The James Moran (Trove Tuesday)

Last week, I discovered my 4x Great Grandfather Angus Mackay's immigration record. He arrived in Port Jackson (Sydney), on the 11th of February, 1839. With him was his wife Christina, three children from his first marriage, and four children from his current marriage. The ship they traveled on was the James Moran. It departed Lochenvar, Scotland on October 22nd and came via the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa.

I decided to search Trove to see if I could find anything interesting about the ship. To narrow down the process, I selected 1839 as the year. This would hopefully rule out articles about individuals with the same name.

I stumbled upon the following article published in The Colonist on the 16th of February, 1839. In preparation for the Trove outage, I made sure to save the article and citation.

Source: THE JAMES MORAN. (1839, February 16). The Colonist (Sydney, NSW : 1835 - 1840), p. 3.
Retrieved February 22, 2016, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article31722569

It is good to know that Angus and his family hopefully had a positive experience on board. 

Golden Anniversary - Donald & Jane Mackay

On the 11th of June, 1851, my Great Great Great Grandparents Donald Mackay (1829 - 1912) and Jane Gilliban Walker (1834 - 1911) were married in the town of Dungog, New South Wales. The following article describes how they celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary in Bowraville on the 11th of June, 1901.

50th Wedding Anniversary of Donald & Jane Mackay
[Source: BOWRA NEWS. (1901, June 14). The Raleigh Sun (Bellingen, NSW : 1898 - 1918), p. 2.
Retrieved February 10, 2016, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article127665346]

Hopefully you just read the article and noticed at the end it said a photograph was taken of the whole group. Yes, this is that photo! Donald and Jane (she is wearing a veil) are seated in front of the very tall man standing slightly left of center.

The clan at Donald and Jane's 50th Wedding Anniversary
[Source: Family Collection]

Time for a close up...

Official Portrait of Donald and Jane Mackay at their 50th Wedding Anniversary
[Source: Family Collection]

It sounds like it was a grand event!

#GenealogySelfie Day!

In the lead up to RootsTech this week (I wish I was going again), Geneabloggers and Conference Keeper have proclaimed February 1st as #GenealogySelfie Day.

The official announcement on the Geneabloggers website states -

"Peruse your list of 'genealogy' friends and you’ll most likely find that many use a photo of an ancestor, or a baby picture, as their profile pic. It adds quite the variety to your friends list, but you wouldn’t know them if you ran into them in the vendor hall at a conference, or sat next to them at a workshop. And with RootsTech just around the corner, there’s an opportunity to possibly run into thousands of them in person!

ConferenceKeeper and Geneabloggers are delighted to offer a solution. They are officially proclaiming February 1st as #GenealogySelfie Day – a day for social folks who love genealogy to snap a picture of themselves and share it on Facebook and/or Twitter with the hashtag #GenealogySelfie. It will be fun to put faces to names, and increase the chances of recognizing one another at RootsTech and other upcoming events and conferences." 

As I am writing this, it is just after 9pm on the 1st. Here is my #GenealogySelfie. Actually, make that #GenealogySelfies!

#GenealogySelfie

 More like #SillyGenealogySelfie

I will be sharing my genealogy selfie on my social media accounts. If you feel like snapping a selfie, don't forget to use the hashtag #GenealogySelfie. If you are not feeling creative, don't worry! A simple selfie is a-okay!

But first, let me take a selfie!