Wiltshire discoveries, new resources & seminars - Genealogy Notes 1-15 Oct 2018

Herbert White (far left) was from Wiltshire

Still coughing as this chest infection seems reluctant to go. The weather has been a bit wet and perfect for staying indoors and doing research.

There have been some exciting new discoveries with my Wiltshire ancestors when I found out that Ancestry have added lots of records from the Wiltshire Record Office.

It really does pay to go back and look at your research from time to time as new records are indexed and made available. In this instance there were images which is even more exciting. I pushed back one of my Wiltshire families another generation.


Blogs

My guest blog post for the Genealogical Society of Queensland on the benefits of genealogy cruising will be posted next Monday. I enjoyed doing that as it brought back all those wonderful Alaska cruise memories, pre chest infection. Just happy I made it home to be sick, nothing worse than being sick while travelling.

Docked in Alaska

DNA

I equate bed rest with also sitting in front of a laptop and so some hours were also spent trying to analyse my DNA results and sort out those only related to Mum. Anything else must be Dad's and surprisingly Dad has about three times the results of Mum. If only I had some family names to match or his DNA for closer results. With Mum's I can see which results relate to our Cornish families on her mother's side and which ones relate to families on her father's side.

The DNA workshop at Bribie Island was good as I learnt a few more tips for analysis so it really is the more you listen/learn, the more sense results make. Especially if you have all your family names.

Education 

A while back I did the free online genealogy course with Future Learn (University of Strathclyde) and enjoyed it as well as learning new things or being reminded of things I had forgotten. Just noticed they have another free course starting on 5 November 2018. Only six weeks but covers a lot of topics - have a look at the program and see if it interests you.

New Resources

Outside the study window - so distracting!

It is almost impossible to keep up with all the new resources being added to the major genealogy sites. Findmypast have added electoral rolls for the UK 1920-1932 and more newspapers have been added plus existing titles have been added to.

FamilySearch have added FindAGrave and BillionGraves indexes which mean that you get prompts to check those sites out for names that you search for in FamilySearch.

The Ancestry update told me that they now have New Zealand naturalizations from 1843-1981 which is great for those with European ancestors. My NZ connections were all British.

It is definitely useful to subscribe to the update enews as you just don't know what will be relevant to your own research.


Talks

I managed to do my talk on Making the Most of Trove for the Bribie Island Family History Group with the help of cough lozenges, lots of water and an understanding audience. The presentation is on the Resources page of my website, scroll down to Presentations.

Three more talks coming up next week and then it will only be U3A talks for the rest of the year (which isn't that long to go).

What's Coming Up

Caloundra Family History Research have a one day seminar on 10 November with the theme End of World War 1: The Soldiers Come Home. Four speakers, morning and afternoon tea and a light lunch for the modest cost of $30 if you are a member of a reciprocal genealogy group or $35 for others. Bookings and further details are available on their website. Unfortunately I will be away that week so I am missing out! They are also hosting the Waves in Time conference next May and I will definitely be there for that.

Most genealogy and family history societies run excellent education programs and if you are not a member of a local society you are missing out on some great opportunities to learn and network with other geneafans.

Next week is a super busy week with talks and then a short visit to family. After that the plan is to start writing up some of my family stories in the six weeks left of 2018. Until next time, try and have some time with your ancestors.