Genealogy notes 24-26 August 2011 Non Stop Genealogy

Well I finally got to cross off a few things off my 'to do' list. I wrote my blog on Writing Family History and although it is a bit longer than I originally intended, it covers most of the points I made in my presentation on writing resource guides.

I also made substantial progress on catching up with my emails but there are still a lot of blogs in my Google Reader that I need to at least take a peek at. So many good genealogy bloggers out there! If your new to this take a look at the Unlock the Past list of genealogy blogs for Australia and New Zealand and if you want overseas try Geneabloggers for a mind blowing list of blogs from just about everywhere.

While on the subject of blogs, My Heritage have asked me to do a guest blog on Australian news so that took a bit of time yesterday and should appear on Friday 26 August. I should point out that there is no payment involved, just the opportunity to reach a different audience and to share my knowledge with others.

I have found family relatives through My Heritage as well as Genes Reunited and Ancestry. Advertising family lines online can be a good way to pick up near relatives as well as more distant lines so I have a few generations of my families on each of the three sites. It does cost to be on so many sites but I would have missed linking up with some families if I hadn't. I have opted for the free or least expensive options which still let me link up with others.

I have also been catching up with some of the enewsletters I receive. I always like the Professional Historians Association (PHA) (Qld Branch) enews as I catch up with news of my Queensland friends. When I arrived home earlier this week, in my snail mail there was a copy of Circa, which is the professional journal published by the PHA's (Vic Branch). There are some great articles in that so I am looking forward to curling up and reading it once I have some of the other things out of the way. For information on Professional Historians Associations in other States see the Australian Council of Professional Historians Associations.

qsa-bulletin is enews from the Queensland State Archives and it is great for finding out what new records are available, what has been digitised or indexed, what seminars are on and so on. State Records NSW and Public Record Office Victoria (PROV) also have enewsletters which I receive as my families tended to move around quite a bit.

Today I will be spending time preparing for the Victorian Association of Family History Organisations (VAFHO) AGM and seminar tomorrow at PROV - I am a committee member and have been asked to stand again for the coming year. The two speakers following the AGM are Charlie Farrugia from PROV and Ada Ackerley who is well known for her many indexes of PROV records so both talks should be really good.

I also have to get ready for the Maryborough Family History Group Fair on Sunday as I am giving a talk on Archives You Should Know But Don't and I will also have a display table for the various Unlock the Past publications. It's only a couple of hours drive from our place and is a really historic part of Victoria's mining past so I am looking forward to the trip.

Well my coming weekend is almost non stop genealogy so I hope your weekend is equally blessed with genealogy time and if you are at either PROV or Maryborough Fair do come up and say hello!