One weekend I was trying to watch three different events and I didn't want to miss any of the talks. Luckily most events now record and allow you to watch over the next week or so.
Plus it is now spring time down under and there are flowers everywhere.
My favourite double hibiscus. It keeps flowering all year.
Books
Bribie Genealogy
September saw us permitted to meet in person again which was good. David Barnes shared at the Friday meeting how he organises his family history records and at the Monday night he walked us through the Tier One level of Gedmatch for DNA results.
Good to see everyone in person again and some of us even shared a lunch.
Conferences
The NSW & ACT Association of Family History Societies conference With Conviction was virtual but hosted by Port Macquarie. There were some interesting talks and I really liked Michelle Patient's Celebrating Cousins and Cate Pearce's Using DNA for Aboriginal Family History. In the virtual goody bag, you could download handouts provided by speakers, a digital copy of Traces magazine and other useful leaflets and forms. Next year will be in the Maitland/Newcastle area and I really hope to make this one in person. Although I have been to Newcastle many times, I never knew that it was the home of Dad's biological families. Will also spend additional time for family research and see what more I can learn.
The Professional Historians Association Queensland conference also went virtual and I missed a weekend stay in Brisbane. All the papers were interesting and stimulating and it was not surprising to me to see that so many professional historians now use genealogy resources. Probably because there is so much more online now.
Legacy Family Tree Webinars declared it Webtember with free webinars throughout the month. Some great sessions were on offer. Personally I have a subscription as it is such a good learning resource and not that expensive. Makes a good birthday/Christmas present each year if the family are looking to buy you something.
Finally I went to the Irish Lives Female Finds virtual conference hosted by the Ottawa Branch of the Ontario Society, Canada. Don't you just love the capability of Zoom. Sessions were recorded so I didn't have to stay up all night. The Irish DNA talks were related to my own family research on Islandmagee, Antrim and I won one of the lucky door prizes, a year's full subscription to MyHeritage.
New Resources
It was exciting to see the list below of new digitised newspapers at Findmypast, especially if you have London ancestors. Every time I see these updates I want to do new searches but I try to limit it to a couple of times a year. Below is the notice in the Leicester Chronicle on 31 January 1846 reporting on the death of Paul Spencer's first wife. Elizabeth was only 24 years old, and it also gave her father's name. So much information can be discovered in newspapers.
- Chelsea & Pimlico Advertiser covering 1860-1863 and 1865-1866
- East London Advertiser covering 1862-1866
- Kingsland Times and General Advertiser covering 1860 and 1862-1863
- West London Times covering 1860-1861, 1863-1864 and 1866-1867
- Westminster Times covering 1863
While additional pages have been added to the following titles:
- Albion from 1852
- Birkenhead News from 1914
- British Banner from 1850-1851, 1854 and 1856
- Croydon Times from 1934-1947, 1950 and 1952-1961
- Daily Director and Entr’acte from 1860
- Daily News (London) from 1922-1923, 1925 and 1927
- Limerick Reporter from 1849
- Liverpool Daily Post from 1858-1859
- Morning Herald (London) from 1808
- Sheffield Independent from 1929
Talks
As we come up to the end of the year I only have three more talks - all virtual even though two of those talks are in Australia. All talks are listed on the Events page of my website.
What's Coming Up
I first started the project two years ago and progress is not as fast as I expected. Time is not always our friend, even in lockdowns. Making decisions and simply sorting papers and digitising photos takes time.
My other task is to follow up all the tips I wrote down during all those September webinars. Perhaps I won't watch so many in October?
Take care and stay safe and happy researching.
