Over the past few years I have managed to research and create a rather large and detailed family tree. Today I managed to come across a treasure trove of information and my family tree now contains 364 individuals dating back as far as 1576. In the family tree there are 40 different surnames ranging from Bray to Vigars and 14 generations.

Quite a few people have asked me where I get all my information from. Well there is no one archive for all this stuff. I started out by asking family about what they knew and if they had any documents, luckily my Mum had an old family tree that helped me get started. There was also an old family bible that had all the births and deaths of family members written in it which was a great help. However I found that these sources usually hit a brickwall around the early 1800’s, so from there I had to look up old church baptism records etc over in England which helped me piece together my family tree. Finally the internet has a number of fantastic tools that can be extremely useful if you have detailed records of a generation or two as there are sites that use that information to match it to census records etc.

Now there was one problem I encountered and that was divorce and pre-marital “relations” which were frowned upon in previous generations. In these instances many families went to great lengths trying to cover up these things which resulted in records being falsified or destroyed. Luckily I only had a handful of cases of this but one result has been a portion where my family tree splits in two since I have no idea who was the ‘real father’.

The reason for this post was to talk about the software I used. To actually create my family tree I use a piece of software called GenoPro. This software is fantastic and is extremely easy to use and unlike other software available gives you great flexibility. It cost me $49 USD which isn’t particularly cheap but I purchased this software years ago and continue to receive upgrades to the latest version for free. They also give you a free trial so you can see if it suits your needs before you hand over your hard earned cash.

I have also used the website Ancestry.com.au which helped me find matches to information in my family tree. This site helped me find a family tree done by a distant relative which had some very useful information.

So pretty much I have been spending the day looking at records of people that died over 400 years ago, but admittedly I always get excited when I find the “next generation”.

My trusty Nokia 6288 died on Friday for no apparent reason. After spending the day trying to resurrect the thing I concluded that I would have to replace it. So yesterday I went to Big W and bought the cheapest ‘3′ phone I could find which turned out to be the Skype phone. I am actually pretty impressed with the Skype phone, although it is harder to use than my Nokia. The phone cost me just under $130 which I thought was pretty good, especially since its RRP is $149.

Other than my new phone nothing overly exciting has happened at all over the weekend, not that I have had much of a weekend with work and all. Although on Friday I did get to supervise the GAT at Haileybury which was alright, though I must say the only thing more boring than doing the GAT is watching people do the GAT.

Also Happy Birthday to Luke who turns 19 today.

Well on Saturday I turned 19, which means this is my last year of being a teenager. So anyway on Saturday I had to work which is no big problem as things only get going at around Midnight. So after work I headed to Crown Casino and had a pretty good time, although I walked out slightly poorer than when I walked in. Pat managed to win money which is no surprise and money simply seems to fly toward him like he’s some sort of money magnet. So that was my birthday, also thanks to all those people that sent me messages on facebook, on my mobile etc. I will certainly try and remember to return the favour.

Well you may have realised with the thread title that I have been working a lot lately. Pretty much I now am home two nights a week which means I have been surviving off take away (I have a pattern now, it goes McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Hungry Jacks, Subway, Fish and Chips), microwavable meals and whatever can be found in the freezer at 1am in the morning. I must admit I am enjoying work (especially the whole money thing), one of the reasons is because I work with some pretty cool people which is always a bonus.

Now about a month ago I posted on the new Pre Mixed Drink Tax Increase, well I’m here to say that I was wrong, I said that kids would simply move to bottles of spirits. Well they haven’t!!! Our sales of Pre Mixed drinks are almost exactly the same (in our store at least), with there being an increase in bottled spirits as well (ie. More alcohol is being sold). So congratulations Mr. Rudd, you did a fantastic job in this one.