/challenge/activity. Have you wondered what it's all about?

Julie Goucher, an English genealogist is the brains behind the activity. In this Prezi slideshow Julie provides answers to questions you might have about The Book of Me, Written by You.




How about joining me in the journey to document and preserve your memories for future generations?

I am a procrastinator - The Book of Me - Prompt 1

I am participating in Julie Goucher's activity "The Book of Me, Written by You."

The prompt for week 1 is a recognized psychology test: Ask yourself 20 times “Who are you?” Each time you should give yourself a different answer, and if you can easily go beyond 20 entries then that is fine too. This prompt is about how YOU see YOU.

Unlike others who were able to compose their posts promptly I have taken days to reflect on mine (I am a thinker who always likes to ponder for a while) . I am a procrastinator so I also took a few days to decide whether I should share my answers because I am basically shy and find it a challenge to publish a post like this. I am following the lead of those who have been open and honest (Interesting that I didn't think of these in connection with myself) and shared their lists publicly. I have also posted this to the private blog I set up for the challenge.

I have restricted myself to 20 items as I do tend to ramble on, This has forced me to think long and hard about what I see as my most dominant attributes. What I have found interesting is that each of the descriptors I have labelled myself with would be an excellent topic for a further post about me.

I am 

• loved, happy and blessed
• a wife, mother, grandmother and daughter - family comes first
• a friend and confidante
• a proud Australian
• a lifelong learner
• a procrastinator
• a thinker
• a recorder - writer, blogger, photographer
• a diarist and listmaker
• generous
• funny
• basically shy
• physically unfit 
• a swimmer
• a geek
• a traveller
• a reader and booklover - can't have one without the other
• a collector and hoarder - they go together don't they?
• the family historian
• untidy but organised

That is who I am today. Who knows what tomorrow may bring.

Australia’s Community Heritage

Of interest to family historians and genealogy and historical societies will be this new website recently launched by The Hon Mark Butler MP, Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Water.

  

Australia’s Community Heritage – www.communityheritage.net.au

Without the support of individuals and organisations to input data and stories to the site it has the potential to be a big flop. On the other hand it could also be an amazing resource for the community. To see how you can assist this project please take a look at the Get Invloved page.

I have registered as an individual and my Screen Name is GeniAus. I am not sure how much I will share as I am rather put off by this condition that as a user I... 

grant to the Commonwealth of Australia represented by the Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities (or any successor agency) (the Department) a perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, worldwide, non-exclusive licence (including a right of sublicense) to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, communicate, publish, broadcast and exploit your contribution to the Website for any non-commercial purpose.

I can see that one could use the site to post a truncated story about a person with a link to a more comprehensive story on one's own blog, in a magazine, book or on a website so that one is not giving over all one's work to The Commonwealth of Australia. 

I will certainly use the site to list the presentations I am giving at various places around the traps. 

Hanging Out

When Google Hangouts on Air were announced I knew that I just had to use this service to connect with other genealogists. Because I have spent more than half of the past year travelling I haven't had much time to explore this service. I have dabbled in Hangouts with mixed success, sometimes I see a picture, sometimes I see a black screen and sometimes my connection drops out over and over again.

Ready to hangout

I took part in my first Hangout on Air with Dear Myrtle in Salt Lake City in March. I have since Inside History Magazine and by myself. Hopefully I've ironed out a few bugs; I have purchased a new USB headset and have tried connecting via my wireless modem which seems to give a better connection than my ADSL service. This morning tried to connect with Fiona Tellesson's planned Hangout. Due to technical issues Fiona couldn't go ahead at the advertised time but so has rescheduled for next Saturday. I hope to join her then.
been practising with Ben from

I have a couple of people lined up for interviews using the Google Hangouts on Air service; I keep getting positive feedback about the interviews I did at Rootstech 2013 and would like to add to the collection I have on Youtube; Hangouts seem to be a perfect medium for this. Hopefully I can get these going. If you would like to Hangout with me please let me know and I will make a time to speak with you.

I learnt a new trick yesterday ... Australian genies this one is for you

Whenever I want to download the Service File of an Australian soldier from the First World War I go to the National Archives of Australia, search for the record and then painstakingly download the record one page (jpeg images) at a time. I haven't downloaded the records for all of the WW1 people in my tree because it is such a painful process.

Down at the Society yesterday I was complaining to my friend Jackie about  how long it took to download a 60 page file; Allan, another researcher who was sitting around the table with us emphathised with me. Jackie (a Mac girl)  said that if I had a Mac I could download it as one file in .pdf format from the Mapping Our Anzacs site and I said "Well if you can do it on a Mac I will be able to do it on a PC."

I fired up my little laptop, found my soldier on Mapping Our Anzacs  by using the See other search  options on the bottom right of the screen,  and in the search by name box entered his family name. Once his entry came update I clicked on the image of his record on the right hand side of the page.

When the next page opened up I selected the Print option and waited for a while as the file downloaded .

Once that happened a window appeared with a Print as pdf option, I selected that, added a meaningful filename and, hey presto, I had a copy of  the file on my laptop in one sequence rather than as a collection of jpeg images. This sort of file is much smaller and so much easier to browse.

Now, dear readers, you may have known how to do this already but it was a revelation to me (and Allan). We are so grateful to Jackie for teaching us this new trick.

It's amazing what one can learn by sitting around a table and chatting about research with one's mates.

www.geniaus.net

One of my aims is to update my family tree data on my Geniaus family site, www.geniaus.net,  every two or three weeks or more often if I make significant changes or additions to the database.

http://www.geniaus.net

As I have been travelling for a couple of months this has not been done since February. Although I have a lot more data to enter I have uploaded an updated file this morning. I had promised the new cousins who have found me on the web and shared info while I was travelling that I would do so on my return.

Thank you those those new folk who have shared their data with me, your collaboration is making my family site a richer resource for those who share our ancestry. If I have not added your extra information yet please bear with me. I am in catchup mode and will do so soon.

I cannot overestimate the value of publishing one's data on the internet via a family sites, blog posts or other media. Sharing leads to valuable connections.

Blogging is a two-way street - I've heard that somewhere before

Just last week I came across a new Australian genealogy blog. I wanted to congratulate and welcome the blogger to the geneablogging community but sadly she didn't have comments enabled on her blog. I was disappointed at not being able to use the potential of the blogging platform and pass on some positive reinforcement to a new blogger.

It reminded me of my post from December 2010 "Blogging is a two-way street" that I am repeating below. (As I am off geneacruising I am being a bit lazy and preparing posts ahead of time for some of the time I am away, this is one of them).

Blogging is a two-way street

The blog is a social medium; a collaborative tool that enables people to communicate and share information; it gives  consumers/readers an opportunity to communicate back through the 'Comments' feature that is enabled on most blogs. Blogging is a tool not just for communication but for conversation.

The genealogy blogging world is full of generous souls who believe that "It is more blessed to give than to receive" (Acts 20:35). These people blog because they have something to share and they don't want anything in return. People use blogging software because it provides an easy mechanism for online publishing.

As a blogger I try to blog 3-5 times per week whenever I have something that I think is worthy of sharing, that I want to record for posterity for the family or to take part in online festivals etc. If I didn't ever get a comment I would still blog.

I get a buzz whenever someone makes a comment on my posts - I am human and love a bit of reinforcement be it positive or negative. I wonder if other bloggers feel the same?  

Last night I received an email from an old mate, Carolyn, who said " I was elated to find such a wealth of information on the Geniaus Site with quick links to my favourite sites. I read today’s blog about your Christmas loot and note that Perry McIntyre is related to me...I will follow your blogs and wealth of info to see what I can do to pin down the John and Caroline xxx family." Getting this email that also gave me information about Carolyn's research was a welcome belated Christmas present. 

My blog statistics tell me that I have several hundred visits each week  but yet I may only get one or  two comments. It could be that my posts are not relevant to others. I think, however, it is that  many people miss the point about blogging being a social or collaborative tool. Maybe bloggers see it as a publishing tool and  their consumers treat it in the same way as they treat a magazine article or ebook as something to be consumed fullstop. I have looked at the blogs of some top bloggers and have noticed that, most of them too, don't seem to get many comments from their huge readerships.

As a consumer I subscribe to numerous blogs via RSS and read them religiously each day.  As I believe that "Blogging is a two-way street" I regularly comment on other bloggers posts. This morning I posted a comment on Dear Myrtle's post"Ancestor Approved - Thank-you"    and Shelley's "Twigs of Yore" post "In genealogy, the smallest discoveries can make your day". I found one post quirky and interesting and I agreed with the content of the other - so I told the writers.

As part of my genealogy resolutions for 2011 I am going to recognise that "Blogging is a two-way street" and commit myself to using the comments boxes on genealogy blogs for conversation.

How about joining some conversations in 2011?

It's even sweeter

Having just finished nominating some of my Genimates for the Wonderful Team Member Readership Award I wandered over to Pauleen Cass's blog to tell her that I had nominated her blog and there a surprise awaited me. Pauleen had also nominated the Geniaus blog for the award.

I thank Pauleen for her nomination, I so enjoy the interactions I have with all of the geneabloggers with whom I communicate. I won't add any more names to my earlier nominations, I appreciate each and every comment from all of my readers.

You can see the list of Pauleen's nominations here.