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Maureen West

@genea-maureen.bsky.social
351 followers 397 following 47 posts

Genealogist, family historian, researcher, teacher - New Zealand, England, Ireland, USA & POWs in Italy and Germany. makingconnectionsgenealogy.blogspot…

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Reposted by Maureen West
Larry the Cat @number10cat.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
Lead us not away from temptation; but deliver us to evil. For thine is the spray tan, the dour and the hoary, Until the midterms. Amen.
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Larry the Cat @number10cat.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
The Fraud's Prayer: Our Father, who art in the White House, hallowed be thy combover; thy blingdom come; thy will be dumb; In Washington as you are in Florida. Give us this day our daily round of golf. And forgive us our insider trading, as we refuse to forgive those who investigate against us...
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Maureen West @genea-maureen.bsky.social · 06/03/2026
With all the discussions around LLMs and AI this article should be requires reading for genealogists. #RootsTech2026
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Who Do You Think You Are? Magazine @wdytyamagazine.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
"My 'methodology' was a series of errors": Gemini generates false records and fake screenshots of TNA website: www.whodoyouthinkyouaremaga...
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Associate Professor Siouxsie Wiles @siouxsiew.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
Exciting day today. Not only is it Halloween, but my crowdfunding campaign is also live! Please support me by making a pledge and/or sharing on all your socials and with your friends, family, and colleagues. Thanks to everyone offering rewards. You rock! www.pledgeme.co.nz/projects/852...
pledgeme.co.nz
Support Dr Siouxsie After She Supported Us! | PledgeMe
Support Dr Siouxsie to recover some of the money she spent fighting her legal case to protect employees experiencing online abuse
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Eddie Clark @dreddieclark.bsky.social · 28/09/2025
"AI is the asbestos we are shoveling into the walls of our society and our descendants will be digging it out for generations." pluralistic.net/2025/09/27/e...
pluralistic.net
Pluralistic: The real (economic) AI apocalypse is nigh (27 Sep 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 19/09/2025
David Letterman is right: you can't appease a tyrant.
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Maureen West @genea-maureen.bsky.social · 23/08/2025
This needs reposting a thousand times - read, digest, buy the book and apply the lessons. Well said disobedient thinker Welby Ings. So many memories of teaching reading in junior classes in NZ and London.
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Meryl Schumacker @waybackgen.bsky.social · 02/08/2025
A new, HUGE reason nobody who does genealogy should be putting ANYTHING CLOSE to sensitive information into LLMs. Holy liability, Batman. #genealogy
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Te Ara Paerangi Com - Research Advocacy Capability @te-ara-paerangi.community · 21/07/2025
#NZPOL
newsroom.co.nz
Don’t you know who Neil Quigley is?
Analysis: There are calls for the resignation of the Reserve Bank chair who championed transparency – but objects to some rather uncomfortable questions. Jonathan Milne investigates.
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Stephen Clarke @stephenclarkenz.bsky.social · 04/07/2025
Dr Hilary Stace Historian and Disability Advocate Extraordinaire 1954 – 2025 💔
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MJ Kelly @niambh.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
Statement from many cultural organisations protesting the cutting of history and production staff at Manatū Taonga, Ministry for Culture and Heritage. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou! @publicaddress.bsky.social @davidfarrier.bsky.social @tzemingdynasty.bsky.social @mattnippert.bsky.social
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Alex Brown 🇵🇸 (they/them) @bookjockeyalex.bsky.social · 16/06/2025
Relatedly, if you haven't been in an archives you have no idea just how much historical material is not online, not even a digital record of it. An LLM cannot research data it doesn't have. It can't even extrapolate where to find that material.
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Barbara at Projectkin @projectkin.bsky.social · 15/06/2025
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.’s New York Times cover featured Pope Leo VIX’s family lineage. It’s a fascinating romp into both #Genealogy #FamilyHistory and culture. I think I just may have an association. You just might too! www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
nytimes.com
We Traced Pope Leo XIV’s Ancestry Back 500 Years. Here’s What We Found. (Gift Article)
Noblemen, enslaved people, freedom fighters, slaveowners: what the complex family tree of the first American pontiff reveals.
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Paul Reed @sommecourt.bsky.social · 19/05/2025
One of the last Desert War #WW2 veterans has passed away: his unit later supported 5/Northants at Montegabione in June 1944, where my old pal John Dray fought. www.thetimes.com/article/31b2...
thetimes.com
Kenneth Batt obituary: El Alamein trooper
Territorial horseman who saw action in north Africa and became the oldest veteran of the Second World War by date of enlistment, dies aged 103
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AnnieBannie (She/Her🧶📚🌈) @madhmstr.bsky.social · 19/05/2025
Inspired by that conversation about parents not reading to children, I put my original posts from here, into a blog. With some editing. aotearoaworldofchildrensbooks.blogspot.com/2025/05/read...
aotearoaworldofchildrensbooks.blogspot.com
Reading with children: the 'problem' with parents
This piece is inspired by a couple of news articles shared around recently.  I’ve seen a Guardian article : Most Parents Don't Enjoy Reading...
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PERFECTLY NORMAL @nzpom.com · 07/05/2025
PSA Action planned this weekend following the gender pay equity debacle #nzpol
•	Auckland – Friday May 9th 1pm
Rally outside Minister for Workplace Relations, Brooke van Valdeen’s electorate office at 35 St Johns Road, St John.
•	Nelson – Saturday 10th May 11am
March meeting at Millers Acre carpark on Halifax St, heading down Trafalgar St to the Church Steps.
•	Rolleston, Canterbury - Friday May 9th 1pm
Rally outside Minister for Women, Nicola Grigg’s electorate office at Shop 34, Rolleston Square - 9 Masefield Drive.
•	Dunedin – Friday 9th May 1:30pm
Protest at The Exchange – cnr of Princes & Rattray Street.
•	Elsewhere – Keep an eye on PSA social channels for more events being added.
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The Aunties @theaunties.bsky.social · 07/05/2025
If everyone could please repost this and share it on ur social media please…. Until we figure out how to link it from our website main page… This is absolutely everything the women need right now - furniture etc… aunties.co.nz/pages/wants-...
aunties.co.nz
Wants and Needs
This is our current list of wants and needs (May 2025).  Please message Jackie at whaeapower@aunties.co.nz and she'll put you directly in contact with the woman who needs whatever you have.  We are ab...
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David Allen Lambert @dlgenealogist.bsky.social · 20/04/2025
My ancestor was on the other side of Lexington Green vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/on-the-other... #Rev250 #Genealogy @americanancestors.bsky.social
vitabrevis.americanancestors.org
On the Other Side of Lexington Green—April 19, 1775
David Lambert reflects on his ties to the Revolution—Patriots who marched on the Alarm, and a Loyalist ancestor who stood with the British at Lexington.
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alex 🎃 @faintingincoils.bsky.social · 15/04/2025
Social norms and rules are often less about moral standards and more about social control.
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Patricia Loofbourrow @pattyloof.bsky.social · 15/04/2025
When I first started #genealogy I found so many resources! Public trees, free websites. It was a dream come true. I wanted to help others - so I kept my tree public. Now, after many years, I advise keeping your tree private! Why? Here are four reasons: ourhiddendepths.substack.com/p/four-reaso...
ourhiddendepths.substack.com
Four reasons your tree should be private
Think about it a minute.
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Jennifer Mendelsohn @jmendelsohn.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
Can someone politely ask Avelo CEO Andrew Levy if he would have approved the flight to deport his own great-grandparents, who lived in Philadelphia for 25 years without ever becoming citizens? K thanks. #resistancegenealogy
Census document from 1930 with a pink circle showing the Levy family's status as aliens
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Margaret Dougherty 🇨🇦 @emdeeinto.bsky.social · 29/03/2025
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Sean Vanderfluit @deckofancestors.bsky.social · 30/03/2025
"The right to remember the past: Opening Chinese immigration records in Canada’s national archives" #FamilyHistory #genealogy activehistory.ca/blog/2025/03...
activehistory.ca
The right to remember the past: Opening Chinese immigration records in Canada’s national archives
“C.I.30 certificate of Dere Mee Gim.” The Paper Trail collection, UBC Library Rare Books and Special Collections, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. Courtesy of the Dar Woon Family.…
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IrelandXO @irelandreachingout.bsky.social · 28/03/2025
In this article Eugene Dunphy tells how an American who settled in Sligo penned a romantic ballad about Breifne. Link in bio to read more! dashboard.irelandxo.com/ireland/cava...
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Kristen Alexander @kristenauthor.bsky.social · 27/03/2025
Tomorrow is release day! My library obtained the ebook a bit earlier so I downloaded my chapter, ‘"Strangers at home" Stalag Luft III’s Kriegies Return'. The book is hideously expensive so I know no one will buy it. If you would like to read my chapter, let me know and I will email it through.
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Maria @lykos1.bsky.social · 25/03/2025
www.theundergroundmap.com/index.html
theundergroundmap.com
The Underground Map
The Underground Map is creating street histories for the areas of London and surrounding counties lying within the M25.
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P. Y. Mund @pymundgenealogy.com · 24/03/2025
A cautionary tale of ‘AI’: I was helping a friend with his #genealogy, finally having found the 1875 marriage record of a pair of ancestors of his. As usual for a marriage record from Congress Poland in the 1870s, it is almost entirely in Russian, in rather difficult cursive Cyrillic. 1/4
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beck eleven @beckeleven.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
Here a wee thread for Ōtautahi people or people who grew up here before the quakes. It’s from an exhibition of miniature buildings by an artist called Ghostcat and it was held in the quakestruck Christ Church Cathedral and I was literally moved to tears. This is the old police kiosk in the Square.
A miniature police kiosk.
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Lucy Delap @lucydelap.bsky.social · 17/03/2025
Do you live near a women's suffrage memorial? Help researchers at Aix-Marseille uni to map it alongside hundreds of others. Celebrate and value global histories of democracy and feminist activism - a powerful message given ebbing support in the twenty-first century framacarte.org/fr/map/sites...
framacarte.org
Sites of Suffrage Memory: a HerStory Maps project
This map seeks to **geolocate the memorials to the Women's Suffrage Movement ** all over the world. --- It is a small contribution to the decades-long effort by activists and scholars to raise publi...
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History Rage Podcast @historyrage.bsky.social · 13/03/2025
🚨 THIS WEEK🚨 “LMF is not a medical condition." @danellin.bsky.social dives into the RAF’s chilling WWII policies and why "Lack of Moral Fibre" wasn’t about health—it was about control. Unravel the misconceptions. 🚀💥 #WWIIHistory #RAF Listen now 🎧 pod.fo/e/2b6aef #History #Podcast #WWII
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Clare Kirk @digupyourancestors.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
Apparently today is Pride in Middle Name Day! Sadly mine is the very boring JANE. 😕 If you’d like some ideas about where your English ancestor’s unusual middle name might have come from please check out my blog: *Five reasons why ancestors used surnames as middle names*
digupyourancestors.com
Five reasons why ancestors used surnames as middle names
Why did our ancestors sometimes give their children surnames as middle names? Here are five reasons I’ve found in my family tree.
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Jennifer Mendelsohn @jmendelsohn.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
I was really moved by @marcelias.bsky.social's Open Letter to Elon Musk. In more ways than one. So I wrote one of my own. jenmen.substack.com/p/my-open-le...
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Photogenealogy @photogenealogy.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
It’s arrived! Graham Bandy’s new book. Really looking forward to reading this. @penandswordbooks.bsky.social
Nursing on the frontline. A WW2 diary from North Africa & Italy.
The book cover shows military personnel standing in front of a line of ambulances. In the background are a line of planes.
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𓆉 A Study of Resistance 𓆉 @colourmefiji.bsky.social · 22/02/2025
Update! So so special! Look at this guy 🥹 Amazing work by local #SouthAuckland artists, Janine & Charles Williams. Looking 274 / 685 proud 😍 #Ōtara274 #685totheworld #EfesoCollins #ManukauCity
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Philip N Cohen @philipncohen.com · 08/02/2025
Also tonight: Trump fired National Archivist Colleen Shogan. This is a position that can do real, irreversible damage in authoritarian hands.
text from her announcing she was fired
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Maureen West @genea-maureen.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
A thoughtful and nuanced reflection on #family and #history. Thank you @maxrashbrooke.bsky.social. thespinoff.co.nz/atea/04-02-2... #FamilyHistory #Genealogy #NewZealand
thespinoff.co.nz
My ancestors were colonisers
A stunning essay from Max Rashbrooke examining his ancestors' role in the shaping of Aotearoa, and what that means for his own role in its future.
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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 02/02/2025
To answer the number one comment here, the Internet Archive is OF COURSE mirrored and backed up in numerous places, including outside the USA, so even if jack-booted troopers were to kick in its San Francisco door it could be relaunched somewhere else.
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Society for One-Place Studies @oneplacestudies.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
The National Archives website also has a useful Research Guide for the Valuation Office Survey: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-yo... #OnePlaceWednesday
nationalarchives.gov.uk
Land use, value and ownership: Valuation Office Survey 1910-1915 - The National Archives
1. Why use this guide? If you want to know something about the value, use, extent or ownership of a property or piece of land in England or Wales around the beginning of the 20th century, this guide s...
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Maureen West @genea-maureen.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
Wow, thank you @lincstomypast.bsky.social for sending me to this set of records. Found 2 of my GGFs on their farms in NTH, and now going down a big rabbit hole.
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Great Fen @greatfen.org.uk · 29/01/2025
🧐What was life like in the Great Fen area 1900-1950? That’s what the Great Fen Heritage Group would like to discover! And they'd particularly like to hear from the ladies of the Fens who lived/worked around here. Can you help? Happy to be interviewed? www.greatfen.org.uk/great-fen-he...
Womens Land Amy girls. 1940's (credit Sue Wallis). Black and white photo. Group of 9 women dressed in boots, trousers, sweaters and shirts. 
Gardening staff at Conington Castle. Aug 1916. (Credit Reg. Hubard). Black and white image. A line of women with a boy and man with gardening tools like hoes, push mowers and baskets. They wear hats. The women wear overtunics tied at the waist, the males wear shirts and waistcoats. Nancy Mason aged 16, working at Dr Garde Brown's at Warboys. (credit Nancy Mason.) Black and white image. Nancy stands in a garden wearin a dark dress with white collar, cuffs and apron and hat. 
Farmworkers in Holme. Black and white photo of two women working in a field. One carries a large 10 prong pitchfork. they wear headscarves.
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Jennifer Mendelsohn @jmendelsohn.bsky.social · 08/01/2025
"We can’t promise a spectacular result for everyone,” Mendelsohn said, “but there is always something to be learned.” Read more about our work in the latest Hadassah magazine.
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Russ Jones @russincheshire.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
Just for fun, let me tell you about somebody you've probably never heard of, but who was once one of the most famous people in England, a national hero, a disgraced fraudster, and an astonishingly accomplished piratical maniac. He led quite a life. (1/53)
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Violet Fox 🦊 @violetbfox.bsky.social · 18/11/2024
📣 New zine!! "A Librarian Against AI; or, I Think AI Should Leave" is a 40-page zine about why we should think twice about using & supporting generative AI. violetbfox.info/against-ai/ #noAI #zines
Cover of the zine "A Librarian Against AI; or, I Think AI Should Leave", featuring a design of bold color blocks inspired by the opening titles of the TV show "I Think You Should Leave"
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Reclaim The Records @reclaimtherecords.org · 25/12/2024
~*~ FREE FILES FOR FESTIVUS! ~*~ We can finally announce that we sued the VA and WE WON! And it's probably the largest public and free data set of deceased American veterans! And now it's online and free and downloadable and searchable AND FOIA-ABLE!!! mailchi.mp/reclaimthere...
mailchi.mp
Reclaim The Records
We’re Reclaim The Records, a new not-for-profit activist group of genealogists, historians, researchers, and open government advocates. We identify important genealogical records sets that ought to be...
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Kenneth Marks @marksology.bsky.social · 18/12/2024
#genealogy
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Jan Murphy @packrat74.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
I don't remember now which UK-based presenter confidently told the audience the USA didn't have War Diaries. Today's #genealogy tip: know what the Agency called their own records because it may not be listed under the name you expect.
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Meryl Schumacker @waybackgen.bsky.social · 08/12/2024
My top #genealogy gift-giving tip this holiday season: PLEASE DO NOT GIVE DNA TESTS AS PRESENTS. Here's why. 🧵
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