Never forget about the little things for they could almost certainly lead you to the bigger picture.
This definitely applied to me recently. A friend of mine (M) very graciously allowed me to work on his family tree and unfortunately, from the beginning, I hit a brick wall on his father’s side.
Most of my favourite sites for finding clues were giving me a big, fat zero so I decided that it was time to start asking some questions in the hope of obtaining even the smallest bit of information. This is where I got lucky. Though he didn’t know the names of his father’s parents, M remembered the name of his dad’s brother and also that he’d died young in Harvey. A quick search in the Western Australian section on Lorraine’s Burial Records website and there he was. He was listed as being buried in the Harvey Lawn Cemetery and along with his details, the names of his wife, son, father, mother and brother (M’s dad) were also listed.
That one tiny memory and that one tiny clue led me to find out the names of M’s grandparents. After standing in front of a brick wall I can quite comfortably say that there is no better feeling than when one gets the chance to break it down.
Please remember to never, ever forget the little things!
Lorraine’s Burial Records
This website contains many headstone transcriptions from rural locations in New South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia. If you know someone who lived in a country town but never found any specific details of the death, then you should definitely check out this website. Send an email to Lorraine and you may even find that a photo of the headstone is available. Lorraine’s Burial Records have helped me out many times and I’m sure it can do the same for you.
http://www.ozburials.com/index.htm
Finding Family 