Talks & Conferences Coming Up & Other News - Genealogy Notes 25 Jun -2 Jul 2017

It's been a busy week and all I seem to have done is make travel arrangements to attend genealogy events coming up. I have now booked my accommodation for the NSW & ACT Association of Family History Societies annual conference in Orange, NSW. It is on 22-24 Sep 2017 and the theme is Your Family Story: Telling, Recording & Preserving which is really relevant and there are some great speakers on the program.

I'm now an ambassador for the Researching Abroad: Finding British Isles and European Ancestors tour around Australia and New Zealand with Chris Paton and Dirk Weissleder. This is between 8 and 26 August so a perfect event for National Family History Month. It's straight after I get back from the Unlock the Past genealogy cruise to Papua New Guinea so a very busy couple of weeks of genealogy talks and networking with geneamates.

Just as well P&O sent me a reminder about the need for a travel visa to Papua New Guinea - just print the form, fill it in and hand in at check in. So simple, but lucky I saw the email and didn't delete as advertising.

I've also committed to the Unlock the Past genealogy cruise to Alaska next year. Having never traveled to the US or Canada before this is my big opportunity to resist the lure of Asia and Europe. Chris Paton and Dick Eastman are the keynotes on the cruise and they are always good value and entertaining sessions.

Unfortunately I can't go to everything but for those able to get to Cowra, NSW easily you should think about attending this year's Royal Australian Historical Society conference.  It's on 28 - 29 October 2017 and the theme is Finding Lost Places, Lost People.

The Trove Tuesday blog challenge was successfully met this week with my Did the Family Ever Make Contact Back Home post. In the absence of surviving family letters how can we prove or even guess that our ancestors kept in touch with the family members they left behind. Trove can sometimes throw light on this question and in my case, it was through a court appearance.

National Family History Month is now only 4 weeks away and I have been busy approving events on the NFHM web calendar. There is always room for more events and it is really good to see the National Library of Australia hosting two events this year plus other local libraries and genealogy/family history societies across Australia.

Scotland's People announced the release of Presbyterian church records which was exciting but didn't lead to any Scottish breakthrough.

FamilySearch announced the discontinuation of their microfilm services which was no surprise as they continue to digitise their microfilm holdings and either make them available online or through their Family History Centres. I can still remember visiting the LDS Library (as it was then) in Brisbane in the late 1970s early 1980s and using microfilm on really awful microfilm readers and having a sore right arm from hand winding for days afterwards. What we have today with the internet and digitised records is truly amazing.

This coming week I'm off to Brisbane for a visit to the  United Grand Lodge of Queensland, Masonic Memorial Centre to check out their archives. One of my uncles was fairly high up in the Masons and so was Max's great grandfather so it will be interesting to see what I can find out. I have also got to finish my five talks for the PNG cruise and keep monitoring the NFHM website and promoting it to all.

Enjoy the coming week and if you are attending any of the above events, I look forward to catching up with you. Happy searching until next time.