Accentuate the positive 2024

AI generated and edited image in canva.com

A review of my family history activities in 2024, prompted by Jill at Geniaus. She provides 20 prompts for writing a blog post, I have used only a few of these.

1. Google provided a lead for a distant relative of my husband when he found one of my blog posts referring to his ggt-grandfather.

2. I was the recipient of genearosity from a distant relative in South Australia who continues to investigate our Byrne family connections.

3. This was a headstone I had not previously not seen. My husband's paternal grandmother.

4. A useful record I discovered was the will and probate record for Timothy Hogan by using fulltext search in FamilySearch Labs.

5. A newly found family member shared details of his Bennett grandparents, their children and some of their descendants.

6. A geneasurprise I received was another contact who was following my husband's great grandparents. His mother then forwarded some photos not previously seen.

7. My 2024 post that I was particularly proud of was Easter offerings 1895 where I enumerated the attendees at a small country church that Sunday morning with some brief details about each one.

8. DNA helped me to consolidated one branch of the Horgan family tree by confirming several 3rd cousins and 2nd cousins one removed in that line.

9. I was pleased I upgraded to the pro tools on Ancestry which provided further clues on some DNA connections. I also upgraded my laptop after failing to find a solution to maximise efficiency on my 9 yr old device. It was so slow. Another upgrade arrived via Santa, a new Android phone.

10. Although Face to Face events have returned Zoom has enabled me to participate in many sessions that would otherwise be unavailable in my home location.

11. I dipped my toes into suno.com where I provided some basic details about my brother's life and had a song generated for his 80th birthday celebration.

12. I connected with a Bennett descendant in the USA via two DNA matches.

13.By dipping into a range of AI tools I was able to refine and edit some text for my family history book published this year. Transkribus.ai enabled quick transcription and correction of 43 letters written home during World War II.

14. I was honoured to be asked to present a session for QFHS in February 2025

15. It was exciting to meet face to face with a previously unknown second cousin found through his daughter's DNA results.

16. A geneadventure I enjoyed this year was and is a virtual one. I am using WeAre.xyz where I am storing and sharing our family stories and photos.

17. Another positive I would like to mention was that I refined my A-Z posts from 2017 about my childhood into a printed booklet which I then gave to my son on Christmas Day. He expressed his delight at the personal gift. Two of his three boys expressed interest, there is hope for the future of our family history.

This post first appeared on earlieryears.blogspot.com by CRGalvin

The Chilli Explosion

Some years ago a kindly colleague gave me a bottle of her homemade chilli sauce. We opened it and enjoyed the flavour with our barbecued meat. Living in a cool climate at the time, I thought nothing of storing the bottle of sauce in the pantry alongside the other sauce bottles.

My husband and I finally finished repainting the kitchen/family room area a lovely white. We had a white round kitchen table with what were at the time, stylish red chairs. Here we ate our meals with our two primary school aged children.

It was a sausage night. Table set, food cooked and served. My husband shook the bottle and took the lid off the chilli sauce! It had fermented and the released pressure resulted in the sauce splattering far and wide, on the ceiling the walls and then it dripped back down. We were not spared.

In the end all we could do was laugh. It took weeks for us to get rid of every last spot and splodge. Yes, he had to repaint the room!

This post first appeared on earlieryears.blogspot.com by CRGalvin

A smithy by name and trade

Patrick Sylvester Smyth 

Patrick Sylvester Smyth was the third child born to James Smyth and Catherine Mulvaney at Alma in South Australia in December 1880. Patrick joined his sister Mary and brother John who had been born in the previous two years. 

Little is known of his childhood but as they were a farming family he would have been expected to help with the daily chores in the farmyard.

Four more boys were born after Patrick, but little brother James died at just nine months old and another baby also named James. died in infancy.

Blacksmith generated by AI

His older brother John may have been destined to take over the farm and without enough land to support all the boys, Patrick took on work as a blacksmith. Jobs completed in the Alma smithy would have included farming equipment repairs, horseshoes, household pots and pans along with any task brought in from the neighbourhood farms and houses.

At age 29 he became the owner of the business as recorded in this transaction.

Account J. Pearce and Son, Alma— Blacksmith's business, with 2 cottages, in township of Alma, to P. Smyth, Alma.[1]

It appears that Patrick never married and he died a single man. He outlived all of his family and died in November 1963 just two weeks short of his 83rd birthday. He is buried in the Cheltenham Cemetery.

Patrick Sylvester Smyth - 1st cousin twice removed.

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1911 'LAND SALES.', Chronicle (Adelaide, SA : 1895 - 1954), 1 July, p. 37. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/88689904

This post first appeared on earlieryears.blogspot.com by CRGalvin