​Happy New Year from all of us at Applecross HQ.

To our newest subscribers, welcome – and to those who have been here a while, welcome back!​

It’s been an eclectic sort of a year so far. My search history is certainly pretty diverse :-

Suitable name for a doctor of welsh origin in 1901 in New Zealand
Details of the royal visit to Dunedin in June 1901
Details of New Zealand’s involvement in the Boer War of 1900-1902
A maori prayer for the dead
Ladies’ hats of the early 20th century
Numbers 1 to 10 in Danish
How telegraph worked in rural New Zealand in 1901

All of the above will feature somehow in the first book of the new series which is now called ‘Strong Roots, New Shoots‘ and continues the story of Applecross as we enter the 20th century.

Book 1 has the working title ‘Hope and Expectation’ and will be available in mid 2025.

Other searches are more varied – I have fallen down these rabbit holes :-

The history of Wolff’s Road suspension bridge
Chicken feather colour genetics
The best dog breed for people who go running (not for me!!!)
How the word ‘gay’ came to have its current definition over time
How the 1931 UK census records came to be lost
What to cook if you only have eggs and cheese in the fridge (pretty sad, that one – too busy googling to go shopping!)
How the ‘internal monologue’ works, or doesn’t work for some people
How to tell if bees are going to swarm
Gentle walks in the Waimakariri District
How to connect MBI to a PC (also not for me – what’s MBI?!)

As you can see, my life is a positive pot-pourri these days, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love finding stuff out, squirrelling it away in a corner of my brain. One day, somehow, some of this will pop out and be useful again.

ANCESTORS

I’m glad our summer has been such rubbish so far. Not, of course, for the poor folk trying to have a family holiday in a tent when all it does is pour down with rain, but for me it gives the perfect excuse for all the above topics, plus writing the first three chapters of the next book and researching some family history. The 1921 UK census data is now available to search – what fun it has been to find more recent ancestors. I have already solved a few mysteries, although on balance I probably have more questions to answer as a result of searching. According to my records I have 2452 people in my family tree who were alive in 1921 – could take me a while to find them all. I already know that my Swiss grandfather was living in London with his brother – I didn’t know his brother came to England too – and that he was a chef in a hotel in London and my grandmother was a waitress in the hotel next door. They must have known each other in 1921 as they married in 1922, my father was born in 1924 and the rest, as they say, is history!
Edmond Eugene Giorgis and Emily May Berry wedding

Here’s the wedding, 1922 St Pancras, London.

At the back l to r, my great great aunt Sophia Johnson, great uncle George Giorgis (Swiss) and great grandfather Thomas Bolitho Berry (master decorator).

At the front l to r, great uncle Ernest, great aunt Hilda, grandfather Edmond Giorgis, grandmother Emily May Berry, great aunt Bessie and great uncle Percy.

READING MATTERS

What are you reading this year so far? 

I went for escapism with my sister’s Christmas gift – the first three books in ‘Her Majesty the Queen Investigates’ series by S J Bennett. Unlikely, I know, that her late majesty would be solving murders, but surprisingly entertaining. 

My current audiobook is another UK based tale, The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey, recommended to me by my wonderful local bookshop Emma’s of Oxford and purchased through Libro.fm which provides that bookshop with a small share of the purchase cost. It’s 1979 in Yorkshire, Margaret Thatcher is PM, the miners are considering striking, the Yorkshire Ripper is top of the news every day. I am so enjoying the voice of Joanne Froggatt (of Downton Abbey fame) narrating, as well as the familiar day to day lives of the 70s and 80s. I was there!!!

Some of these look good too – Free Historical Fiction for January 2025​

Until next time

Don’t forget that all of the Applecross Saga books are available from your usual outlets as ebooks and paperbacks.The ebook version of Book 1, ‘The Wideawake Hat’ is free to download. The audiobook of ‘The Wideawake Hat’, narrated by Su Melville, is also available from all the usual outlets and free to listen on YouTube. 

Checkout my website for all the details – www.amandagiorgis.com​

Authors love to hear from their readers – please do consider leaving a review wherever you like to do so – and I really do enjoy receiving emails from my readers, so feel free to reply to this newsletter or engage on Facebook or Instagram. More details at https://linktr.ee/amandagiorgis​

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