Just because I can - OWOH - another giveaway

A while back I participated in the One World One Heart giveaway. I decided to have another drawing. This time I will be offering 5 hours of assistance with your research. I have pulled a few names and will be contacting them sometime during the next 2 or 3 weeks :)

I've been busy recently teaching classes and helping others with their research. Lots of fun. I love helping others get started. Everyone always feels like they have been able to accomplish something positive. Recently I've been helping people who have been given lots of family history from other family members and each one has felt overwhelmed to say the least. What to do with it all, how to store it, how to organize all the family names etc. My first piece of advice is usually DON'T TACKLE IT ALL AT ONCE.

When organizing items use the "work for 15 minutes chunk" principle. Start 4 stacks - one for each grandparent name - pick up a piece of paper, find the appropriate name and put it in the stack. DO NOT read everything else, you will get side tracked. That part comes later :)

Following the paper trail - Accountants

Do you have an accountant in your Scottish family? I do.
Here's some resources that might be of use.
1."The Incorporated Accountants Year Book by Society of Incorporated Accountants and Auditors." available on Google Books. Go to the index to find the name you are interested in then jump to the page indicated for more information.
My g g uncle shows up in  the 1904-05 edition.  Gives the name of his company (in his case partnership), where it was located and when he was admitted as an associate. In the 1907/08 edition he shows up as a Fellow without a partner at a different address.
The Society (Scotland) was founded in 1885 and merged with the Institute of Chartered Accountants (England & Wales) in 1959.
2. "History of The Society of Incorporated Accountants 1885-1957" was written by A.A. Garrett  and published by Oxford University Press in 1961.
3. "The Society of Accountants in Edinburgh 1854-1914: A Study of Recruitment to a Profession" by Stephen P. Walker was published by Garland Publishing in 1988.
4. The main online site is http://www.icaew.com/ It has an INDEX section called Accountancy Ancestors covering 1874-1965. It was last updated in August 2009.
The searchable index is set up as follows:-
Obituaries by surname
Obituaries by Accountancy Firm
Portraits
Other Illustrations
First World War
It's a work in progress being done by volunteers and is in the form of an excel spreadsheet. It was all pulled from information held by the ICAEW Library & Information Service.

Australia revisited

Those of you who read my blog on a regular basis know that a number of my relatives relocated to Australia. Every so often I piddle around on the computer looking for more information. Such was the case yesterday. Up popped a site I had never seen before and low and behold some information about my cousins and the ship they sailed on was there.
http://www.museum.wa.gov.au/welcomewalls
Welcome Walls is an interesting project being constructed in Fremantle and Albany. If your relatives landed in either place they might show up.
The entry I was interested in showed where my cousins sailed from and when, the name of the ship, where they landed, who was in the group and the profession of the head of household. Interesting for me. That led me to doing some research on the ship which led to some fascinating dairy entries of other people traveling during the same time period. This also led to a death notice and a military record.

It's all about the box

My daughter headed out to school today with a large box filled with items for an art project. She had been gathering things for a couple of weeks based on her theme. Never ceases to amaze me what seemingly unrelated objects can be gathered then combined together to make a work of art.
Genealogy can be like that, especially when you are first starting out. You might have lots of "odds and ends" scattered round your house, many seemingly unrelated. Some items may be complete mysteries because they have never really been looked at. So get yourself a box, and start gathering items. Take your time, maybe a few weeks. GATHER DON"T SORT !!!!!
Some things to gather.
BMD certificates
obituaries
awards
photographs
family stories
personal items e.g. baby clothing, small toys
newspaper articles
favorite recipes
wills
magazine articles
letters
postcards

I have a cardboard slimpick wallet folder that is old, worn and very much used. It has travelled many places with me and been used for many different family history projects. I am currently using it to gather information for project but it started out as my basic genealogy info carrier in the early 80's and became my "lightweight briefcase" for such when I moved "across the puddle" in 1987. It sits in a plastic tub with some bulky items and comes in very useful if I need to grab something for classes.