Hi everyone!
It's time to get to know another one of our wonderful WikiTreers. This week's member is Sue Wyatt.
Sue became a Wiki Genealogist in May 2021. She is active in our Disasters Project and a Team Leader in our Australia Project.
When and how did you get interested in family history?
As a young child, my parents would always tell stories about photos they showed my younger brother and I. Then in school, we had to do a project about family history which led to more information being shared especially at grandparent and great grandparent level. From that time on I was intrigued with all the people in the photo albums and asking how they were related to me.
But I did a lot of research at the Tasmanian archives in the 1980’s when nothing had been digitised and you got to use the original documents in some cases. Otherwise it was looking at microfilm or microfiche.
What are some of your interests outside of genealogy?
Travelling and blogging are my other interests but in some aspects they also relate to genealogy. I love history of any sort and would rather visit historical monuments and national parks rather than go shopping.
I have been blogging for over 15 years, first with students at school but also with a small Tasmanian Devil toy that accompanies me on my travels around Australia and when I journeyed further afield to educational computing conferences in the USA.
When I retired from teaching, I thought gardening might be interesting but I tend to plant vegetables and fruits then leave them to survive on their own.
What is your genealogical research focus?
I began just filling in names, dates and places on the family group sheets and pedigree charts but since doing a Diploma in Family History at University of Tasmania in 2014, my focus now includes the social aspects of the lives of my ancestors. I write biographies of my direct ancestors on my blog and include as much as possible about their lives and how they interacted within their neighbourhood and the world around them. I have completed 16 so far and all are on the profiles at WikiTree.
Are you interested in certain surnames or locations?
Since most of my direct ancestors came from England, Scotland and Ireland to Tasmania as either free settlers or convicts, I tend to research a lot in Tasmania or Van Diemen’s Land as it was previously known. We are lucky in Tasmania that most of our records have been digitised and are free to download through Libraries Tasmania website.
Surnames I am most interested in now are Chandler, Spry Shute and Bryant in England and Jackson in Ireland. I haven’t started researching the Scottish convicts yet. My father was brought up by a foster mother so I have researched and written biographies about her and her son as well.
Do you have a favourite ancestor brick wall breakthrough story?
My father’s ancestors have been my brick walls. Firstly his father, who after collaboration with DNA matches, we found had married 4 times. Three of them were bigamous marriages and he had added an extra surname just to make it difficult to find out more about him and his parents. But DNA helped solve this brickwall and I have now researched that side of the family back to Devon in the 1700s.
(interview continues in comments)
