Cousin Bait, Blogging, Talks & Other News - Genealogy Notes 19 -28 Feb 2018

Full on the last few weeks with time out for talks and a couple of trips to Brisbane. The whole of summer seems to have flown past although the start of autumn still seems hot and humid. While browsing the local bottle shop for some birthday party wine, I came across this wine label and I simply had to buy the bottle. Luckily I like red wine! Who would have thought we would be using convict photos to sell wine?

Articles

Managed to get my monthly article to The In-Depth Genealogist for their Going In-Depth digital journal in on time despite the short month, those 2-3 days make a difference. This time I was looking at the wonderful digital resources on the State Library of Western Australia's website and last month it was State Library of Victoria. We really do have some wonderful libraries offering free access to key genealogical resources. Both articles will appear in future issues of Going In-Depth.

I was also excited to be asked to do a Q&A for Traces magazine which made it's debut at Christmas. It has taken over the now defunct Inside History magazine and many of our favourite pieces are still in the new magazine. The website is worth a visit as some of the old Q&A content from Inside History is on the Traces website and the advice is still good advice.

Cousin Bait (aka blogging)

Maria Jeffers

I first wrote Letters Home - My Irish Families in March 2010, eight years ago which doesn't seem possible, and I am still being contacted by people who are related to the Jeffers family. Just this week there was another email from yet another unknown branch. Blogging and Google make it so easy for distant relatives to make contact. Anyone doing a Google search on Jeffers from Portadown will find my blog post and me. Amazing and I'm surprised that not everyone is telling their stories online.

My U3A class this week discussed the issues with putting your info online and how some simply take and never acknowledge which is disheartening. So I guess that has to be weighed against the benefits of finding people you would never be able to track down easily or cheaply. I never put everything online which encourages people to make contact and that's always a plus.

Resources

With many mining families, both in Australia and in England, I was excited to see that Find My Past has added England, Mining Disaster Victims. There are over 9000 transcripts from four counties - Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire. I really wanted Staffordshire as one of my direct ancestors was killed in a mine accident, (from the burial register) but so far I haven't been able to find a reference to the accident in the newspapers. 

There are so many new collections going online all the time it is hard to keep up with everything. Repeat searches are a must.

Thanks to Queensland Family History Society March enewsletter Snippets I found out that New Zealand was also sending its convicts to Australia - a fascinating article Soldiers Thieves Maori Warriors: the New Zealand convicts sent to Australia by Kristyn Harman. Back issues of Snippets are online and always some good tips.

Talks

My talk on Weaving Your Stories on the Web at Arana Hills Library went well with a very enthusiastic audience all keen to either start a blog or improve what they are already doing. Moreton Libraries have indicated they might get me to do it at some of their other libraries later in the year. As usual my presentation is on my website Resources page - scroll down to Presentations.

What's Coming Up?

I can't believe Congress 2018 is next week in Sydney where I, and 599 other delegates, will experience some fantastic talks, catch up with friends and spend money at the exhibitors stalls. I fly to Sydney on Thursday and hope to collect my Congress satchel at the Society of Australian Genealogists in Kent Street before they close Thursday afternoon. That way I will beat the rush on Friday morning. Plus I always like to go through the goodies before the Congress starts.

I will be too busy over the four days, attending sessions and giving two of my own talks. So there won't be daily blog updates but there will be daily reviews once I'm back. Flying home on Monday night so it will be a late night and probably a sleep in, but then straight on to blogging all the news and excitement.

This coming week I need to prepare two U3A sessions - Fleshing Out the Family and Some Different Websites for Genealogy so that I don't have to panic when I get back. The sessions are popular and there are so many on the waiting list that we have decided to dispense with tables in the room and just have chairs. This should double the numbers next term. I send my session notes via email so we don't use the tables and it will be nice to have new faces and a wider pool of experience.

If you are going to Congress, I will see you there. If not, have a fun week searching for those ancestors.