Genealogy notes 29 Mar 2012 - Day 2 of Congress

This daily blog is a bit late because I slept in this morning - too many receptions and get together dinners! Barely made it in time for the first plenary session of Day 3 of AFFHO12!

Yesterday got off to a great start with Jenny Higgins from the National Library of Australia talking about Did They Do That In Those Days? which looked at why you should put social context in family histories. And of course she used the resources of the NLA to illustrate her points. I was very pleased to accept an I Love TROVE badge as I am one of its many fans and hardly a day goes by when I don't try and find something in it. I also mention TROVE in just about every talk I give so yes, I'm a fan (or is that an addict?).

The next session I went to was Barbara Baker talking about Scottish Research Online and I hoped she wasn't just talking about Scotland's People and although a great site, there are other sites which can provide different information and social context. I wasn't disappointed and Barbara mentioned quite a few URLs that I will have to follow up when I get home. One obvious omission, and you can't always fit everything into a presentation, was the FreeCen, FreeReg and Free BMD sites.

Then there was morning tea but as I was speaking next I quietly went to the big theatre where I was speaking and checked in with Liana from WA who was chairing the session. I always like it when I have long time friends chairing sessions as it makes me feel at home and amongst friends. You would think after giving talks for over 30 years I would lose the nerves but I don't. Today's talk was Are You The Family Archivist? and from verbal feedback afterwards, it achieved my objective to get people thinking about how their family records are kept and more importantly, what will happen to those records in the future. I have an earlier version of this talk on my website Resources page and it is also the basis of one of my research guides Your Family History Archives: A Brief Introduction.

With all my talks out of the way I could enjoy lunch and wander round the exhibits and catch up with people. I finally got around to renewing my membership of the Society of Australian Genealogists and it's always good to catch up with Heather. Over on the National Institute of Genealogical Studies stand I caught up with Brenda and Kerry and on the Genealogical Society of Victoria stand was Linley, another well known genealogist and expert on the GSV library.

After lunch we had a very entertaining talk from David Holman on Fascinating Facts and Figures which kept us all awake laughing at various name combinations and statistics. His section on Extreme Age interested me especially when he started tracking claimants back through the census and their ages varied considerably each ten years! One of the unusual forenames he mentioned was Zenobia and I have a surname and oddly enough, Alan another friend from Victoria and sitting beside me, also has a Zenobia but until that moment neither of us realised we had that in common. Small world, especially when you do family history.

My next session was Pat Lokan talking about Parallels and Contrasts Life in Cornwall and South Australia 1825-1875 and this was of personal interest as my Cornish gg grandparents came out  from Cornwall to Moonta SA in 1863. I really liked seeing the photographs of places in Cornwall and it is over 30 years since I first visited Moonta so time for another visit. It was also interesting to note that Cornish mining landscapes have achieved World Heritage status - see Cornish Mining World Heritage.

Afternoon tea goes so quickly because by the time you walk back to the exhibition area, it is almost time to turn around and walk back and that's not even factoring in toilet stops! Start chatting to someone and timing becomes real tight. My last session of the day was Dan Poffenberger giving a personal presentation on the life of his grandmother and I don't think I've seen that many marriages within a family before! It also showed how most of our ancestors lives took many turns depending on the circumstances they came up against.

Then it was a quick dash back to the hotel to get ready for the Adelaide Lord Mayor's reception for speakers and other dignitaries. Max came in to join me and while there were a couple of speeches, the wine flowed freely and the finger food seemed to be plentiful and delicious. Afterwards we joined some friends for a very nice and cheap Chinese banquet and again the drinks flowed freely as did the conversations. Perhaps that's why I had trouble waking up this morning?

Anyway Day 3 is now over and I am madly trying to finish this Day 2 blog before going out to attend the Conference Dinner and if you don't see the Day 3 blog tomorrow morning you will know I had a great time at the dinner and slept in again! Must dash now, until next time.

Genealogy notes 22-27 Mar 2012 - At 13th Australasian Genealogy & Heraldry Congress

The trip over to Adelaide was great and as usual we wandered from our original itinerary and it's just as well we always give ourselves more time! We ended up staying a night at Dimboola in western Victoria (still trying to get over recent flooding), then onto Kingston SE on the South Australian coast (home of Larry the Big Lobster) where we couldn't resist a fresh cooked lobster and of course the obligatory champagne to wash it down and then we went to Goolwa, a very historic town at the mouth of the Murray River. From there we went up to Brighton and the nearest caravan park to where our family live. It was great to spend some time with them before I moved on into the CBD to be close to all the action at the 13th Australasian Genealogy & Heraldry Congress.

After checking in, I went down to the Migration Museum for a quick meeting with Catherine curator of their exhibition Who Are We Now? and to see how they had used one of my blogs on my Irish ancestors. The social media aspect of the exhibition was quite small but when it eventually moves online there will be more scope for online involvement. Still it was a thrill to see a page from my website blog and a small quote on why I think blogging our family histories is so important. I had an even quicker look at the other  non permanent exhibition outlining the life of a Japanese woman (Portrait of My Life: Tomono Wynn's Story) and it was a really interesting way to tell a person's life story. In the same building is Behind the Wall, the story of the Adelaide Destitute Asylum and some of the unfortunate people who lived there at various times. I've always been fascinated by asylums (several ancestors were inmates for various reasons) and am always drawn to photos and stories of inmates - there really is so much history inside asylum walls (same for prisons where even more of my ancestors resided)!

From there it was a quick dash back to the registration centre at the Adelaide Convention Centre where I collected my congress satchel and its various goodies (I always love taking it back to the hotel room and spreading the contents out to see what I've got). It was also a chance to have a quick look at the exhibitor stalls although some were still busy setting up and there were lots of faces I knew so quick chats here and there. One of the advantages of staying close to a congress venue is that you can duck back to your room and leave the satchel before heading back over for the welcome reception. The other advantage is that you generally run into other congress attendees, and I met lots of people in the hotel lift as well!

I'm not sure how many people are attending the congress, but there were lots of people at the reception and I managed to say hello to old friends from my former home towns of Brisbane and Canberra, while catching up with people from current home town Melbourne and Sydney, not to mention Adelaide and Perth. I didn't see anyone I knew from Darwin or Tasmania but with so many people it's hard to know who's there and who isn't. I love conference attendance lists so that you can find out who's there and actively look for them but so far I haven't seen one for congress.

While there were nibbles and soft drinks at the reception, I joined Kiwi  friends (New Zealand for American readers) Seonaid (Auckland City Libraries) and Robyn for dinner and international speaker David Holman (from Cornwall and Chairman of the Federation of Family History Societies) also joined us. Over a wide ranging discussion I enjoyed a soft shell chilli crab which was to die for and washed down by an equally good Margaret River semillion sav blanc. David made us all envious when he brought out his iPad to show us various apps and tell us about his travel plans while here in Australia.

Despite a much later night than I usually keep, I still woke up at 5.30am this morning all eager to get to Congress. The official opening is at 9.00am with an address by John Bannon AO, Chair of the National Archives of Australia Advisory Committee and former Premier of South Australia. At the reception last night, Geniaus (aka Jill) handed out her blogger beads (an innovation she brought back from Rootstech 2012) to a number of us who will be tweeting and blogging about the congress over the next four days. The Twitter hashtag is #AFFHO12 and I will try to pull some of the blogs together in this Diary and I will use AFFHO12 as a tag for this blog as well.

I always enjoy the congress which only happens every three years, and this one already seems bigger with its four days and four concurrent sessions plus plenary sessions, but there are congress proceedings so for all those talks I miss in person, I can still read the paper. Although often it's not quite the same but you can't be everywhere at once! And if I don't hurry up, I'll miss the opening. Stay tuned for congress updates and perhaps even breaking news!

Genealogy notes 9-21 March - getting ready for genealogy Congress

This Diary has been a bit quiet for a number of reasons. Our friends came for the Labour Day weekend so it was really good showing them around Melbourne and we had fish and chips down at Williamstown and explored all the old buildings. It's amazing that the main streetscape is very much as it was back in the 1800s. They ended up going home a bit earlier than planned as their first grandchild decided to arrive earlier and quicker thank everyone expected. So the champagne flowed and we shared in their excitement. But I still would have liked to take them to Werribee Open Range Zoo as I want to go back and see the silver back gorillas they have now.

The next week was quiet as I had a basal cell carcinoma (one of the better kind of skin cancers you can get) removed from the right side of my face, leaving a bit of a hole and ten rather ugly stitches. A few days later the doctor called to confirm that the biopsy showed that he had got it all and everything should be ok in the future. But I do need to look for any more that might pop up which is a legacy of growing up on the Gold Coast in the 1960s and 70s and slathering ourselves with coconut oil!

I did manage to finish sorting out my professional library and archive books and took three big boxes to one of the members of the local branch of the Australian Society of Archivists Religious Archives special interest group. Most of these people are part time or volunteers and don't always have access to professional libraries. I'm hoping that everyone will be able to select a book/s that will continue to help them with their work. I'd rather give my books to people I know who will use and appreciate them than sell them to a book dealer - it's like an ongoing legacy. I mentored many people during my career and it's one of the things I miss in retirement.

The other major thing I did was to finalise my two presentations for the 13th Australasian Congress on Genealogy & Heraldry and sent them to the conference organisers. It starts next Tuesday night with the welcome reception which is always a good opportunity to catch up with friends and colleagues from other States and New Zealand.

I've also made arrangements to visit the Adelaide Migration Museum to visit their exhibition Who Are We Now - last year I was privileged to be asked to contribute one of my blogs - Letters Home - My Irish Families to the exhibition. Due to timing and distance I wasn't able to get to the exhibition opening so I'm going on Tuesday to have a look and also chat to the Curator and find out how the exhibition has been received. I hope some of the other Congress attendees also make it to the Migration Museum as it's is definitely worth a visit.

We are driving over to Adelaide and taking the caravan so we will be doing some sightseeing along the way - going via the Coorong (vast unspoiled ecosystem of freshwater lakes, wetlands, ocean and saltwater inlets) and returning via Berri on the Murray River (where Max grew up) and should be home for Easter. Where is this year going - seems even faster than last year but then I say that every year lately. I will be blogging and tweeting from the Congress so if you can't make it, you can at least follow what's happening as there will be a few of us trying to capture everything through our tweets and blogs. Stay tuned.