About Me

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  1. Email: My email address is in the sidebar. If I you don't receive a response, your Internet Service Provider may have rejected my reply. Avoid using Hotmail or Yahoo! Contact me again from an alternative email address, or write a letter to my postal address. Allow several weeks for a reply, as I may not have Internet access if I am travelling.

  2. Leave a comment: Use the comment form below to leave a message (and tick the 'Notify me' box).

  3. Post: Judy Webster, PO Box 5043, Algester QLD 4115, Australia.

  4. Web site: www.judywebster.com.au

  5. Social media: Family and close personal friends can stay in touch with me via my Facebook personal profile. I share family history tips on my genealogy page on Facebook.

About Me

I grew up on my parents' 25,000 acre sheep and cattle grazing property south of Cunnamulla (about 600 miles west of Brisbane). The property was 45 miles from the nearest town, so I did years 1-7 of school by correspondence, then went away to boarding school. Eventually my parents moved to a 32-acre block in a rural area about an hour's drive west of Brisbane. I have two sisters.

For 34 years I worked as a medical scientist in a hospital's pathology unit (in the Haematology and Blood Transfusion sections). In the 1980s I switched from full-time to part-time hospital work and established my own part-time business as a professional genealogist.

I have been interested in family history since the 1970s. Most of my personal research involves England, Scotland and Australia (especially Yorkshire, London, Somerset, Argyllshire, Queensland, NSW and Victoria), but I have recently discovered an Irish ancestor. On my mother's side I have German and Prussian forebears.

Apart from family history, my interests include reading, travel, gardening, paper-making, and collecting postcards.

My goal for the future is to spend more time researching and writing about my own family. That's why I created this site, Jottings Journeys and Genealogy!

4 comments:

  1. Judy, your life story touches a chord with myself and probably many others. I too grew up in rural Queensland and after an interesting career in education now live on the family property on the Darling Downs. My unfolding family history has given me a new and more profound appreciation of history, in the context of my forebears participation in and contribution to it. We too are players in our own place and time in history and as I continue the journey I see how important it is to document it all for my grandchildren. I also share your interest in papermaking. My desire to make good paper led me to Japan and ultimately to teaching Japanese. I also have a fascinating collection of postcards, (several shoeboxes full) purchased at auction in the 1980's, which belonged to a family living in what is now the Logan district of Brisbane, which were written between family members in the early 1900's. What to do with them?? I would give them to the Beenleigh Historical Society if I thought they would be going to a good home.
    I also love travel and photography...some of my pics are on Flikr "weebilongere". I look forward to following your blog,and thank you for your passion in all that you do. Jean

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    1. Jean, thanks for your interesting comment. It's great that you rescued those postcards. May I suggest that you scan them (or take digital photos) and share them via a blog (an example is 'Postcards from Mary'). Include names/places in your descriptive text and keyword tags (so that people can find them in Google searches). Alternatively you could perhaps make them public via Flickr. Either way, I would be happy to give your project some publicity if you email me the Internet link (please use the address on my main Web site).

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  2. Hello Judy I'm your 5th cousin. It's going to be hard to tell exactly how we connect I do know their are several possibilities and cousins several times over for most of my family they remarried into each other several times being first settlers of the New England colonies. I assume it would be through my 10th great grandparents Mathew Webster Birth:circa August 12, 1560 Cossington, Leicestershire, England and his wife Elizabeth Webster(Ashton) April 17, 1566 Cossington, Leicestershire, England http://www.geni.com/path/Efrain-Ramirez-Jr+is+related+to+Matthew-Webster?from=6000000033725323705&to=6000000002931054603 .This is my family line http://www.geni.com/path/Efrain-Ramirez-Jr+is+related+to+Isaac-Sheldon?from=6000000033725323705&to=349269734350010528 .I'm also on Ancestry, Family Tree DNA kit# B23658 and Gedmatch # A964252. I'm also a registered with Sheldon Family Association #125479. Best Regards Efrain

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    1. Hello Efrain. The 'FamilyFinder' match will be via someone more recent. I suggest that you research all the siblings of your ancestors who were alive in the 1700s (especially any who were in England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany or Poland), and then trace all the descendants of those siblings. I'm currently working on side branches of my tree too. I'll email you at the address shown in FamilyTreeDNA. - Regards, Judy

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