No such thing as a "dead end"

The great thing about doing your family history is that it really never ends. You never get to the final page of it, to the point when you have no more leads whatsoever to follow or no other information to find to add colour to the story.

Like a computer game or a novel with no ending.

You think you have a dead end, with no hope of gaining any more information, and then some helpful stuff just appears.

And so it happened last week.

Out of the blue, a work colleague mentioned that he had seen my family history site. Great, I thought - welcoming his feedback on it.

Then he said that he also had descendants from China, and in fact he could speak Cantonese. And he knows loads about the migration of Cantonese people to countries such as Australia.

So what I thought was a dead end when it came to my grandad Lumtin's parents has now become live again. Through my colleague, I can perhaps paint a portrait of how these people might have come to Australia and what they probably did in China before arriving.

Excellent - thanks Andy, I just need to find time to sit down with you and chat more about it!