Is your surname among the bravest?, Australia Day and the curse of the lonely genealogist.
Is your surname among the bravest?
Ancestry has compiled a list of who has the bravest surname from WWI. Taken from Distinguished Medal lists, White, Walker and Thomas come out on top. Of course, this is just a bit of fund. The reality is the many more won medals such as these and that many many more besides did not. All are heroes, young and aold alike who faced horrible living conditions, were forced to advance with out-dated and suicidal tactics, gas attacks, not to mention terrible weather. It is difficult to compare one war to another or to say one is worse but the First World War was a tragedy, not only for its casual attitude to loss of life but the willingness of those in charge to fight over little more than posturing. One sensible person early in could has stopped it all but in the end it snow-balled out of control and dragged multiple countries into fighting.
Happy Australia Day!!
Its the 224th anniversary today of the first ships to land in Sydney Cove. I know there is some debate as to whether this should be celebrated given some of bad things that have happened, but on the whole, what an amazing story Australia is.
FREE access to Australian Convict records on Ancestry.com.au until Sunday!
The curse of the lonely genealogist.
When I first created my website, it was purely for researching family trees. It is, after all, what I love doing. However, something wouldn't let me stop there. I started adding extra content to the site. Some of this was to help me as I was frustrated at times with what information I could find elsewhere. For example, I really can't see the point in a description of a painter being 'someone who paints'. I wanted more, to add detail, what did it involve, what hours did they work, what were the dangers. And so I created an index for census occupations. I couldn't stop there though, so I moved on to British Army Regiments, RAF squadrons and Royal Navy ships. This totals some 7000 pages at the last count. Sometimes I regret taking on all of this work. Its takes me days to make progress, plodding along, adding bits of content here and there. Deep down I know that I will simply keep adding, improving, like so many others do on their sites. Its a thankless task and can be frustrating but in the end, its what we love. I just can't help myself.
http://www.familytreeservice.co.uk/Royalnavy.html
http://www.familytreeservice.co.uk/census%20occupations.html
