gathering dust

This time of my paternal ancestry. I threw the kit at Dad and told him to spit. So from Ancestry: No surprises there; well actually I was expecting it to be a little more homogeneous because his first cousin's looks like this: The German on Dad's maternal side makes all the difference it seems. What did surprise me is how similar mine and Dad's FTDNA maps are. His: Mine: The southern European that I assumed must all be from my maternal side; seems to reflect what I am guessing may be from Dad's maternal as well. I think I may have to throw my other half's science brain at the problem because numerical data analysis is not my strong suit.  

I have mentioned before that the Sinclair branch of my family tree has links to a certain iconic Australian biscuit maker , but it seems that same branch also has links to another iconic Australian . Samuel Robert Sinclair b.1882 d. 1964 - the (half) nephew of Monica Sinclair, the first wife of William Arnott - a Blacksmith at Bermagui was the inspiration for this logo Well, at least according to a footnote in this book . So there you go, Arnotts & Tooheys. Biscuits & Beer.

On the train home from work tonight I checked my email and was happy to see that the NAA had finally completed digitisation of the Naturalisation papers I requested. When I got in I immediately fed the cat (I value my life too much to not feed her straight away) and then grabbed my laptop.  Happy became grinning stupidly. Then ringing my mother at quarter to nine at night to inform her that grandpa doesn't really look like her grandpa. Which she knew. But anyway. A nice chat later I've hung up and looked at my grandpa (her dad's) papers.  Yep. Back on the phone. "Grandpa's mum's name is Francesca Josephina and she was Maltese"  Sometimes, it is the little things that make you ridiculously happy. Like working out your Mum was kind of named for her grandmother :)

I will admit that everything fell to the wayside last year when I found myself working full time with a 3hr round trip daily commute. I love my job but doesn't leave much time for anything other than sleep and housework on the weekends. So with a week or so off at the end of December/beginning of January I was looking forward to settling in and getting some prime genealogy and crafting time in. If I have a limited number of days to devote to research I really want the most bang for my buck. Now this is Shetland . Current population: 25,000ish. Historic population: about the same. The biggest island; that's Mainland . The one directly above it; that's Yell . Current population: 800ish. Historic population: 1000 in a good year.  Yep; having had generations of ancestors born and raised in Yell - or more specifically North Yell - is like shooting fish in a barrel. 2 days, 240 scotlandspeople credits and not a single miss.  Ok. I admit I didn't go into the