England and Ireland 2024

 Planning We have just over three weeks to go until we fly out.  June and I are meeting for lunch on Friday to review our plans.  She is a meticulous planner, and has some excellent questions about phone coverage and VPNs that I don't know the answer to.  I'd assumed my airalo eSIM would provide phone calls as well as data, but it doesn't, so we will need to communicate via WhatsApp and email.  So how do we call our B&B hosts if we're running late? I've just discovered an app called Timeshifter that helps manage jet lag on long flights.  It prescribes, for a few days before we fly out and during the flight, when to expose yourself to bright light and when to avoid bright light; and when to nap and when to sleep.  I'm going to try it out.  I've added a sleep mask to the packing list. https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/travel/roam/2024/03/15/jet-lag-app-timeshifter Society of Australian Genealogists ran a webinar on family history touring which had...

 This morning I received an email from Elwyn, who is an Ireland Reaching Out volunteer.  We've arranged that the three of us (Elwyn, June and I) will meet for lunch at the Fullerton Arms in Ballintoy on 18th April, and then spend the afternoon together.   Elwyn had excellent advice on research: You are so very lucky to have such a well known family. Most Irish  research involves weavers and small farmers whose records fizzle out around 1800. In your case the Fullarton family were wealthy Scots and they left a significant paper trail.  As an example, PRONI has a lease for John Fullerton, Gentleman, of Ballynaris dated 5 th July 1680, for the lease of Ballynaris and Ballyneeese, in the parish of Billy. Ref D/2977/3A/3/1/34. And there will be many more leases after that in PRONI and the Registry of Deeds. So you have documentary evidence of Fullertons in the Ballintoy area from the mid 1600s. Not many folk can find that sort of record in Ireland.  Geor...

 My ancestors emigrated to the colony of New South Wales between 1788 and 1855.  They came as convicts, assisted immigrants and free immigrants; and they came from southern England and Ireland. My friend June and I were catching up over lunch, and I said 'I'd love to go back and visit the places my ancestors came from'.  She said 'I'll come with you'.  And that's how our adventure started.  We are flying out on 9th April, and coming home on 30 April.  Already, 21 days doesn't feel like enough time to fit everything in. I made a list (on Google sheets) of the ancestors who immigrated, when they came, and where   they came from, and that became the basis for our itinerary.  It also reminded me of how much I don't know and still need to research. I put the places onto a map I created in Google Maps, so we could visualise where we wanted to go.  That gave us the regions that we wanted to visit.  I added in some (but not many) tourist a...