A Fresh Start - week 1

I freshened up this blog by choosing a new theme and look.

I'm taking a fresh look at the work I've inherited from my uncle who got me started on family history. He had already collected a huge amount of documentation by contacting archives and relatives that I'm now examining afresh. Firstly to make sure I'm not going over old ground and secondly though equally important to make sure he was indeed on the right track. His research was very good and well sourced but mistakes can happen even for the best of us.

I plan to revive my other blog, Meta Writes, about my grandmother Meta Reith's journal from WW 2 and her pre-war letters to relatives.

First entry of Meta Reith in her journal, for 15th March 1944, when she was imprisoned.

Finally a new beginning for storing and cataloguing original photos, diaries and documents and deciding on their future. Donate to a library, archive, find a relative to gift it to?

Here in Australia, a fresh start has taken on a whole new meaning, with the ferocity of the bushfires in recent weeks, compelling so many to start all over again, having lost everything. Some have managed to save their most important photos and documents. I am now very aware that if I had to leave my property in emergency fire conditions, how would I or even could I save my family archive which now takes up my spare room wardrobe and a few book cases. I have to start finding alternative storage, probably on line, as well as choosing my "absolutely must be saved" items. I hasten to add that I'm not in a high fire risk zone, but who knows what the future will bring.