Seafood platters, looking for UK cousins, talks & other news: My Genealogy Week 1-7 February 2022

I'm starting to fall behind and it is still early days in the year. Where did the last week go? Time flies indeed. Max and I celebrated meeting in Canberra 21 years ago. I seriously don't know where those years have gone. 

My son has recovered from Covid and managed not to give it to his pregnant wife. A relief for all and the birth of the first grandchild is now only about two months away. Not that I am counting. 

I am in the midst of my six monthly health checks and travelling to doctors and doing tests all takes time. After the session on Friday at the Sunshine Coast Hospital we called into Mooloolaba and the See Restaurant for a seafood platter and a couple of cocktails. 2022 will be my year of the seafood platter.

Blogs

I am just managing to keep up with the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks blog challenge. Week 5 was branching out and I decided to focus on my great grandfather Herbert William White and his siblings who all stayed in England. 

Using more modern genealogy resources helped me to identify who they married, any children and when they died. Although there are some gaps in the story as White is such a common name.

Diary is in tandem with the blog challenge so both are being written at the weekend when I have more time. Getting back to work has seriously dropped the number of hours decluttering, writing and researching.  

Bribie Genealogy

I was the first guest speaker for the year and it was all about FamilySearch and looking at all the different research strategies. You could easily spend days on their website. A small group then enjoyed lunch at Bribie Social at the RSL. I had the Juicy Lucy burger - turns out that has beetroot, bacon and egg plus the usual. Must have been the biggest burger I have seen ever. So shocked I forgot to take a photo.

Next month we have Judy Lofthouse talking about the 1921 UK Census which is on Findmypast.

Social Media

As I am weeding and tossing out my research files, books, binders etc, I have also started to look at social media. My target this week was Twitter and I had just over 1500 people I was following. 

When I checked their accounts many of them had not tweeted in years, even decades and some, sadly,  I knew had passed on. This shocked me to see their accounts still there. Obviously no one has closed the accounts down. 

I am now plodding through all the profiles and deleting any that have not posted within the last 12 months. As you can see I have already deleted nearly 500 accounts.

I also have to update my lists and include some of the more recent people I am in contact with in the Twittersphere.

I joined Twitter in September 2009 and I have never gone back and checked the accounts I was following. This has left me a bit depressed and it is another thing we have to remember to do - give someone your passwords and account names so that they can go in and turn them off. Or at least mark them closed if they want the account to be there forever. 

Will someone want to see my tweets in 50 years time? If I was doing a biography on someone then yes I might want to know what they were doing and posting about on Twitter. This topic is starting to broaden out into what should be archived!

Talks

Another invitation this week to do a presentation with MyHeritage in March. Getting back to basics using MyHeritage for research in Australia and New Zealand.

This morning I gave a talk to the Monash Library family history group on breaking down brick walls. The slides are on the Resources page of my website. They stay up for about six months.

A reminder that I am giving two talks at RootsTech Connect 2022 too in early March. Saw earlier today that they have 152,000 registered and it is not too late to join. And its free. So many sessions and speakers, somthing for everyone. 

All the events that I am speaking at are on the Events page of my website.

What's Coming Up?

A favourite photo of Dad with my son ca 1991

Two talks next week. 

Thursday sees me up at Noosa Library talking about where do you start which will be a refresher for the new year. I so much prefer in person talks. 

Finally at the end of the week on Saturday I am speaking at the Port Macquarie society meeting via Zoom. That will be about my search for Dad's biological father. 

A big week of talking!

On Wednesday I get the pleasure of listening to someone else speak at the Bribie Island Historical Society meeting. It will be good to see people again as the last time we all gathered was the Christmas party in December. 

Take care and stay safe. Happy genealogy finds too. Shauna