Thank You For My One Lovely Blog Award!

During my last blog binge (i.e. trying to get my Feedly under control again) I was caught by surprise to see may name & blog nominated by Pauline Cass for the One Lovely Blog Award!  This is my first year blogging & this is my first nomination / acknowledgement, so I feel honoured.  Thank you Pauleen, for the nomination but also for reading my blog :)

The rules for participating are:

• Thank the person that nominated you and link back to that blog – see above.
• Share seven things about yourself – see below.
• Nominate 15 bloggers you admire – also see below.
• Contact your bloggers to let them know you’ve tagged them for the One Lovely Blog Award

7 Things About Me:

1.       I am a primary school teacher in Western Sydney.

2.       I really enjoy my job.

3.       I have 2 children.

4.       I am a big reader.

5.       Stephen King is one of my favourite authors.  I think he’s one of the greatest writers of our time.

6.       I LOVE perfume & scented candles.

7.       I love finding out about ancestors I don’t know much about.

Bloggers I Admire & / or Read Regularly are:

Family History Across the Seas (Pauleen Cass) – Pauleen, I found your Beyond the Internet series last night & your week 48 focus on teachers prompted me to search the NSW archives for teacher records.  I now have a list of resources such as teachers rolls, teacher leave cards, teacher career cards, salary registers, results of teacher examinations & the records of the two schools that I know my ancestor worked at.  I’ll be popping into the State Archives on a Saturday morning very soon!

Janelle’s Family Tree Edition (Janelle) – I particularly liked the post about the Victorian BDMs being available for download & transferable to Excel.

Shauna Hicks History Enterprises – Although I haven’t contributed to it, reading 52 Weeks of Genealogical Records in 2014 gives me many ideas for my research.

The Tree of Me (Sharon)  - I like reading Sharon’s responses to Shauna’s 52 Weeks of Genealogical Records.

Kylie’s Genes (Kylie Willison) – I like the variety of topics on this blog.

The Dictionary of Sydney – Not purely genealogical, but this blog has regular historical articles about Sydney - people, places, things & events in Sydney.

Family Tree Frog (Alex) – Alex participates in a few different blog themes.

Geniaus (Jill Ball) – Jill’s pretty much the DearMYRTLE of Australia.

Hack Genealogy (Thomas MacENTEE) – There are some gems here, particularly for computers.

Geneabloggers – This resource provides blogging prompts & is a one-stop shop for finding other genealogy blogs.

Are My Roots Showing? (Jenny Lancelot) – I also like the variety of topics on Jenny’s blog, including her responses to the Geneablogger’s blog prompts.

DearMYRTLE – DearMYRTLE's blog links to her Youtube channel & also to her Hangouts on Air - I watch the recorded versions.

Excel for Genealogy

Over the last 2 days I have been watching hangouts & reading discussions about using Excel for genealogy.  I have learnt how genealogists use Excel to make research logs, to do lists, simple timelines & timelines to answer specific questions.

I started to use Excel for genealogy to create databases of baptisms.  I have been researching family surnames in Sussex lately & decided to make a database for baptisms for each surname that I am researching.  I thought that recording all instances of a surname would be more beneficial than simply identifying events of known ancestors.  This will enable me to reconstruct family groups as I continue my research. 

I watched Lisa Alzo's webinar Research Recharge: Turning Old Clues into New Leads on Legacy Family Tree Webinars & she discussed using research logs.  She showed an example of Thomas MacEntee's genealogy research log, which is a free Excel spreadsheet available at http://www.genealogyresearchlog.com.  

DearMYRTLE has been focusing on using Excel for genealogy in her Wacky Wednesday Hangouts on Air this month.  On August 12th's Wacky Wednesday hangout, More Excel for Genealogy, +Julie Goucher shared her presentation on how she uses Excel for research logs & to do lists.  Julie has made this video, as well as a copy of her Excel research log spreadsheet & her presentation on how she uses them on her blog, Anglers Rest.

I have never used a research log before as I didn't need one, but earlier this year I had a few months when I didn't have the time to research.  When I did have the time to continue, I found it hard to pick up where I'd left off.  Using a research log would have helped a lot in this situation.

Another potential use for Excel would be in creating timelines for my ancestors.  I have found a few good examples of how people have used them for this purpose & I can see how they would be beneficial to me.  Jenny Lanctot discusses how she uses Excel for simple timelines & also how she uses timelines to answer specific questions in her blog, Are My Roots Showing?.

How do you use Excel in your genealogy research?