Friday 27 November 2015

Momento competition, book reviews & new digitising projects - Genealogy Notes 21-28 November 2015

As foreshadowed last Diary, most of this week was taken up with trips to Brisbane and medical appointments. Seriously hoping that 2016 is a better year health wise. Not a lot of writing done, in fact not one blog post although I am about to send off my regular monthly blog contribution to The In-Depth Genealogist. My contribution is a series of blog posts on Australasian archives and libraries useful for genealogy and family history if you have not seen it yet.

My article for their digital magazine Going In-Depth is also nearing completion. It is good to be getting back into writing for them after my three month 'holiday with a broken right elbow'. I find that writing a regular monthly article seems to speed up the month as no sooner do you finish one article then the next deadline seems to be nearing. A bit like weekly blog posts speed up the week for Diary. Perhaps I need to be more irregular and lose track of time.

My review for the Australian Society of Archivists on Personal Archiving: Preserving our digital heritage edited by Donald T Hawkins was completed antod sent off to the editor. It will be published in the next issue of their journal Archives and Manuscripts and after that I will be able to put the review on my website. I picked up some useful information for my own family history research and there is probably a blog post or two coming up as I explore that more.

I received Nathan Dylan Goodwin's new book The America Ground (another Morton Farrier forensic genealogist adventure) which I am really looking forward to reading. We head to Adelaide soon to catch up with family and grandkids so I might keep it for the plane trip, if I can wait that long.

I also received Hazel Edwards' OAM new book, Not Just a Piece of Cake: Being an Author, for review. It is a memoir and takes it's name from Hazel's best selling children's book There's a Hippopotamus on Our Roof Eating Cake. Her memoir will be interesting as I have known Hazel for years and am a fan of her How to Write a Non Boring Family History.

There are some great digitising projects on the go at the moment. I was excited to see the announcement that Ancestry is working with the Anglican Church in Sydney to digitise baptism, confirmation, marriage and funeral registers from 1824 to 2005 and in return, minute books from diocesan boards and Synods will be scanned by Ancestry for preservation in digital format. Read more about the announcement in the Sydney Anglican News here.

I first picked up that announcement via Facebook but another way I find out what is actually new online now is reading the What's New Online section of Inside History Magazine. While some are familiar via social media, there are other sites I would have missed. For example, in the Sep-Oct issue there was a reference to of the Catholic Parish Registers 1740s to 1880s at the National Library of Ireland

John Finn born ca 1856 Ballygannon,
County Wicklow
These were actually released the week I went overseas back in July and I was going to look them up when I returned home. But breaking my elbow, subsequent surgery and recovery over the following three months meant that these records had dropped from my priority view. The magazine reminder had me visiting the site and looking for my Catholic parishes. I have never really progressed my Catholic Finn and Fegan families of County Wicklow since I first started researching back in 1977. Wish me luck as it would be fantastic to push them back a generation or two. I only have approximate years and not sure of the parish and as there is no index yet I have to scroll through original parish registers.

As I mentioned last week, one of our Australian National Family History Month sponsors Momento has a Christmas competition closing on 30 November 2015. Momento is offering a $150 gift voucher for a Christmas giveaway. So there are just two more days to get your entry in. So if you are in Australia just email me at shauhick @ gmail.com (without the spaces) 25 words or less about "how you manage your photos" by 30 November and you could win. See how easy it is to create a unique Christmas photo book gift, card or personalised stationery with Momento's software here.  The winner will be announced in early December.

Apart from more medical appointments this week, I also have the Bribie Island Historical Society committee meeting to look forward too. Their last meeting for 2015 is the following week and is also a Christmas breakup, bring a plate function.

Have a great genealogy week, until next time





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