Wednesday 11 April 2012

Genealogy notes 1-11 Apr 2012 - Researching in Sydney

I must have blogged myself out during the AFFHO12 genealogy congress as it is now 11 days later but admittedly some of that time was out in the wilds of outback South Australia and Victoria with no phone or internet connection. After leaving Adelaide on the Sunday we headed up to Morgan on the Murray River (mainly for sentimental value as my partner used to travel there from Berri to catch the train to go to Adelaide). Just like the might paddlewheelers, the train no longer runs either but we visited the museum and he was able to point out all the old places for me in their photographic collection. I was surprised by all the houseboats there but lots of places along the Murray in South Australia have houseboats. Brought back memories of our houseboat holidays on the Clyde River when we lived in Canberra!

Another surprise was all the carp in the Murray and we did our bit to get rid of quite a few. In some places baby carp are so think you can just scoop them up in a net! I do like sitting on the river bank, fishing rod in hand watching all the bird life and the peace and quiet is amazing - not like living in Melbourne. From Morgan we went on up through Berri and had a look at Martin's Bend which is another idyllic spot on the Murray. Then we thought we should head for home and travelled down the Calder, stopping at Ouyen the home of Australia's best vanilla slice. Obviously with a title like that, we had to stop at the Mallee Bakery and test it out. It was good but next time we will only get one between us, I think we overdosed on vanilla slice!

The next day we were travelling through Bendigo and decided we didn't really want to go home (grey nomads can do that sort of thing) so we rang friends in Yarrawonga and of course, they said come on over! So we again headed north to the Murray and spent a couple of days with them before going home to spend a quiet Easter. I had a lovely time doing some research and catching up on emails and blogs.

I even managed to do my Overview of AFFHO12 heraldry and genealogy congress which summarised the whole event and supplemented my daily blogs in this Diary. I was only home four days and then  I was heading out to the airport to go to Sydney. Originally I was going to be giving a family history workshop for the Royal Australian Historical Society but it was too close to Easter I suspect, and with poor numbers they cancelled it. But I have lots of friends in Sydney and I've always wanted to just spend a week here doing genealogy research so that's what I'm doing.

I've got visits lined up for the State Library of NSW and the Mitchell Library and of course a visit to the Society of Australian Genealogists is also a must. I'm also able to attend a strategic planning meeting of the Australian Society of Archivists which will be great as I haven't seen a lot of my archival colleagues since I retired in 2009. But tomorrow I'm excited to be going to Randwick Library to hear Paul O'Keefe talk about The Girl Who Loved Ned Kelly. I've spoken to Paul on the phone but haven't met him before so it's a great opportunity. Cassie from Inside History magazine is also meeting me tomorrow for coffee, so a big day out!

I'm also hoping to use this week in Sydney to totally catch up on all my emails and blogs as I seem to have been travelling since last October and there are lots of e-newsletters I've stockpiled. With no family here to distract me it should almost be like genealogy heaven. I'm looking forward to it!

1 comment:

  1. Sounds like you had a good trip Shauna. My husband's mother's family lived in Ouyen and when we visited a few years ago we too got caught up in the Great Vanilla Slice experience. However I think the best one anywhere is almost certainly in Darwin. Next time you're here you must try the vanilla slice made by Kurt at Kurt's Cakes in Cavanagh St (more or less diagonally opposite the GPO) or at Bellissimo in the Jape Centre. But definitely do share it with your other half!

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