In this, my second blog, I decided to write about my other passion – genealogical research.
When my parents died, many years ago, they left behind folders and folders of painstakingly collected family history research. Some older family members had been researching for years and there were many records such as birth and death certificates and so on which had all been collected, rough notes added and then largely forgotten, and all without the benefit of the internet.
I took it all back to Sydney with me and decided I would organise it all, set it up electronically and then decide what to do with it. I joined My Heritage and set up an electronic family tree and began entering in all that Mum and Dad had collected over the years. It took about three days to verify all they had collected, and then I began to add information, curious to see how far back I could go. When I reached Alfred the Great, back in the 800s, I decided there just might be a book to write.
In the meantime I set up a family history Facebook page and began posting interesting bits of information as I discovered new people and soon created quite a following especially from my father’s extremely large extended family. I discovered many family members who had been involved in significant historical events, and so eagerly began indulging my other passion – history – adding historical details as I wrote.
It took about two years to compile ‘Winton’, the Swann family history (my father’s family). When COVID hit, and I was newly retired and confined to my house, I set to pulling the book together and it was published late in 2020. It was eagerly purchased by my family, and I held a Zoom book launch, attended by family members from all over Australia. Much more has been discovered since I published ‘Winton’ and I now know some of my assumptions were wrong, but other family members are now continuing the research. Family history is never ‘finished’!
As I compiled my father’s story, I had also come across a series of pages written by my mother, documenting her own life story. These were especially precious, as she had Parkinson’s Disease and later in life had lost the ability to write and eventually even to talk. So, a second book, detailing my mother’s family history and incorporating her own writing began to develop. She had a much smaller extended family, so when I published ‘They Came to Glengallan’, I expected few sales, but to my surprise there are a few purchases each month, largely I expect, because of the family association with the historic Glengallan homestead near Warwick in southern Queensland.
By now, I really had the ‘bug’ and decided I would tackle the Kroonstuiver family history, mainly as a record for my children and grandchildren. This was going to be far more difficult, firstly because very few living family members had any knowledge of their family – my ex-husband didn’t even know the names of his grandparents! Secondly, I spoke neither Dutch nor Indonesian, and most of the records were in these languages. So, I began a long and painstaking association with Google Translate. I also listened to several webinars about undertaking research of Dutch records and these were invaluable. Gradually I began to piece together the family history, bit by bit. I also made contact with a distant family member in the Netherlands who was researching one branch of the family and he taught me a great deal about genealogical research and interpretation of records. All of this resulted in ‘Crown Penny’. I admit it is an unusual title, but every time I entered ‘Kroonstuiver’ into Google Translate, it came back as ‘Crown Penny’ – at first I thought it hilarious but eventually decided to adopt it as the title of the book. This was an extremely rewarding book to write, because I discovered living family members we didn’t even know about, and copies of this book have gone to the Netherlands, Ireland and several other countries.
Family research published, I turned to writing historical fiction and began incorporating my newly learned genealogical research skills to researching the background of ‘real’ people included in my novels. I usually end up with pages and pages of background information about these people, much of which I summarise at the end of each book.
But there is nothing like the buzz of uncovering a long-forgotten family member, and so I began doing bits and pieces of research for friends. I’ve now researched a further five family histories for other people and the thrill of uncovering new information never dissipates.