Friday 6 March 2020

Back ups, Women's History & Other News - Genealogy Notes 1 - 29 Feb 2020

Summer has finished and it was just a total blur for me. Autumn is starting well with the Unlock the Past Tasmanian cruise which will leave me totally motivated to get back into a more disciplined approach to everything I do. In some ways I have let my life be dictated by all the medical appointments and the heat and humidity certainly got me this summer. All those afternoon naps did not help either but as treatment does not finish till October, I will still have to factor the appointments in.

Back Ups

One of my promises for the year was to do regular back ups and it is already common practice within the genealogy world to back up on the first day of the month. It is easy to remember that date,  although I find a note in my diary also helps me not to forget. When was the last time you backed up your family history database and other digital records?

Blogs

In February I managed two blog posts. First I was asked to be a guest blogger for the Genealogical Society of Queensland for their March post. As it is Women's History Month, there was no better topic to write about.

At the time of writing this Diary post, GSQ has a problem with its website which they were trying to fix. Here is the link to their blog and my post was about celebrating women who were wives and mothers. You do not have to be famous to have a history and be remembered.

There was also Month 3 of my personal genealogy blog challenge Preparing Your Family History Records for Hand Over. I'm still making progress but some of the decisions are harder than first thought. Everything is taking longer but I am concentrating on tidying up physical records as they take up space whereas digital records are just on the laptop (and various back up drives which probably need tidying up too).

Just keep chipping away at it. My Month 4 report will be more towards the end of March as I'm away geneacruising.

Resources

My Cornish
great grandmother
Dorcas Trevaskis
Wow so many exciting new records online. Findmypast excited me with new Hampshire and Welsh records and the Cornish Online Parish Clerk had new additions for some of my Cornish parishes.

My Heritage had everyone rushing off to colorise their old photos - read more about it here. So far I have resisted the temptation as it appears to be a very bright shiny object that would take me away from my tidying up.

There has been lots of news from RootsTech 2020, and you can read about Ancestry's update here. Amazing to think they now have 24 billion global records. These megadatabases certainly make researching our ancestors much easier.

Talks

During February I added more speaking engagements to my calendar for 2020. It is good to be getting back to what I love doing - for details see the Events page of my website.


What's Coming Up?

Super excited to be heading off to Adelaide for some research before we leave on the Unlock the Past genealogy cruise to Kangaroo Island and around Tasmania. Look at the line up of  speakers and lots of friends from previous cruises. There will be a blog post or two when I'm back at the end of March.


Shame it will be the last Unlock the Past genealogy cruise. Maybe there will be a comeback tour - everyone else seems to do it!

Also thrilled to be an Ambassador for the Family History Down Under mega geneaconference in March 2021 on the Sunshine Coast. With over 30 speakers, many from overseas, that will be a conference not to be missed. More about that soon.

Until next time, happy searching.