CAROL BAXTER

I started tracing my family history when I was a high school student. Right from the beginning, I hoped to gain employment in the genealogy industry. To my surprise, I ended up turning my hobby into eight different "career" pathways:

• Project officer for genealogical publishing company 
• Editor of transcriptions of Australian colonial records
• Genealogy lecturer 
• Author of six "popular history books" 
• Author of many genealogy "how to" publications
• Founder of Writing Fabulous Family Histories online genealogy & writing courses
• Cruise ship "special interest" speaker

As Project Officer for the Australian Biographical and Genealogical Record, and as General Editor of its later incarnation, the Biographical Database of Australia, I edited many volumes of Australian colonial record transcriptions.

For my services to Australian genealogy and history, I was made a Fellow of the Society of Australian Genealogists in 2002 and an adjunct lecturer at the University of New England (NSW) in 2011. 

Having gained so much knowledge about genealogy in general and Australian research in particular, I have written many genealogy "how to" publications, including Help! How can I separate fact from fiction?

I have taught researching and writing skills at many genealogy conferences in Australia and abroad. These include four Unlock the Past cruise ship conferences and more than a dozen Legacy Family Tree Webinars.

I have also taught writing skills to writing groups, including Master's Degree students at Sydney University who were enrolled in a Creative Nonfiction degree. 

In 2021, I started the business Writing Fabulous Family Histories, which teaches genealogists how to write interesting family histories.