Using DNA matches to verify South family connectionsAustralian family historians have spent decades leaning on parish registers, shipping manifests, and the digitised newspapers on Trove to follow ancestors…Loni's Blog: The day we found a Civil War discharge paperOn a warm Melbourne morning in late January, with cicadas droning in the eucalyptus outside, I sorted the mail at the kitchen table. A catalogue from a Bendigo…Home exchange in Norway: a red cabin by a fjordFor Australians drawn to the cinematic landscapes of Scandinavia, the price tag often becomes a stumbling block. A week in a Norwegian hotel can stretch past…Thomas Brighton Telford: a life across the centuryThe life of Thomas Brighton Telford stretches across nearly ninety years of Australian and world history, from the year of federation to the eve of…How the McCarthy Family Adapted to Life in PennsylvaniaFamily history often becomes clearest when migration is treated as a process rather than a single event. A McCarthy arrival in Pennsylvania may have involved…The morning my father told me about the TidwellsSome family histories begin with a document carefully stored in a folder. Others begin at the kitchen table, in the unplanned space between breakfast and the…The Smell of Lye Soap in Grandmother’s KitchenSome memories arrive as pictures, while others enter through the nose. The smell of lye soap can bring back a kitchen before its doorway appears: a wood stove…The Telford Sisters’ Letters from the 1910sFamily letters can make a genealogy collection feel immediate. A birth date places someone in a register, an obituary records the end of a life, and a census…Loni’s How-To: Creating a Family Tree OnlineA family tree begins with people, places and stories, not with a blank database screen. Before searching online, gather the names, dates, photographs, letters…Allen’s Poem: The Evening Bell at the Brighton SchoolhouseAllen’s poem, “The Evening Bell at the Brighton Schoolhouse,” evokes a small community at the hour when lessons end, doors close, and familiar paths lead…