Congress 2025 review, blogs, books, & other news: My genealogy weeks 16-31 March 2025

 Another busy fortnight with four days away in Brisbane for the Connections conference. Fresh on the heels of the cyclone we have had another extreme weather event which has flooded Queensland from top to bottom. So many people and animals have been impacted. Truly heartbreaking.

Blogs

I was thrilled to see my Diary blog listed at No 37 in the top 100 genealogy blogs compiled by FeedSpot considering that I have been struggling to keep my blogging mojo. There are some old blog favourites in this list as well as some new ones to check out.

Books

Yes I said no more books so only buying three at the conference was progress, more or less. Glenville Pike's local history Croydon Gold is of interest to my PhD, The Scots and their fish by G W Lockhart might help me understand my Scottish salmon farmers and Kay Ryan's What's in a name? a journey of immigration, infidelity and incarceration is a local history with some connection to my PhD topic.

Conferences

I have written a review blog of the Connections conference on my website. See it here with some links to websites that might be of interest.

The next AFFHO Congress will be in Wellington, New Zealand in 2027. Seems a long time in the future but never to early to start planning to attend. At least for this conference junkie.

 New resources

Excited to see these New South Wales newspapers due to appear on Trove soon.

• Adelong Mining Journal and Tumut Express (1858-1860)
• Border Post (1856-1860) [Albury City Libraries]
• Cootamundra Liberal (1888-1906)
• Germanton Times and Tumbarumba Advocate (1884-1885)
• Junee Democrat (1899-1904)
• South Coast Register (1926-1948) [Shoalhaven Libraries]
• Tumbarumba Times (1906-1955)

Check out the what's coming soon to Trove page here.

Talks

For the Legacy Family Tree Webinars 24 hour marathon I am giving a session on using MyHeritage Downunder for genealogy research. A little bit of Australian and Canadian research and a look at the new Cousin Finder. Register free here for my talk or any of the others over the 24 hours.

What's coming up

My next task for AFFHO is to organise the judging of the Nick Vine Hall awards for 2025. Collating the entries and then sending them off to the judges. They then do the hard work and I collate the scores in July in time for Family History Month in August.

Don't miss Legacy Family Tree Webinars 24 hour marathon coming up on 3/4 April 2025. Sessions are in time friendly zones or you can watch later for the following week.

Until next time, happy researching. Shauna