Tuesday 14 March 2017

St Patrick's Day, NZ conference & Other News - Genealogy Notes 8-14 Mar 2017

Well it was another week of geneaenvy when I discovered via Facebook that quite a few geneamates are heading for Auckland for the New Zealand Society of Genealogists conference in June. I have been to quite a few of their conferences and expos over the years and they are always good value. Dick Eastman is again on the program, he must like going to New Zealand and who wouldn't, and Judy Russell who I first met in person on an Unlock the Past genealogy cruise. You could easily sit and listen to Judy talk all day. There are other speakers and some great topics so check the program out here. I'm seriously tempted to go but I already have one geneaconference on the Gold Coast in May, plus the geneacruise to Papua New Guinea in July and lots of talks lined up in August for National Family History Month. So lots of exciting things already in my calendar.

With regard to National Family History Month we are still trying to fix the bug in our events calendar so it is a slow start to promoting it this year. But I can't really ask for events when last year's are still showing as current. Hopefully we will work out a solution soon. In the meantime I now have 8 talks during August and this will probably increase as I still need to find an event for the drawing of the sponsor's prizes at the end of the month. Stay tuned.

Another exciting event is Chris Paton (British and Irish research) returning to our shores in August and he will be touring with Dirk Weissleder (German research) as part of an Unlock the Past tour. Check out the tour dates here. They will be visiting Brisbane, Auckland, Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Adelaide and Perth so lots of people will get the chance to see them. The issue for me is that the Brisbane event is the day after I get home from the Papua New Guinea cruise. Can I zip off again after returning home for only one day?

My great grandmother, Mary Finn
daughter of John Finn and Sarah Fegan
St Patrick's Day is coming up on 17 March so I will be celebrating my Irish ancestry - two great great grandparents, John Finn and Sarah Fegan from County Wicklow. My St Patrick's day blog post last year was about them and rereading it I'm surprised at how much more I have learnt about the family in a year. I recently saw a photograph of Sarah Fegan for the first time and I'm eagerly waiting for my cousin to send a copy. So until I get that, I won't update the blog post. Read how I traced my Finn and Fegan families in County Wicklow here.

Findmypast are making their entire Irish collection free until midnight 17 March (GMT) so that is a fantastic chance for people to look for any Irish ancestors. Read more about the offer here. Don't miss out.

There is so much happening in the genealogy world that it is hard to keep up with all the news,even spending time on social media only scratches the surface. To help myself keep up to date I have offered to do an advance class on family history at the local U3A in Term 2. They have been running a beginners course for years and students want to progress to beyond the basics. It should be challenging but with a smaller group you can focus on what people want to know about. Plus I will be able to learn from them too.


Finally one of my favourite authors, Nathan Dylan Goodwin has published another novella in his forensic genealogist series, The Missing Man again starring the fictional Morton Farrier. I have loved all the previous books, very hard to put down once you start, so I am looking forward to reading this latest adventure.

This coming week will be mainly finishing some research enquiries, attending the local history class at  U3A and catching up on my journal reading, both paper and e-journal. The paper ones are piled up on the floor and quite visible while the e-journals are out of sight which is not a good thing for me. I need to set a dedicated time to read everything that comes in, at least once a week.

Have another good week of genealogy researching and if you can attend any of those genealogy events listed above, enter the dates in your calendar now. Personal networking with others is one of the best ways to learn and have geneafun.

Until next time.




2 comments:

  1. Shauna
    Hope you come to NZ. It should be good

    ReplyDelete