Killing Off Ancestors, Adelaide Expo & Other News - Genealogy Notes 7-13 May 2016

Mother's Day tulips

Mother's Day 2016 for us was a great family reunion with all of us turning up at Mum's place. There are not a lot of us - just me and Max, my son and his fiancee (not sure if I have mentioned this before but she now wears a rather dazzling ring), my brother and his wife, my nephew and his girlfriend and my niece. My brother has still not done the DNA test I bought last November but he is admitting to being slack. Fingers crossed he went home motivated. I need an ending to my Love Sex and Damn Lies talk!

Another date for your calendars is the Unlock the Past Australian History and Genealogy Expo in Adelaide 7-8 October 2016. I'm planning to go and I know some of my other geneafriends are planning a trip over and of course all our SA friends who don't have to travel.

Why am I making the trek? My Cornish ancestors arrived in South Australia in the early 1860s and my great grandmother Dorcas Trevaskis was born in Moonta in 1866. I have always been fascinated with Cornish culture and one of my favourite books is Philip Payton's Cornwall: A History. Philip Payton is going to be one of the speakers at the Expo and it will be so good to hear him in person. The other key presenter is Tom Lewis a military historian who I first heard in Darwin in 2012 at the 70th anniversary commemoration of the bombing of Darwin. Two excellent reasons to go plus there are other presenters and exhibitors for two days of genealogy in Adelaide.

Killing off John's parents

Some months ago now I discovered what I believe to be the death years for my Wicklow great great great grandparents, James and Rosanna Finn and Robert and Sarah Fagan. I have delayed getting the certificates because there is not a lot of information on Irish death certificates although it would be good to know cause of death and if the informant is a relative.

Re-looking at my paperwork in the Note section I find you can get a photocopy of the entry for 4 Euros instead of 16 Euros for the certificate. This option should be in the list of options available not in a note. Anyway now that I know for about $25 AU instead of $100 I can kill off my GGG grandparents I have gone ahead and ordered the photocopies. I have even asked for the copies to be sent email as I am now super keen to see if there are any surprises.

Getting Sarah's
death certificate at last

At the least I will know more about them than I do now which is only their names and their marriage information (sadly minus any parent details). So killing them off (getting their death certificates) may signal the end of the road for my Irish research. Although who knows what might turn up as more records are indexed or digitised.

Another piece of good news is that the National Archives of Australia replied to my enquiry re the wrong indexing of John James Carnegie's WW2 dossier. I was right and they have corrected it so that Carnegie is now the surname and not James. So if you do find indexing errors, always point them out and if it is a genuine error it can be fixed. If the name is wrong on the records then it can't be changed. For example, my great uncle Solomon Price has a number of Boer War documents but on one of them it is definitely Soloman not Solomon so I have to search both variants as he seems to have used both spellings at different times.

This coming week I have a Skype meeting with AFFHO where I will be giving an update on National Family History Month. My only wish is that more people will put their August events up into our new web calendar. NFHM can only work if societies advertise events such as their monthly meetings, library days or anything else they are doing during August. The early bird prize for all societies contributing an event ends on 30 June so don't miss out. Archives and libraries can also participate. Our media sponsor Inside History Magazine has given us a whole page advert in the May-Jun 2016 issue so that should get people interested.

Have a great week and remember to squeeze in a little genealogy. Until next time happy researching