AFFHO Congress wrap up - Genealogy Notes 28 Mar - 3 Apr 2015

It has been a huge week since last Diary. The AFFHO Congress 2015 is over and most of us have returned home and have been busy writing up our post Congress blogs. I had so much to say that it is a three part review. Part One was Days 1 and 2, Part Two was Days 3 and 4 and Part Three was Social Events and Exhibitors. Click on the links to read each part.

Photo taken by Mr Geniaus

As well as my own blogs I have been busy reading what others had to say and there were lots of geneabloggers there. To assist us in finding all these bloggers Geniaus (aka Jill) is compiling a pre, during and post Congress list of blogs. Jill's Geneabloggers at Congress- Reflections has all the links although there might be still more to come. Geniaus and Mr Geniaus are obviously a dynamic duo as he came in to Congress to take the Geneabloggers photo and I think we were mostly all there. That's Jill second from right at the front and you can see the lovely blogger beads that Jill supplied as with. It was a great way to instantly see who was a Geneablogger!

It was only after we got home that I realised that Easter was this weekend and we had one of Max's sons popping in for a short visit, hence the mad effort to finish my blog posts before Easter. We also have a trip down to Brisbane to see Mum and other family members. Easter is the time when my orchids start to flower and I am particularly pleased with this one. The others took a bit of a battering in the storm we had while we were in Canberra.

As always after a Congress, or any genealogy event, I am super motivated and as Mum's birthday is coming up I dragged out my draft family history on her Price family. I originally wrote it back in 2002 when I was in Canberra and of course since then I have added bits and pieces, the usual never ending story. After talking to David from Openbook Howden at Congress, I realised that I could print a few copies for family members at a relatively reasonable price, especially if I just give him a PDF. Of course this means I have to do layout, editing etc myself or they can do it but that costs more. It will depend on how clever I am!

My Easter genealogy exercise is to reread it, do amendments, additions and add in some charts and photographs with the aim of an almost final work by Easter Monday night. It is limited to three generations so I have not mentioned any living people except Mum and I believe she is the last of her generation. I will have to get someone else to read it as you can never pick up all your own mistakes.

Already I have doubts about this goal as so far today I have found new information courtesy of Trove (what else!). Two photos of Mum's uncle, William Price, who went to the Boer War twice and eventually settled in South Africa have surfaced in Trove. Now we finally know what he looked like. If I recheck Trove for everyone mentioned in the Price family draft, then I might just need more than the Easter weekend to finish.

Plus there are the new genealogy books and magazines I bought home to read (see Congress blog posts for titles), not to mention all those Congress papers. I have some new prize sponsors for National Family History Month 2015 so I need to make some more changes to the website and post Easter I am starting the NFHM PR campaign in earnest.

Next weekend (11 April) I will be in Maryborough (QLD) giving three talks for the Maryborough Family Heritage Research Institute - this was the event cancelled back in February due to Cyclone Marcia. Looking forward to that as they are always a good crowd.

Have a safe and happy Easter and where possible, try and sneak in some genealogy time, especially if you are catching up with family members. Happy searching until next time.

AFFHO Congress news: Genealogy notes 23-27 March 2015

It's not quite a week since the last Diary but I thought there should be at least one Diary post during AFFHO Congress 2015. I'm still adjusting to the new time zone and waking up late as my body is programmed to wake at the same time each day. But I'm putting it to bed later than usual so I could be a bit of a zombie today.

It was a long trip here but we arrived safe to be greeted by a Congress welcoming committee who were our friends when we lived here many years ago. Then we were taken to the Mantra on Northbourne where we are staying and although we were early (before 2 pm), they found us a room that was ready and we were unpacked and having a reviving cup of tea within minutes.

I needed it because then it was the shortish walk to the Canberra National Convention Centre to collect my conference satchel (to be described in a later blog post) and meet up with lots of old geneafriends and a few of my new social media friends also came up and introduced themselves. I am going to have to stop thinking of people in terms of their blog names and remember their real names!

After I collected my blogging beads from Jill there seemed to be a whirlwind of photos with various people. No doubt some of those will surface on blog posts or social media. Then it was the walk back to the Mantra to get ready for the meet and greet at the Australian War Memorial. Fortunately I met long time friend Sue (now a member of the Caloundra Family History Group) and she offered to drive Max and myself there as he is still having a bit of trouble walking following his recent broken leg drama.

At the meet and greet we met up with lots of other people from our Canberra days but also from our genealogy cruises with Unlock the Past Cruises, other genealogy conferences and our days of living in Melbourne and Brisbane. Once you have been to one geneaconference, you know that there will always be someone to talk to at the next one as it is so easy to meet new people and to meet again regular attendees.

The first day of Congress talks was excellent and that will be a separate post too when I have more time. The venue is excellent and the Royal Theatre has three screens so that everyone can see everything. This is lots of room in the exhibition area and so far I have not bought anything. Early days yet. This was another opportunity to catch up with old friends while enjoying the excellent catering. There seemed to be lots of food at multiple stations so no overly long delays in getting lunch and tea and coffee.

At the end of the day I attended the AFFHO AGM where I was given the opportunity to talk about National Family History Month 2015 and to encourage all AFFHO societies to participate. There will be more about NFHM once I have all my Congress posts written. It is the next big thing on the Australasian genealogy horizon.

The day ended with a great Chinese dinner at Kingston (the China Plate) with Dorothy from Wagga Wagga & District Family History Society and Rosemary from HAGSOC (Canberra), both long time geneafriends. It was a wide ranging geneadiscussion.

Well if I don't stop writing this update and get ready I will miss Josh Taylor from Findmypast and the first keynote speaker of the day. My talk on sporting ancestors is one of the last talks of the day so another long day and we have the conference dinner tonight at Parliament House! If you aren't at Congress, have fun watching us on social media with #affho #genealogy or follow the usual suspects. Until next time, happy searching.

Google, photos, sporting ancestors:Genealogy notes 16 - 22 Mar 2015

Last week's Diary brought the news of an exciting discovery of a WW1 ancestor's photograph. I'm happy to say that I have just been sent a photo of my great great grandmother's sister. As we have no photos at all on this line I am super excited as she looks just like my grandmother or is that wishful thinking? Or do all little old ladies look like that?

This exciting discovery came about because someone (my third cousin once removed) Googled our common ancestor John Carnegie of Toorbul and found all my blog posts on how I eventually knocked down the brick walls around this family. I've dashed off a quick email to say hello!

I have to say that Google is perhaps the most exciting genealogical discovery of all time BUT you still need to be blogging your family stories to be discovered and contacted by long lost cousins. I really don't know why everyone doesn't have a geneablog. It is a wet rainy day here and when I logged on to write this Diary post, there was the email and the photos. How easy is that?

Week 35 of my personal genealogy blog challenge is Sporting Records and that is also one of the topics I am talking about next week at the AFFHO Congress in Canberra. I'm also happy to say that my new research guide Discover your sporting ancestors: it was not all work and no play is also now available. There are so many aspects of our ancestors lives that we can explore and I have really enjoyed tracking down some of these sporting stories.

My first blog post for The In-Depth Genealogist was this week and not surprisingly I was writing about the AFFHO Congress and how we will all be using social media to share what is happening in Canberra over five very exciting days and nights. Only four more sleeps for me!

Although Congress is now occupying most of my thoughts I need to keep in mind that the weekend after it I am heading back up to Maryborough for the genealogy seminar cancelled courtesy of Cyclone Marcia. I am giving three talks and the seminar is being organised by the Maryborough Family Heritage Research Institute. I'm really looking forward to catching up with them as I first started giving talks there in the 1980s!

My book review of Jayne Shrimpton's Fashion in the 1940s is here. It gave me some great ideas to follow up on my female relatives during WW2.

During a quick visit to Brisbane I was lucky enough to have a look behind the scenes at the Queensland Registry of Births Deaths and Marriages. Plus they are one of our new prize sponsors for National Family History Month (NFHM) in August 2015. The list of sponsors prizes is looking good and thanks to AFFHO and Ancestry for being major sponsors this year (new/additional sponsors may also join between now and August). Keep up to date by visiting the NFHM website or this Diary as I am the voluntary coordinator again!

There must be other news but I really want to get back to my Carnegie research and look at the two pages of information sent along with the photos. Although looking at the time, the family might be expecting me to cook dinner! Perhaps they won't be hungry tonight? Happy researching and blogging, let people find you.

WW1 Soldier Portraits, the first AFFHO Congress and women - Genealogy Notes 9-15 March 2015

I love blogging. I actually relax when I write and this week I managed to do two blogs. Week 34 in my 52 Weeks of Genealogical Records in 2015 is on Maps another fascinating resources for genealogy and family history research. The second blog was Thoughts on the 1977 AFFHO Congress (the first ever Congress) and its proceedings and speculating on how many people who went to that will be at the 14th Congress in Canberra in a week or so.

I started researching my own family history in March 1977 so I have been lucky to hear many of Australia and New Zealand's top conference speakers since then. Plus I have always bought the proceedings to refer to later. The genealogy world has changed so much since then.

The State Library of Queensland has been digitising soldier's portraits from WW1 as published in The Queenslander as part of their QANZAC 100 Memories for a new generation project. They are doing detailed images and as such the images and soldier's names are much clearer than what is in Trove. For example, I have been unable to find Denis Patrick Finn's photo in Trove but thanks to the SLQ's project, I now have his image and the reference to the page and date of The Queenslander. Denis was wounded and served time in a prisoner of war camp so I am really glad to now have a photo of him in uniform. He looks so young but then he was only 17 years old. I have more WW1 soldiers to find so that is another project I am closely following.

March is Women's History Month and my geneacolleague Hazel Edwards (author of How to Write a Non Boring Family History) sent me some wonderful ideas from her annual Witty Women's lunch and this year guests had to bring a plate of food to share with a quote from an historic female. Hazel has been doing this for 36 years with different themes, that's a lot of celebrating women of the past. Here are some examples and I have tried to keep to a family history type theme:

• Actress & inventor Hedy Lamarr developed a patent for frequency hopping now used in Wifi & Blue Tooth
• DNA researcher & biologist Rosalind Franklin, was mentioned three times, with double helix fruit platter, corkscrew cheese sticks and rice rolls in genetic patterns. Her male colleagues Watson, Crick & Wilkins got the Nobel Prize for the double helix model in 1962.
• Family historian Kath Ensor wrote ‘The Blue Family history with Indigo and Skye’ 
• Nurse Florence Nightingale was quoted in connection with ‘Notes on Nursing: What It is, and what it is not,’ translated as having a little of what you fancy, has and always will, do you good.’ 

Reading Hazel's list of women, food and quotes started me thinking about my female ancestors and could I associate them with a food or a quote. Something to work on for next year's women's history month. Thanks Hazel for the reminder of all those talented women from the past and present.

Two talks this week and both on Bribie Island which made a pleasant change from all the driving I have been doing lately. It is always nice to speak at my local library (part of Moreton Bay Region Libraries) and it was a good turnout with some new and familiar faces. Plus a blast from my past - the 60s - a lady came up and introduced herself as the daughter of the family who lived across the road from us in Bardon (Brisbane suburb) back then. There is also a family connection as her brother married my cousin and they and their two children lived two doors up from us in the same street.

My other smaller talk was at the monthly meeting of the Bribie Island Historical Society. It was a members night and a number of people got up and talked about various families and events. My focus was on Max's Burstow, Eldridge and Spencer families and their connection to Bribie in the 1920s and 30s. It was amazing how many of the members stories interconnected. Max has now met one of his Eldridge cousins still living on the Island and we have swapped notes over a yummy carrot and walnut cake which I made. I As I have been a bit stressed with all his medical issues, I reawakened my domestic goddess as I do find cooking and creating meals relaxing.

Regular readers will remember that I was going to be involved in a mini genealogy do over based on promptings from Thomas MacEntee. I was really shocked yesterday when I looked at where I was at - Week 3 - and when I visited his website they are up to Week 11. If you ever want time to fly, nurse someone with a broken leg. So I'm a bit behind there and the other thing I missed out on finishing was my free trial of Family Historian. That month is well and truly over and I had only really started looking at it when priorities shifted. But my mind was almost made up to purchase and swap over so that will be a post Congress task.

In my spare five minutes I always try to do a quick search in Trove and without fail, I am turning up new articles on my families. Some of the new titles added recently have just been fantastic. The Brisbane Telegraph is coming soon and that is going to be a geneafest of family info.

Only one more week or so before I head down to Canberra so it will be a catch up/tidy up kind of week so that I am totally prepared to simply sit back and enjoy Congress. If you are there too, come up and say hello! Till next time, happy researching.

Crime, new books & a strange bird - Genealogy notes 1 - 8 Mar 2015

Another week with little time to think but an amazing range of genealogy activities. I guess there is always room to squeeze in what we like doing.

Collecting my mail from the post office is an easy way and I was thrilled to see that Unlock the Past has just published three new titles from some of my favourite speakers - Paul Milner with Buried Treasure: what's in the parish chest?; Chris Paton with Down and Out in Scotland: researching ancestral crisis and Thomas MacEntee with 500 Genealogy & Family History Tips. I can't decide which one I want to read first, I love Chris' "ancestral crisis" as that is what my families seem to do all the time and Thomas' is bound to have me zipping all over the web while Paul's looks like a gentle read but will have me wanting to be on the next plane to England!

There is another new title Til Death us do Part: causes of death 1300 - 1948 by Janet Few who is a UK speaker who I have not heard before. It looks fascinating and I must check out her website The History Interpreter.

I have also been asked to review another book The Convict Theatres of Early Australia 1788-1840 by Robert Jordan and now published by Currency House as an ebook. That sounds really interesting too and I am still working on my reviews for Jayne Shrimpton and Carol Baxter. Sounds like I need a nice quiet place to curl up and have a good read!

My personal blog challenge 52 Weeks of Genealogical Records in 2015 continued with Week 33 on Church Records, another underused resource for finding out info on our ancestors, especially some of our female ancestors. Below is my great grandmother Elizabeth Price who was a deaconess at the Baptist church in Charters Towers.

It was a big week for talks with one at Albany Creek Library on Warning Warning: Tips & Tricks to Avoid Common Mistakes and one for the Queensland Family History Society on court of petty session records. Both talks are on the Resources page of my website, scroll down to Presentations. The QFHS talk was part of their seminar on Criminals and Victims and you can read my report on the day here. You can learn so much from attending education seminars like this as the speakers really know their topics.

I haven't done any feedback gathering on my talks for a while so with the Moreton Bay Region Libraries talks I have been asking people to fill in a quick survey form. I am happy to say that most people gave me 5s, said they could have listened to me longer and would attend another talk given by me. Plus some suggestions for future talks. This was great and confirmed verbal feedback on other occasions.

But there was one person who gave me 2s indicating that I was not clear, interesting or relevant. There was nothing else to give me a clue as to why I had been so disappointing for them. I know you can't please everyone but it would have been good to know why and perhaps there is something I can do to change their experience in the future.

The reason I raise this is that geneafriend Jill Ball called me a 'strange bird' in her post Going Out on a Limb. I have always placed the slides from my talks on my website so that attendees can go home and relook at the slides at their leisure and so that they don't have to madly write notes while I am talking. They can experience the talk in total and then go home and think about the detail. It also means that those who can't attend can at least see the slides even if they miss all the dialogue that goes with it.

Jill's point is that not many people do this and some even try to stop people taking photos of their slides rather than writing the points down. I did think about not putting my slides online last year after I heard that someone had reproduced one of my talks after taking out my footer and logo. I know my online practice is appreciated by people who attend my talks, why should they suffer because someone decides to copy my work. As Jill says, if someone is going to reproduce your work they can still do it by taking handwritten or typed notes so are we going to ban note taking too. I for one am happy to continue being a 'strange bird'.

This week I am talking at the Bribie Island library so not a long drive which is a refreshing change plus I am going to be talking about Max's families on Bribie in the 1930s at the Bribie Island Historical Society meeting on Wednesday night. It's been fun putting together  a bit of show and tell on his families and their connections to the Island way back then.

The absolute must do is finalise my talks for the AFFHO Congress 2015 which starts in Canberra on 26 March 2015. So much to say and so little time to do it. All the Congress papers are being published on USB although a paper copy will also be available for those who want to pay. It is going to be a fantastic four days catching up with friends, listening to some great talks and socialising.

Until next week try and get some genealogy searching in  or at least read some  fantastic blog posts, or a genealogy society journal.

Talks, articles & webinars - Genealogy notes 22-28 Feb 2015

Hard to believe that it is the end of February already. Having only 28 days doesn't help but it seems to have gone by in a blur but I have been busier than normal with my nursing duties on top of everything else.

One casualty was there was no new post in my 52 Weeks of Genealogical Records in 2015 but that should resume next week (as I touch my wooden desk). I did manage to send off my second blog post  for The In-Depth Genealogist and article for Going In-Depth and watch out for my first one in the March issue coming soon. It has been a learning curve working with a new online magazine as they have different procedures from other magazines I have written for. But all good new skills for me and as I get into a routine it will be easier, I thank Terri O'Connell for her patience in answering all my questions.

My talks at Woodford and North Lakes for Moreton Bay Region Libraries went well and you know you are in a rural area when a frog starts hopping around right where you are going to give your talk. Probably driven inside to get away from all the rain we had last week. Luckily some brave young men came to our rescue, picked it up and returned it outside. Albany Creek is on Monday and they are always a good group as the talk follows their local genealogy society meeting.

As I am an early riser I tuned into Legacy Family Tree Webinars to hear Lisa Louise Cooke's New and Must Have Google Tips for Genealogy. I was familiar with most of what Lisa said but there were a few new tips that I will be trying out. It was a free webinar and can be viewed online for free until 4 March. I have listened to a few webinars now, in real time if it suits us here in Australia or after the event and they can be quite useful.

The In Time and Place history and genealogy conference in Brisbane in October now has a website. There are some great sessions over the two days and I am struggling to choose between the local history stream and the family history stream. As usual I want to attend everything! Should be a great weekend. See the program here.

The local history course I have been attending at U3A has reawakened my interest in the local areas where my ancestors lived and trawling through Trove I am finding lots of information on events that were happening around them. It is so easy to be sidetracked when researching. For example, when I lived at New Farm in Brisbane for many years in the 80s and 90s I always walked past a beautiful old home called Santa Barbara which was just around the corner from us. This week I found it was built by Sarah Balls, an enterprising widow who had the fish cannery on Bribie Island before World War One. Small world as they say.

Congress 2015 is looming at the end of March and I need to finalise my two presentations and to make sure I fit within the time constraints. It is always hard to try and say everything you want and make it interesting.

The other big thing I need to do in the coming week is start to invite genealogy and family history societies to participate in National Family History Month in August 2015. Interest from sponsors has not been as strong this year (so far) possibly because most of them are already heavily involved with Congress 2015. Still we have one major sponsor and some prize sponsors and perhaps more will join us as we move closer to August. Make sure it is in your calendars and help me spread the word.

More medical appointments this week so more chauffeur duty for me. I think I have spent more time driving over the last five weeks than I have in the last five years! So that with my talk on Monday and my local history class on Friday will be almost a full week out and about. I will have to squeeze in the work on my presentations and blog writing and try to avoid being distracted by Trove and new posts on Twitter and Facebook. Wish me luck.

Asylum records, upcoming talks and new records - Genealogy notes 16- 21 Feb 2015

A week that did not go according to plan. I was supposed to give three talks for the Maryborough Heritage Institute at the weekend and we were going to have a short holiday in Bargara nee Bundaberg just before going to Maryborough. On the second day at Bargara we were told that we would have to evacuate due to Cyclone Marcia heading for the Queensland coast. This also meant that the Institute had to cancel the seminar as cyclones are too unpredictable with lots of wind and rain. So our little trip north was cut short and we headed back home to avoid getting trapped by floodwaters.

The Maryborough seminar is now on 11 April so keep that date free and I do have one photographic memory of our less than successful trip to see the turtles at Mon Repos (near Bargara).  The weather was against us but I managed one walk on the beach near the resort we were staying at. Just near the stairs to the beach I came across a nest of turtle eggs that had been exposed by the high tide and surf. You can see the steps on the right and the nest on the left of the photo.

Mon Repos is a turtle sanctuary but some of the turtles go to nearby beaches and you can be lucky and see them at Bargara. When the weather is bad, volunteers go round trying to find exposed nests so that they can save the turtle eggs until they hatch. Apparently they don't mate until they are 30 years old which is probably why so many of them are facing extinction, especially when cyclones and high tides wipe them out before they are even born! Another amazing fact is that the baby turtles remember where they were born and they go back there to lay their own eggs, year after year.

Wouldn't it be fantastic if our own ancestors were as predictable! Genealogy wise, I have been amazed at all the Scandinavian records (millions) that MyHeritage have added recently. My direct line is Norwegian and I researched it back in the 1980s the hard way. This time I put my great great grandparents names into MyHeritage and up came their marriage certificate information. I think it cost me a fair bit back then as I had to find it, purchase it, have it translated and then wait however long for it to arrive from Norway. Now it is instant, although you don't get the certificate, just the facts!

As I am going on the Unlock the Past genealogy cruise to the Baltic in July, I thought it would be good to do a bit of sightseeing in England. Although I have been to the UK before, there are lots of touristy places I have yet to go to. My friendly and efficient travel agent Kelli at the Flight Centre on Bribie Island has booked me into a nice hotel for 3 nights and 2 coach tours so that each day I can tick off some of my must see places in England bucket list. Usually do all my own bookings but with limited me time at the moment, it was nice to be organised and spoilt by somebody else. Thanks Kelli. So looking forward to a bit of R&R and me time!

Somehow I managed to keep my personal genealogy blog challenge 52 Weeks of Genealogical Records in 2015 going. Week 32 is on asylum records and I have got amazing information on some of my ancestors because there were admitted to asylums at some stage. It is not a place you would instantly look for people, but they could go into an asylum for all kinds of reasons. The biographical information collected on admission is similar to hospital and prison records and fantastic, if all the details are known.

This week sees the start of my series of genealogy talks at Moreton Bay Region Libraries. Woodford and North Lakes are on my travel itinerary this week and Albany Creek next week. It will be good to visit all those libraries again as there is usually a good attendance at talks. Details of upcoming talks are on the Events page of my website.

As most of my time is spent behind the wheel of a car lately I am behind with my newsletters and blogs  and seem to be getting most of my genealogy news via Facebook and Twitter. In just over four weeks time there will be lots of genealogy happening at AFFHO Congress 2015 in Canberra. Hope I am not too exhausted to enjoy it - imagine going to sleep in some of those brilliant speaker sessions! After the fantastic lunches is always a worry, but the general air of excitement and anticipation usually keeps everyone awake and taking notes.

More medical appointments tomorrow for the other half and his broken leg, so instead of reading all those dated magazines in the waiting room, I have a couple of genealogy magazines and journals in my bag this time! Until next week happy researching.

Photographs, Rootstech & New books - Genealogy notes 8-15 Feb 2015

Not a lot of spare time this week due to the additional nursing and chauffeuring I have been doing. Thank goodness for the internet and social media. I had originally planned to attend Rootstech 2015 along with other Aussie geneamates but Mum's health was a concern and I never envisaged that Max would break his leg so just as well that I decided not to go this year.

I have been following Rootstech via Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and blogs so I know what I fantastic time everyone has been having. When everyone gets home I look forward to many blog reports - who to look out for? Geniaus (aka Jill Ball), Helen Smith, Alona Tester, Pauleen Cass, Caitlin Gow to start with. No doubt they will refer to others there as well.

Check out Rootstech 2015 and note that some of the sessions were recorded and you can view them. There was also live streaming but you had to be in the right time zone or prepared to watch at odd hours. It would be fantastic to see Rootstech downunder one day but at least we have Congress 2015 coming up at the end of March. Hopefully Max will be out of his leg cast by then although he will still have to be careful about what he does.

Week 31 of my personal genealogy blog challenge 52 Weeks of Genealogical Records in 2015 was on Photographs. Again it was a great challenge as I relooked at one of my grandmother's early albums of mostly unidentified people. I could pick my father in some of them so I am trying to date them that way and then try and work out who the other people are. Dad (Mervyn Gunderson) is on the left, he was always tall and skinny and easy to pick out in photos.

With all my running around after other people I had not visited the post office box for a while and was pleasantly surprised to find some new books to read (in that mysterious space called spare time). Carol Baxter has a new book called Help! Historical and Genealogical Truth: How do I separate fact from fiction? which should be really interesting.

I have a standing order for new titles from Unlock the Past so I was pleased to see a second edition of Chris Paton's Irish Family History Resources Online and a new guide from Noeline Kyle on Nurses & Midwives in Australian History: a guide to historical sources. I have Irish ancestors so Chris' book will be one to work through and Noeline's more of a read as I don't have any nurses or midwives in the family. It will be good to know more about the historical context of nursing and midwifery.

My three talks for the Maryborough genealogy seminar next weekend are finalised and ready to go. I will also have some of the Unlock the Past titles with me for sale as people do like to see things before they buy. It must be coming up for two years since I was last there so I am looking forward to seeing old friends.

Next week looks equally full on with everything except genealogy but hopefully I will get some time to at least keep up with the Rootstech news and blogs as my Aussie friends make their way home. Until next week happy researching!

Postcards, NFHM 2015, Congress - Genealogy Notes 1-7 Feb 2015

Another big week as I try and finalise sponsors for National Family History Month 2015. Our first event has been listed on the NFHM web calendar - thanks to State Library of Victoria for adding their annual Family History Feast. There was a Skype meeting of the AFFHO council this week and I gave an update on progress so far.

The first part of the meeting was frustrating as I could hear everything but they did not think I was there. After 30 minutes I just hung up and that's when they realised I was there and called me back so that I could have my say. The technology is fantastic but you do get little hiccups from time to time. Anyway from this month you can look forward to more updates on NFHM on the website, the Facebook page of NFHM and through this Diary. I am again voluntary coordinator so make sure the whole of August is in your calendar, it is going to be our best yet.

Seated Thomas and Elizabeth Price, Charters Towers ca 1913

Postcards was the topic this week of my personal genealogy blog challenge 52 Weeks of Genealogical Records in 2015 and I am really glad that I picked that topic. I went back through my collection of family postcards and selected a few to talk about and made some new discoveries which is always exciting. But it also led me to rethink about mysteries I have not thought about in years. Who is that woman in the portrait with my great grandparents Thomas and Elizabeth Price? She must have some significance or why include her in the photo. Why have her standing there?

There are now over 400 people registered to attend Congress 2015 in Canberra next month. It is not too late to register and join us for a wonderful four days of genealogy, fantastic speakers, perhaps a little buying frenzy in the exhibitors area, networking and socialising. It is the last chance until 2018 as Congress is only held every three years.

I have received a new book to review - Jayne Shrimpton's Fashion in the 1940s and it looks fantastic. Some great family photos and some great advertisements from magazines and newspapers. For some reason I always like to look at the photos in a book before I read the text. Stay tuned for that review.

My course at the 3UA on Bribie Island history is going well and even when you think you know a lot about a place, it is amazing what you can still learn. After last week's session, I asked about the Amateur Fishing Association and its records as Max's great uncle was President at some point (that clue courtesy of his funeral notice located via Trove). This week the lecturer brought in the AFA's published history and there are lots of references to Adkins Robert Spencer so no guesses what I am reading this week.

It is also timely as I am finishing up a new research guide on sporting ancestors for Unlock the Past and I was including a piece on Spencer and the AFA so now I have even more information to include. This is a perfect example of why you should visit the local historical society to see if there is any information on your family in their library or collection. By the way, sporting ancestors is one of my topics at Congress 2015, I am hoping to inspire people to look for their sporting ancestors. It wasn't all work and no play!

I have received another challenging expert query for Inside History Magazine which I definitely need my thinking cap on for. The Society of Australian Genealogists have asked me to do a webinar on Queensland genealogy for them in May. These webinars are only available to their society members but I think it is great that the Society is trying to meet the needs of members who can't attend talks in person due to distance or other factors.

On the home front the last week has been challenging. My partner broke his leg in two places while walking his brother's big dog who simply pulled him over in his excitement at going for a walk. So lots of time taken up with medical appointments, driving him places and doing things he normally does around the house. I guess we don't really realise who does what until someone no longer does it. His friends have been really good and even mown the lawn for me. And help and support from the brother, owner of the big dog? So far a couple of cheap pizzas so I didn't have to cook dinner one night!

On the plus side I can now manhandle a wheel chair into the back of our car and take Max for a walk/ride along the beach and he can sit and watch the boats and people fishing, although not quite the same as being out in his own boat. Better than sitting in the house and going stir crazy and thank goodness we didn't buy a place with steps. The study chair on wheels is a nice little vehicle to get around inside the house although some of the walls may need a paint touch up when he is mobile again. The chair is a bit like a shopping trolley, with a mind of its own.

Although I have been quiet on this topic my mother has been in hospital since before Christmas. Yesterday we found out that she was being released and sent home which is what she wants. But my brother is overseas at present so I will be doing a few trips up and down the highway while I try and look after both my charges. Mum's neighbour is very good  and will do daily checks but we are not convinced that she is really up to living alone now. We couldn't even persuade her to have a holiday on Bribie as it would be easier to get her here than Max down there. Plus there is no room for all of us in her small townhouse and we have a spare bedroom here. Mum just wants to be at home, her place.

It is sad to see your parents grow old and lose their independence. As babies we are dependent on them but then we are too young to really know what that means. When we are older, we know the value of independence and what it's loss means. Even Max who is now dependent on me and others for the next couple of months is feeling that loss of independence because he simply can't do what he wants to do. Someone has to help him. I hadn't meant to say all this but obviously it is at the forefront of my thoughts and will probably remain there for some time.

Thank goodness I have genealogy to distract me in my spare moments! Happy researching this week.

Military, Podcasts and Congress - Genealogy Notes 24-31 Jan 2015

What a week, four days without internet due to a provider issue. Nothing worse when you have a problem, make a complaint and then it does not get acted on. When you contact them again they are surprised that it isn't fixed, on checking it seems that it wasn't actioned so yes not fixed. Now resolved but it did make me realise how dependent we are on the internet. Some times I deliberately turn off and tune out, but this last week I was running to a few deadlines and it was inconvenient.

But where there is a will there is a way and I wrote various pieces without the internet and then once it was back, all I had to do was check and confirm links and do some blog posting.

It is sad to think that in two months time AFFHO Congress 2015 will be over and we will be waiting for 2018 and the next Congress which will be in Sydney. But before then we still get to attend 2015 and my interview with speaker Carole Riley is here. She is doing four sessions including land records, gold miners, social media and technology such as Dropbox and Evernote. I have heard Carole's talk on Evernote and it was very inspiring and to be honest, I was a little amazed at all the things she does with it.

I found time to write Week 29 in my personal genealogy blog challenge 52 Weeks of Genealogical Records in 2015. This week's topic was on Military Records and there are just so many aspects to this topic so I focused on dossiers as they have been indexed and digitised and are online free courtesy of the National Archives of Australia for the Boer War and World War one.

I remembered to check the January podcast from Genies Down Under as Maria had asked me to contribute a tip or two to Episode 39: Mistake stuff for genies - what to avoid to increase the quality of your research. Maria also asked me to contribute to Episode 40 on Superstar stuff in family history - messages from Aussie family history gurus which will be available in February. Lots of great advice coming up.

During my down time I also took the opportunity to input more of my own family data into Family Historian from scratch. Some of the certificates I entered I haven't look at in nearly 40 years and it really is amazing what you forget. My own birth certificate has the name of the doctor and nurse who delivered me and I was surprised to see that it was my old family doctor that I remember from childhood. He was assisted by Nurse Snowball which I thought was an odd name, unusual in itself but also odd for Queensland where it snows very infrequently and then mostly in border areas.

My mother, me and baby brother 

However I have to say redoing your data entry from scratch is very time consuming, although I was also getting used to Family Historian my new genealogy program. I am quite impressed with some of the features and I am scanning certificates and photos and linking as I go so that takes a bit more time. I did a Legacy Family Tree GEDCOM of my son's paternal side and simply imported that into Family Historian which was a much easier option but that was without any tidying up for consistency or looking for missing citations from an even earlier genealogy program. At some point I will have to do a clean up but for the moment the focus is still on reentering all my own family, including citations and standardising place names.

My article and blog for the Going In-Depth digital genealogy magazine published by The In-Depth Genealogist is due tomorrow. I have had both pieces written for about a week but keep tinkering with them as it is a bit nerve wracking writing for a new magazine who may not be so familiar with my style. Also their style and procedures are a bit different to what I am used to, but once I get into the swing of it perhaps those nerves will go away. There are a few 2013 issues on free access here if you are not familiar with this online magazine.

The other exciting thing for the week was that I joined the Bribie U3A (University of the Third Age) and enrolled in a Bribie Island history course. While one of my families were part of the Island's history, there is a lot that I don't know or have not thought about for years. So I am really looking forward to this in Term 1. The topic is so popular they have a ongoing group which also meets each term to talk about new discoveries, anniversaries, and anything else connected to the Island and surrounds.

I couldn't go on the 7th Unlock the Past genealogy cruise to WA but I have been enjoying Helen Smith's blog posts (plural so don't miss any) on the cruise and associated shore events. It is not quite as good as going yourself, but reading about it and seeing all the photos that Helen has taken is the next best thing.

I was also pleased to see that Helen is giving a talk at Bribie Island Library in June so that is in my diary as Helen's talks are always full of info. The Your History Our History program from Moreton Bay Region Libraries has lots of great genealogy talks from Feb to Jun so if you are in the area, all of their libraries are hosting talks.

Well that is my week in review and if there are no more internet dramas, I have a list of personal research follow ups I want to spend time on next week. I love the research, not so keen on the data entry but I love the option to press a key and generate great reports. Till next week, happy researching.

Education records, AFFHO Congress interviews & More - Genealogy notes 8-15 Jan 2015

It is a scary thought but we are into the third week of 2015 and already I think I am talking too much! I have accepted another two talks, both in May. The first is part of an all day seminar on immigration organised by Southern Suburbs branch of the GSQ and the second is for the Genealogical Society of Queensland, a new date for my asylums talks which had to be postponed last November due to car problems. Dates have been added to the speaking calendar on the Events page of my website. That makes 17 presentations so far not counting the two Unlock the Past genealogy cruises in July and November (not sure how many I will be doing on them yet) and National Family History Month in August.

Yesterday I gave my first presentation for 2015 to Caloundra Family History Research group on School Days: education records for family history. They are a great group, laughed in all the right places and more importantly, hadn't really thought about how much education records can add to family history research. Most of them said they would be going home to see what they could discover on their own families. As usual I have placed the presentation on the Resources page of my website, scroll down to Presentations.

My AFFHO Congress 2015 interviews continue and the latest is with Mathew Trinca from the National Museum of Australia. It is only 10 weeks to Congress so before we know, we will all be meeting up in Canberra for a geneaorgy (I wonder if that will make Jill Ball's geneadictionary)?

The topic of this week's 52 Weeks of Genealogical Records in 2015, my personal genealogy blog challenge, was census records and I have made some interesting discoveries using the UK and Irish census records. Read the post here.

It really is hard trying to keep up with all the new digitised newspapers. Both Trove and the British Newspaper Archive made announcements of new titles and of course, they cover areas that I am interested in. Do I keep cataloging my library into Library Thing and reorganising and scanning my paper documents accumulated over nearly 40 years (both long term projects) or do I drop everything and see what exciting things I can find??

You guessed right! The lure of Trove was too strong but I was rewarded with an article on the retirement of my great grandfather James Carnegie. Sadly there was no image but it did talk about his career on Brisbane ferries. Thanks to the article I now know he spent 28 years on the ferries, traveled 200,000 miles, he smoked a pipe and weighed 16 stone! All things you are not likely to find in government documents and as he died before I was born, I never had the chance to know him.

These weren't the only temptations, there are always interesting links posted on Twitter, Facebook, in blog posts and the enewsletters I receive from state archives, libraries and so on. It is a wonder that I ever get anything done!

We are having a heat wave with high humidity at the moment and sweat is pouring off me as I look at the pool and the surrounding palm trees. Yes more temptation in paradise but before I can leap in, I have promised to attack the weeds that enjoyed all last week's rain. Why do weeds grow faster than flowers and herbs although the basil is looking great and it won't be long before the tomatoes start ripening. One of our beautiful hibiscus even flowered this morning. So off to do some gardening before I see some new genealogy temptation. Until next time, happy researching.

Genealogy Notes 1-7 Jan 2015 - Off to an exciting new year

To me a new year is like spring cleaning and I know from reading some geneafriends blogs that they feel the same way as I do. For example, long time friend and library colleague Family Tree Frog summed up a lot of my own thoughts in her Resolutions, Reflections and Requiem post recently. I am not totally into the 'Do Over' but I am continuing my study tidy up which includes all my filing cabinets. My trouble is that one manilla folder of paper can generate a whole host of new questions, hours of searching on the laptop and then more time entering data or revising my draft family histories. It is a bit like Pandora's Box or is that Aladdin's Cave??

I did complete the Accentuate the Positive Geneameme 2014 and once again, the questions made me remember family history discoveries during the year that I tend to forget about unless prompted. Of course a lot of my discoveries are also recorded in this Diary which is a good reason to have a family history blog. You can capture your findings while writing up your stories and sharing them with others. The best part is that Google searches blogs and some long lost cousin will find you and have exciting new information. It does happen, just ask any geneablogger!

It was good to get back into some personal genealogy blogging and Week 26 of my 52 Weeks of Genealogical Records in 2015 (carrying on from 2014) was on School Records, one of my favourite topics. I even included some of my newly scanned school photos! It was also a timely post as my first talk for 2015 is School Days: education records for family history and I will be giving that to the Caloundra Family History Research group next week. They are always a very keen and enthusiastic group with standing room only last time I spoke there. Anyone recognise this little girl on her first day of school?

As part of my study clean up there are bags of mixed genealogy magazines that I usually give away to the smaller groups that I talk to and Caloundra will be the first recipient in 2015. I find that rereading some of the older magazines or reading journals by other societies always gives me new ideas which is why I recycle my mags rather than simply tossing them in the bin. It is also a small test to see if any Caloundra members read this blog and if they find out in advance what I am planning next week. I try to convert at least one person to blogging (reading or writing) every time I talk.

There is another AFFHO Congress 2015 speaker interview with John Blackwood, a man of few words but President of the Genealogical Society of Victoria. Read my interview with John here. I still have three interviews on my lists and my official blogger colleagues Jill Ball and Pauleen Cass have also been doing their interviews. Click on the links to their names and scroll their posts to see the interviews they have been doing.

Hard to believe in three months time it will all be over for another three years, Sydney in 2018. However, I will be making the most of Congress 2015 and if you can't attend, watch out for all the social media posts as I know quite a few Geneabloggers will be there.

I have been working on finalising two more research guides for Unlock the Past and that has taken up a bit of time. I want to finish them as I have some new projects in line for 2015. I have agreed to write another Australian course for the National Institute for Genealogical Studies and that is due before National Family History Month in August. Although there will be a bit of overlap there as NFHM is like a rolling project as I try to get everyone excited about it and events organised.

From March I am excited to say that I will be doing some articles and blog posts for The In-Depth Genealogist so that will be quite different. Some of the 2013 back issues of Going In-Depth are free online if you have not seen this internet genealogy magazine. Have a look here.

Sad to say I am about to send off my last article for Irish Lives Remembered after two years of writing articles for them. Time obviously does fly when you are having fun. This morning I received notice that the Jan-Feb 2015 issue of Irish Lives Remembered is online for free so have a look at that too if you have Irish ancestors.

I have four talks coming up in February so I also have to start thinking about those too, not to mention my two presentations for Congress in March. Just as well I like talking and writing.

There are so many great enewsletters out there to read as well as blogs and I can't list them all but if you follow me on Twitter and Facebook you will see some of the items I am sharing. One that is worth having a look at is GeniAus' Gems or GAGs as she affectionately calls them. It is a round up of the blogs that she has found interesting or useful.

Well my first week in 2015 was full on genealogy and tidying up but there is some housework and gardening looming as we have some more family members coming at the weekend. Although at the moment it is raining (for a nice change). Until next time, happy researching.

Genealogy Notes 26-31 Dec 2014 New Year Thoughts

I hope everyone had a great Christmas with family and friends and now we have a new year on the horizon. Somewhere between Christmas and New Year our local supermarket started selling hot cross buns (traditionally associated with Easter) and other stores will have them on sale from the New Year. No wonder we think our years are speeding up, but obviously the buns are a good seller!

The end of a year always has me thinking about what I have done and what I am looking forward to in the coming year. I like to set some basic goals because as a procrastinator, I like to remind myself from time to time of things I really want to do. So here are my Genealogy Aspirations for 2015. Nothing too ambitious and lots of room to do other things as they come up over the year.

Each year geneafriend GeniAus organises a genealogy blog challenge Accentuate the Positive 2014 Genememe and I like to take part in this as well. The questions always prompt me to think about genealogy finds that I may have forgotten over the course of a year or they give me a chance to tell others, someone else might benefit from my experiences. I am still pondering my answers so look out for that response soon. Anyone is welcome to do it and if you do, let Jill know as she collates all the responses.

I have completed another AFFHO Congress 2015 speaker interview, this time with David Berry from the State Library of New South Wales. And fast forwarding, in three months time Congress will be winding up for another three years. So if you don't want to wait that long, make sure you get to Canberra at the end of March!

With so much happening in the second half of 2014, I totally missed my 5th anniversary of blogging. SHHE Genie Rambles started in Sep 2009 and records a lot of my genealogy adventures as well as blogs telling my family stories and other bits and pieces. Through it I have made contact with long lost cousins, tracked missing branches of families and made some great friends. I really can't imagine family history now without blogging.

Back in September, the Lovely Blog award was doing the rounds and I was fortunate to receive two awards (one for Diary and one for SHHE Genie Rambles) and my responses are here and here. Just recently I received another one from Chris Wright and rather than do another response, I will simply direct you to her blog post The Ancestor Digger One Lovely Blog Award where she nominated me. In her list of nominated blogs she has some of my favourite bloggers so check them out, especially if you have not come across them before.

One of my projects over the last week has been to continue to catalogue my library into Library Thing and this has been a useful exercise but does seem never ending at the moment. Surprisingly I have turned up duplicates (where I have two of something), outdated editions and I kept the earlier edition, books that are truly out of date but still with some useful knowledge, and some books that are now in a pile on the floor. Some I no longer want but still have relevance so will be offered to a society, some I will offer to others and some will go into the bin.

But what has truly surprised me is what I have forgotten I had and by handling each book, pamphlet, journal or whatever again, I have been struck by how useful some of them are, even in today's Google world. I bought a family history back in the 70s with distant connections to my White family and I probably haven't looked at it since.Surprise surprise, all the work I have done since then now makes this book extremely relevant to my own White family. Going back to basics and looking at research with new eyes can be rewarding, not simply a waste of time.

I now have another pile of books that I want to go back through again - at least with Library Thing I can find them all now, or will be able to, when I finish the last four bookcases!

There have been some fantastic Christmas/New Year specials from all the big companies, Ancestry, Findmypast, MyHeritage, Eneclann and so on. I have seen most of them via Facebook when friends share posts on bargains and Geneabloggers has written a blog Genealogy Bargains which sums up a lot of the deals on offer.

It is super hot here and humidity is way up so time to escape the geneacave for a swim! If you are wondering about any of my genea words then check out the GeneaDictionary. Wishing everyone a fantastic geneayear in 2015 and I hope to meet some of you at the AFFHO Congress in Canberra, the NSW & ACT conference in Port Macquarie or the History Queensland conference in Brisbane. Or the really lucky ones on the Unlock the Past Baltic cruise! Until next year, happy researching.

Genealogy Notes 19-25 December 2014 - Christmas thoughts

Christmas Eve and we are getting everything ready for tomorrow's lunch at my mother's place. All my brother's family will be there and all of mine too - the only one who may not be there is our mother. A week or so ago she had a fall, needed some stitches in her head and after a few days in hospital it was back into rehab to make her strong enough to go home. But she developed pneumonia over the weekend and it is now a wait and see how she goes to whether or not they will let her out for Christmas lunch. The antibiotics have helped and she is looking better but we will get the doctor's decision later today. So we might be all trooping up to the hospital before we tuck into our seafood feast.

Christmas is always the one time of the year when we do try to come together as a family but it has not always been possible with my living interstate for so many years. Plus we have extended families - my son usually alternates Christmas between us and his other grandma but this year he is managing to fit us both in, although they are not planning to eat two Christmas lunches! Max's families are all interstate so there will be lots of phone calls and there are packages under the Christmas tree.

So no matter how you are celebrating Christmas this year, take the time to think about your families and all the memories you are creating. Capture those images and memories on your cameras so that you can remember those moments in the future. Merry Christmas everyone and I hope there are some genealogy goodies in your stockings.

This time of year I also start thinking about 2014 in retrospect and looking ahead to 2015 and what it might be bringing. Regular readers will know that I try and capture this with my Genealogy Aspirations blog posts - here is my 2014 Genealogy Aspirations. I will be reviewing those five aspirations and thinking about what I want to focus on in 2015. Hopefully I will have that done before the end of the year, only a week away now.

There are lots of exciting genealogy events happening in Australia in 2015 and I am lucky to be giving talks at all of them. See where I am speaking in 2015 on the Services & Events page of my website. Additional talks may be added as I accept invitations throughout the year. I have also got some new and exciting writing projects lined up too but more about that in the New Year.

I have done completed two more interviews with speakers from the AFFHO Congress 2015 mega genealogy event next March in Canberra - Cora Num and Jennie Norberry. There are still a few more to come but probably not until the New Year. It is really interesting to see the tips for attending Congress that the speakers are giving. For me, to make the most of it you just need to be a sponge, and soak it all up but it also helps to be prepared and that's why I think these speaker interviews are so useful.

The National Family History Month 2015 website and NFHM Facebook page are updated as much as I can until sponsorship is finalised, hopefully in January. Then my goal is to try and convince every genealogy and family history society in Australia to have an event. I may need some help with that, so if you are a member of any societies, make sure you mention NFHM  August 2015 to them.

Thank you to all my regular readers and to those who dip in from time to time. I enjoy passing on news and details of the genealogy events I am lucky enough to attend. I go into 2015 more convinced that social media is the way of the future and hopefully we will see more genealogy and family history societies joining in and reaching out to their members and others in the online world.

Have a safe and happy Christmas everyone, until next time.

Genealogy notes 11-18 Dec 2014 - more AFFHO Congress interviews

Hard to believe Christmas is now only a week away and the New Year a week after that - but then I say that every year. We have hosted a party for the neighbours and most of the shopping is done, the tree is up and the lights flashing around the yard and house. So definitely looks like Christmas even if I am still wondering where the year went.

I have done two more AFFHO Congress 2015 speaker interviews - Robyn Williams from New Zealand on New Zealand topics and Kate Bagnall who has been researching Chinese Australian families. I still have a couple more interviews to do next week and I have been sending out reminders to others on my list to interview. Pauleen Cass, my fellow official Congress blogger with Jill Ball, has posted her interview with me - see it here.

Time does fly as since the photo I sent to the Congress organisers which must have been back in 2013, I have changed my look. Always odd seeing photos of yourself and that is something I have done a lot of over the past week. I have been going through photo albums selecting photos to digitise and at the same time, generating so many memories.

There has been a sustained attack on all my paper genealogy magazines and  journals, although each one I read has just given me new ideas to follow up. Once I am on a new website hours can go by and of course there are all the leads from Twitter and Facebook posts too. In an attempt to capture some of the #genealogy tweets I started a Shauna Hicks Genealogy Daily Paper-li but for some reason, even though I only selected people I follow for genealogy, I have ended up with some strange additions.

So that needs a bit of tweaking and of course I still follow Jill Ball's The Australian Genealogists Daily. I noticed that some key tweets weren't showing up in that which is why I started my own. We have so many good online social media enthusiasts in Australia we should try and capture more of what they are sharing with us.

MyHeritage issued a press release about their new Instant Discoveries which

"provides information about one's ancestors and relatives while signing up to MyHeritage, giving a free, fun and immediately gratifying introduction to the fascinating world of family history. First-time users to provide very basic information about 7 family members: themselves, their parents and grandparents and then powerful technology automatically searches for information about their family in MyHeritage’s vast databases of billions of records. Within seconds, users are then presented with an Instant Discovery™, showing a person likely to be their ancestor, together with a wealth of related information including the entire family branch, names, facts, photos and documents. Users can then apply it all to their family tree in a click." 

They tested it on people in New York and you can view the video here. I am wondering how it would actually work here in Australia and at the moment it is only available to new MyHeritage users. I have had a MyHeritage account for a few years so I can't check. So if anyone here in Australia has tried it please let me know.

While I can see the appeal of instantly finding someone, especially in this day and age, I am not sure if that is better than some of the research thrills and satisfaction I have had over the years as I have painstakingly tracked people down. For me the path has been the challenge, not just the family knowledge at the end.

Findmypast had a very handy family historian Christmas gift guide for the  which I hope my family noted and of course I am also hoping for Nathan Dylan Goodwin's new novella The Orange Lilies. I have also mentioned a new orchid several times and there is that wonderful red and white toadstool statue at the local nursery which would be perfect in the back garden. Boxes of chocolates or electric toothbrushes will not be accepted! I do hope that Santa is more receptive than the family.

My other big task is getting the website and Facebook account for National Family History Month changed over for 2015. I have made some changes to wording on the home page but got stuck changing over the banner so I have called in the cavalry to assist.  Sponsors are still being finalised so I have left 2014 sponsors for the moment.

Events for 2015 can now be added to the web calendar - see here. The Family History Month Facebook page has been updated to and I will start to post any NFHM 2015 news as it comes too hand (or I generate as the voluntary coordinator).

Finally as part of the Kiva Genealogists for Families team I made another three loans for Christmas - two were from repayments from earlier loans and the other $25 loan was my Christmas gift to others. Join me by clicking here. $25 has the power to change peoples lives and it is so
nice to be part of this team helping families.

Very hot and humid here today and a storm predicted for the afternoon. We have seen some very bad storms the last few weeks so I hope everyone stays safe. There will be one more Diary before Christmas so have fun with all those last minute preparations. Remember to find some time for genealogy, it doesn't take too long to read a blog or two! Until next time.

Genealogy Notes 4-10 Dec 2014 blog posts & 2015 events

The last week has seen three very different blog posts. The first was a So This is Christmas 2014 geneameme challenge from Sharn White (FamilyHistory4U) and it has been interesting reading the various responses from other Geneabloggers. My response was 2014 Christmas Genealogy Geneameme and I found it very hard to remember any of my childhood Christmas dinners. So this Christmas I will have to ask my brother what he remembers and to see if Mum has any old Christmas photos to jog my memory!

My next blog post was a book review of Nathan Dylan Goodwin's first two genealogical crime mysteries with Morton Farrier, a forensic genealogist - Hiding The Past and The Lost Ancestor. Read my review of both books here. Since I finished the review, I have discovered there is a new Morton Farrier adventure, a novella ebook The Orange Lilies and I have been dropping hints to the family. Certainly a more interesting present than the electric toothbrush I received last year!

The final blog for the week was another interview in my AFFHO Congress 2015 series of interviews with speakers. Read my interview with Michelle Nichols here. I have some more interviews to put up but there have been severe storms here every day and it is just not worth being online with so many lightning strikes around. Pauleen Cass one of the Congress official blogging team is doing a similar interview with me although I am still considering my own answers to the questions!

I have received some sponsor confirmations for National Family History Month 2015 which is fantastic. Hopefully I will hear from the others in the next week or so and then I can change the website over for 2015. Make sure you have August marked in your diaries as NFHM.

All my known speaking engagements for 2015 are now on the Services & Events page of my website.  I have three major conferences, two genealogy cruises, some society seminars and library talks so far and as I commit to any other presentations I will add them to the list. But it looks like being a big year for genealogy in 2015 especially if you live in Canberra, Port Macquarie, Adelaide or Brisbane or can travel to those events!

I went to the Bribie Island family history group meeting and Christmas lunch today and everyone spoke about what they had been doing. Sometimes that is a great way to learn about new sites or to get other peoples ideas on your family history problems. No more meetings now until next year.

Another storm is rolling its way in and it is now so dark I almost need the lights on and it is still afternoon. We are fairly lucky here on Bribie Island as the main storm cells seem to go around us and as a sand island, the water usually just goes straight through. The winds can be pretty full on depending on the direction they are coming from.  Thunder, lightning, rain and wind now here so time to log off and stand by with the mop and a torch! Happy researching until next time.