August is Family History Month in New Zealand, this year's theme is
Family History is Cool ... pass it on!
How will you be celebrating Family History Month? I will be at a number of meetings in Auckland, Waihi, Christchurch, Wellington and the Kapiti Coast, oh and around and about on the net too.
Where will you be? Do check out our website event calendar for August to see what is happening near you.
Most of us, I am sure, would call our study of genealogy a pleasure, a hobby, or even an addiction. But like most things in life there can be a deeper purpose that we may have no inkling about when we started out.
Personally, I am on a journey, the channel tunnel in the Eurostar to be precise, but the real journey was the experience of acknowledgement of the sacrifice of the many in the war to end all wars. The reflections and feeling of being where so many were effected by war.
One reason I became interested in researching our family was the story that my mother was named Erica Rosemary in remembrance of Grandma's cousin Eric, who died at Messines Ridge. Today we were able to pay our respects to not only him but the large contingent of New Zealanders who lost their lives in June 1917 in the Flanders Fields.
The people of Belgium have a nightly Last Post vigil at the Menin Gate in Ieper (Ypres) the Auckland Pipe Band attended on one of the nights we were there, certainly added to our experience.
This nightly Last Post vigil certainly gives one a deeper meaning to Family History.
Lest We Forget
Most of us will have collected lots of info, and maybe you have spoken with all the older relatives you can find. Where to now? Hopefully sharing your stories with family, young and old as well as work mates and friends. Stories are the key to inspiration, planting seeds, which will one day grow into trees. Oh and why not write something for our magazine?
I wish you all much fun and entertainment, as well as special times discussing and sharing Family History, be it your stories or the adventures your research is taking you on. Have a Cool month everyone...
Michelle
30 July 2012
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