Kaeli Haines

02/03/2026

I’ve been writing for a long time.

Not just captions. Not just business things.

But stories.

About the women in my family.
About finding my mother.
About what it means to inherit more than eye colour and bone structure.

For a while, I kept most of it to myself.
Or tucked it into small corners of this space.
But I wanted somewhere the writing could stand on its own.

So I’ve started publishing on Substack.

It’s where I’ll be sharing the longer pieces; creative nonfiction, family stories, the kind of writing that asks you to sit still for a minute.

If you’d like to read along, the link is in my bio.

I’d love to have you there 🤍

22/02/2026

Do you have Scottish ancestors? Discover how to trace their lives online with our research guide 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

22/02/2026

Jumped on this trend and realised my genealogy work has really become just a small part of me lately.

Between full-time mum, part-time uni student, book keeper and office manager for our building business family trees really have moved to the back of the priorities.

This is my last year of study and I will walk away from 2026 with a Bachelors in History and English to go along with my Diploma in family history.

I've really been loving the creative writing units Ive been doing as apart of the English subject and have realised I want to write Historical Fiction based on real family stories.

If you have a great family story that you would love to have published please share it with me below. I love that the inspiration behind my writing comes from our ancestors.

This year I'll be writing about the Scottish fishermen of my husbands family... I mentioned them in my last post.

Last year I wrote about the forgotten mother who was my 2 times great grandmother. This is a story I have so much more to add too... and hopefully one day this will be my first published piece.

One day soon I will share my writing with you guys... ive just got to work out how and where.

18/02/2026

From the edge of the North Sea…

In the grey light before dawn, the men of Yell pushed their boats into the swell. Salt stiffened their coats, and their wives stood on the shore, shawls tight around their shoulders, watching until the boats became shadows against the horizon.

Matthew Williamson was sixteen when he first sailed as crew, his hands blistered from hauling lines, his stomach rolling with the sea. Fishing wasn’t just work, it was survival. One bad season meant hunger. One storm meant widows.

Every family here had lost someone to the sea. Yet every morning, the boats still went out.

Because the sea fed them. And sometimes, it took them.
Years later, when Matthew left Scotland for Australia, he carried little with him. Just a Bible, a knife, and stories of waves crashing against Shetland cliffs. Stories his children would grow up hearing far from the cold North Sea.

And maybe… just maybe… one of those fishermen is in your family line too.

⚓ Do you have Scottish fishermen in your ancestry?
Drop the surname or region below — let’s see how many fishing families we can find in common. 👇

14/02/2026

Dating looked a little different before the apps. Do you have an ancestor who might have been seeking something similar, or who might have been the ideal respondent?

Inspired by historical personal ads.

18/08/2025

✨️ Every family holds a story—spoken, unspoken, remembered, forgotten. Which ones do you carry?

18/07/2025

I looks like it was better in the 70s! I would brave the city more if it was still like that.

What are your thought?

09/06/2025

Take a quiet moment—just you, a cup of tea, and the hush of history. 🖤

The State Library’s digital exhibit of Ned Kelly’s armour, boots, and legacy is hauntingly beautiful—so carefully curated it feels like stepping into a ghost story told in rust and leather.
Poetic, powerful, and profoundly still.

19/04/2025

DID YOU KNOW?

Aussie birth records often include parents' marriage place & date.

Two-for-one record alert!

Love it when a document overachieves. 😜

13/04/2025

Hi, I’m Kaeli – welcome back!

If you’ve followed me for a while, you know I help people discover their ancestors and dig up incredible family stories. Right now, I’m buried in a mix of uni readings, 19th-century records, and a never-ending to-do list.

I study History and English part-time (and research full-time—let’s be honest), all while working around two beautiful kids and co-running our construction business with my husband. Life is full, but so is my heart—and my passion for family history isn’t going anywhere.

I’m just popping back up to say hi, stay visible, and keep sharing the stories, tips, and behind-the-scenes of genealogy life. Stick around—there’s so much more to come.

11/01/2025

In case you didn’t know, the 1921 Census of England and Wales is now on Ancestry.com.au! It’s packed with details about nearly 38 million people from that time.

You can uncover cool insights about your ancestors, like their handwritten entries, who they lived with, where they were born, their ages, jobs, employers, and even their marital status. Fun fact: this was the first census to include the name and address of someone’s employer!

Interestingly, this census was taken in July during the summer holidays, so you might even find records of your ancestors on holiday or staying somewhere unusual.

Taken just after World War I, the 1921 Census shows how society was shifting. There were more widowed women, a big gender imbalance (1.7 million more women than men!), and it highlights how women were stepping into jobs traditionally done by men.

It’s also a goldmine for tracing family members who might have emigrated after 1921, especially with the Empire Settlement Act of 1922, which sparked migration to places like Australia and Canada.

15/12/2024

If you have been following the mass exhumation of nearly 2000 bodies from under The Hutchins School in Tasmania, they have just gone live with a list of names!

With many thanks to some very amazing acheologists and genealogists working throughout the year to peice together this amazing puzzle of information.

Also tonight on the ABC at 730pm they will be talking to my friend Brad Williams a Historical Archelologist and manager of this project, so tune in!

https://www.hutchins.tas.edu.au/former-queenborough-cemetery-exhumations/?fbclid=IwY2xjawHMOLtleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHecuYZaqiUCDCEZ0UtFyVRyWqNcL_ARjJ8osHjeSkLJTB6jVDgrl5o1MMg_aem_5QHKCywBvCAMCEH45dySVg

The Hutchins School uses cookies to collect anonymous aggregate statistics about the usage of our website. Find out more at our Privacy Policy or Google Privacy and Terms.