A Wow moment - can it get any better?
In April 2014 I wrote a post titled "Henry Barningham and Sarah Glew". At the end of the post I included an excerpt from a page of a book that I had photocopied somewhere about 1985 - 1987 when I visited the WA State Library on a expedition to uncover information about my mothers ancestors.
When I first started looking for information my helper (mum) and I knew nothing about genealogy or research for that matter, but what we didn't know we made up for in enthusiasm. We wrote reams and reams of information (but never recorded down where we took the information from). Thankfully I have now learnt that this is the first thing you write down.
In October 2015 I received a comment from a long distant relative telling me that they couldn't find the book I had quoted. Could I help?
I searched in my filing cabinet and found the long ago photocopied pages and to my dismay discovered that I had in fact not written down the book title!!!
I spent a little time on the internet one evening and then asked my daughter (a librarian) to order a book in for me. It arrived from the state library but to my dismay didn't have any of the photocopied pages in it. Some suggestions from her colleagues decided me that my best course of action was to plan a trip to the WA State library.
Yesterday, my daughter and I, with photocopied pages in hand, visited the state library and discovered that not only did they have the 1977 reprinted copies of the book, but I could also request the 1888 book to look at in a special reading room.
So while waiting for the rare book to be requested - only a 30 minute wait, my daughter and I browsed through the 1977 reprint and this time I not only wrote down the book title, author details etc but we took photos of the book as well.
My WOW moment was sitting down, with white gloves on, carefully looking through a book that was published nearly 130 years ago. You have to understand my facination with history and my love of books - all combined in one moment.
And guess what - it only got better. While sitting there waiting for the book to be bought up to the reading room, my daughter checked her emails and found that she had been accepted for university!!! Does life get any better??
When I first started looking for information my helper (mum) and I knew nothing about genealogy or research for that matter, but what we didn't know we made up for in enthusiasm. We wrote reams and reams of information (but never recorded down where we took the information from). Thankfully I have now learnt that this is the first thing you write down.
In October 2015 I received a comment from a long distant relative telling me that they couldn't find the book I had quoted. Could I help?
I searched in my filing cabinet and found the long ago photocopied pages and to my dismay discovered that I had in fact not written down the book title!!!
I spent a little time on the internet one evening and then asked my daughter (a librarian) to order a book in for me. It arrived from the state library but to my dismay didn't have any of the photocopied pages in it. Some suggestions from her colleagues decided me that my best course of action was to plan a trip to the WA State library.
Yesterday, my daughter and I, with photocopied pages in hand, visited the state library and discovered that not only did they have the 1977 reprinted copies of the book, but I could also request the 1888 book to look at in a special reading room.
So while waiting for the rare book to be requested - only a 30 minute wait, my daughter and I browsed through the 1977 reprint and this time I not only wrote down the book title, author details etc but we took photos of the book as well.
My WOW moment was sitting down, with white gloves on, carefully looking through a book that was published nearly 130 years ago. You have to understand my facination with history and my love of books - all combined in one moment.
And guess what - it only got better. While sitting there waiting for the book to be bought up to the reading room, my daughter checked her emails and found that she had been accepted for university!!! Does life get any better??
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