Genealogy Notes 10-12 August 2013 - NFHM update and a new sponsor competition!

I have to confess to a laptop/social media free day on Saturday - it was all building my new vegie gardens and swimming in the pool to celebrate this absolutely incredible August weather we are currently having. You would never know it is winter here on Bribie Island although my memories of Brisbane in August are cold westerly winds especially at Ekka time! So having had a day of relaxation I'm now back in the excitement of National Family History Month.

First I need to share some more news from one of our sponsors, the National Archives of Australia. Regular readers will know that I have just returned from a meeting of the centenary of WW1 advisory committee. I've always been interested in the Boer War as Mum had two uncles who served in both the Queensland colonial contingents and also in the Commonwealth contingents. What I didn't know was that NAA has put the contingent lists for their Boer Ward records into ArcHive their exciting new website that allows researchers at home to help transcribe the documents and make them more accessible to everyone.

Well there are 187 Boer War records waiting to be transcribed! You can search for whatever kind of records that you might like to work on. It's a bit like an Aladdin's cave - too much choice but all good! NAA even gives a rating for difficulty eg easy or hard but looking at some of the 'hard' ones as a long time researcher I can easily read the handwriting (but then I did work in archives for a long time too). Most of these appear to be nominal rolls which make for fascinating reading while you transcribe. Why not register and give it a go!

Now for the National Family History Month update. I've added a few more entries but I think most events are now on the web calendar. I've seen references to events on Twitter, Facebook, Google +, blogs and list servs so it looks like there is a lot of genealogy going on this month! I was going to try and capture all the references but there is just too much but Geniaus aka Jill has added a widget to her blog to show all the tweets for #NFHM13 throughout August. Read her blog post about it here.

There is a late sponsor - Momento which is a online photo book company and they have offered a $150 voucher for a NFHM competition. So I have placed the competition details on the NFHM home page and I've decided to get everyone to help me think of great ideas for NFHM 2014. As national coordinator for the first time this year, it has been a steep learning curve and I've built on existing practices as well as introducing some of my own ideas. But I'm sure that there are lots of other great ideas out there so put your thinking caps on and submit an entry.

I know I have international readers so I'm sorry to say that the NFHM competition is only open to individuals in Australia. If anyone wants to submit an idea/comment please do so but you won't be eligible for the prize this year. Also entries must be within the competition time frame and must include your name and postcode. It will be drawn on 30 August when the NFHM sponsors' prizes for genealogy/family history societies are also drawn.

I rather like the idea of a competition for individuals but at this stage I'm not sure how much work I've just let myself in for. Still it's a learning experience and someone will be an excited winner. I'm looking forward to 30 August and the prize draw and notifying all the lucky winners. But that will also mean NFHM will be over and that's a bit sad but we can all start planning and looking forward to NFHM 2014. (A little birdie has told me that it will be a month again next year so that's fantastic news!)

We have more Melbourne friends arriving for a two day stay so I'm going to be a bit busy entertaining them here on beautiful Bribie Island but I hope everyone continues to have a great genealogy month with all those events across Australia and if you are stuck for something to do, don't forget my 31 Activities for Researchers & Societies for NFHM! Until next time.

Genealogy notes 27 Jul - 3 Aug 2013 National Family History Month

I live a normally busy if not hectic lifestyle but this last week has completely tuckered me out! It's only the third day of National Family History Month and I'm exhausted but it's a fantastic feeling. I've put up so many new events on the NFHM web calendar although we still don't have anything happening in the Northern Territory yet. Hopefully that might change as the month progresses.

I was also busy finalising everything for the launch which was on Thursday in Brisbane. It was a fantastic day - we travelled to Brisbane early so that we could collect Kerrie Gray, President of the Australasian Federation of Family History Organisations (AFFHO) from the airport on our way through to the National Archives of Australia, Brisbane Office for the launch. I've done a blog post on the various speakers and also gave an account of the changes to NFHM 2013. The winners of the 2013 Nick Vine Hall awards are also included and don't miss all the news from National Archives of Australia. You can read about the launch and speaker talks here. NFHM is quite different from previous years and I think that we have more events than ever before but I haven't had time to count them.

The last few days have seen me give three radio interviews about NFHM - one with Christy-Lee Macqueen, Mornings Presenter with ABC North West, one with Ed Cowlishaw on Riverland Today with ABC Riverland and Mallee and one with Natasha Mitchell on the program Life Matters on ABC National. That was an interesting one hour session titled Framed: the family portrait. There is something a bit nerve wracking about doing live to air interviews - I always have the fear that the questions will be tricky or that I will have a complete mind freeze. But they all went well and I was amazed at how many people actually heard the shows, especially the Life Matters session. I'm not a big radio person myself but others obviously are.

I'm now about to pack for my trip down south. First stop tomorrow is Melbourne where I will be attending Family History Feast at the State Library of Victoria. This will be a bit of a trip down memory lane as it is the 10th anniversary since Anne Burrows (SLV), Anne Piggott (NAA) and myself (then PROV) started what has become a must attend event in NFHM. This year is another full house which is fantastic and myself and the two Annes will celebrate over dinner that night. Really looking forward to catching up with them.

From Melbourne I'm heading up to Canberra (another one of my old homes) to be the NFHM speaker at the August meeting of the Heraldry and Genealogy Society of Canberra (HAGSOC). I'm having dinner with a few of my old HAGSOC friends before the talk so I will have to stick to one glass of wine with dinner or there won't be a talk! On Wednesday I'm catching up with an old colleague from NAA and on Thursday it's a meeting of the NAA's advisory committee for the centenary of WW1 which should be interesting. I love hearing about all the projects on the go for next year.

Somehow I will try and blog these events while I'm on the road and I know I did say that I would be doing blog posts on my 31 activities for researchers and 31 activities for genealogy/family history societies during NFHM but there may be a bit of a delay. Once I'm back on Bribie Island I'll be able to catch up again.

It's been great to see all my social media friends promoting NFHM and I really think that by the end of August everyone will know what genealogy and family history is all about. Thanks everyone. I'm also learning new skills and managed to put up some photos of the launch on the NFHM Facebook page and the number of Likes has gone up to 434 which is still a long way short of the 1000 Likes I would like before the end of August. The NFHM sponsors have all been fantastic in helping to promote the month too.

Have I done any of my own genealogy in the last week? Not a lot but one thing that was interesting is that I visited the genEbooks website (one of the NFHM sponsors) and noticed that they have a free ebook each month. So I registered which is a simple process, selected the free ebook and proceeded to check out and within a minute or so I had received the ebook via email. I also did a survey for the Unlock the Past genealogy cruises and by leaving my name I received a 50% discount on an ebook before 31 August. So when I come back I will take up that offer but sadly it will probably just go into my virtual pile of ebooks to read. The good thing is that they don't gather dust like the pile of real books I have to read!

Breaking news from AFFHO! Our Australasian Really Useful Information Leaflet is now available. This is a free, 20 page initiative of the UK based Federation of Family History Societies in association with Australasian Federation of Family History Organisations and the Society of  Australian Genealogists.

Well I have to go and finish packing and this afternoon I've been invited to a Tupperware party and I don't think I've been to one of those in over 20 years if not longer.It's a gorgeous day here on Bribie Island and I also have to water all my new herbs, flowers and other plants as they are predicting even warmer, dry days while I'm away. I'm trying not to think of those much cooler temperatures in Melbourne and Canberra!

Enjoy the next week of NFHM and remember to keep checking the web calendar as events might still be added as the month progresses! Happy researching.

Genealogy notes 27 Mar - 5 Apr 2013 Canberra news

Well it's been busy on the home front and my recent visit to Canberra has made life even more hectic but I'm fast realising that my life in retirement on Bribie Island is never going to be less than action packed. Over Easter we finally go to do the 6 hour eco cruise on The Ferryman and I just love sailing past my Scottish ancestors home on the Toorbul side of Pumicestone Passage. As there was 6 hours of sailing we went almost to the tip of Bribie Island and could easily see Caloundra. The bird life is amazing and must have been even more amazing back in the 19thC before the settlers arrived.

It's a great trip and amazing value as it also included morning tea (hot cross buns, chocolate ones no less), a delicious roast chicken and salads lunch  (and I must get the wombok salad recipe it was amazing) and afternoon tea with home made cakes which were so good. I don't think we have ever eaten so much in a single place before! Well done Ferryman and I hope others do the trip because the 6 hours goes very quickly with so much to see. Definitely worth a day trip from Brisbane.

Easter was also a time to catch up with family and a visit to Mum ended up with us coming home with a car load of pot plants and all her African violets as Mum is no longer able to care for them. This was all great for our new home but it did mean that we then had to spend a couple of days planting them out in our orchard/rainforest or repotting them for indoors! My son has also been doing amazing things in his new house and has tackled his overgrown yard with amazing vigour and it is good to see them settling into their new home. We also took the opportunity to give them a few more boxes of our unwanted goods but no matter how much I declutter, we still seem to have heaps of stuff.

Before I left for Canberra I sent in to the local newspaper a small article on my Carnegie family at Toorbul hoping that they might publish it. They say it pays to advertise and I was really excited to find that it was published in the Island and Mainland News  and they included the two pictures of my ancestors tombstone in Toorbul cemetery. It's the only one left in the historic cemetery. This also led to me being contacted by the Bribie Island Historical Society and I will be going to their next meeting on Wednesday. So I'm really looking forward to that.

While in Canberra I met up with the president of AFFHO to discuss this year's National Family History Week and I have big news there but all the members of AFFHO have to be notified first so stay tuned. All I can say at this point is that NFHW 2013 will be bigger and better than ever before and I hope everyone will also follow us on Facebook NFHW as well as putting their events on the website calendar. I will also need everyone's help to promote it as we are operating on a real shoe string budget this year. Still I'm a firm believer in the power of social media and I know I have some great online geneafriends.

But now for the real reason for my Canberra trip. I'm on the National Archives of Australia's advisory committee for the centenary of WW1 so we were there for a progress report on their new Wartime Australia website. The draft pages look fantastic and are user friendly so that everyone can add in their own stories. It was also good to hear about the activities being undertaken by other State Archives and places like the Australian War Memorial. It's going to be easier than ever to trace our military ancestors and most of these projects and activities will start to roll out in 2014 and then continue through to 2018.

Another new website and exhibition planned by the NAA will feature forced adoption stories and they are calling for expressions of interest for anyone interested in assisting with the project. It is due for launch in 2014 on the anniversary of the Government's formal apology. Read the media release for full details.

While sitting in the Qantas Club waiting for my flight home I was really surprised, and delighted to find the new paper issue of NAA's Your Memento Highlights Vol 2. This paper edition features the more popular stories from their Your Memento free online e-magazine and I do have to say that I prefer reading the paper issue. All too often with the digital notifications, I file the e-mag or e-news and then don't go back to read it whereas the paper copy sits there in a pile on my cupboard making me feel guilty until I read it.

Also spotted was a new glossy paper magazine from the National Museum of Australia simply called The Museum: Behind the Scenes and Vol 2 is a great read with some really good photos and stories. I'm only sorrow that I didn't see Vol 1 but all is not lost. The issues (some articles only) are also online and Vol 3 is now out as well! Like libraries and archives, museums are also great places to find background information and context on our ancestors and where and how they lived.

An email from the local Bribie Island Family History Special Interest Group (no website) also got me quite excited as it included news from the local Bribie Island (Bongaree) Library. They have a series of free genealogy talks planned for the rest of the year under the banner Finding Your Family: Who Are You? There are workshops on handwriting (reading all that old colonial writing), Irish ancestors, beginners sessions and even a session on Bribie's WW2 bunker and other military records. So I will be booking in for most of those! For those interested see their what's on calendar.

I rejoined the Genealogical Society of Queensland and received a very nice welcome back including a paper journal which has joined the pile on the cupboard! I also received my renewal notice for the Genealogical Society of Victoria and as I like using their online resources, I will be renewing but I am glad that I am a lifetime member of Queensland Family History Society as that is one less subscription to pay. Still being a member of key societies is so worth while and really does help further your family research not to mention make new friends.

Instead of buying the family Easter eggs this year, I decided to take out another $25 loan with the Genealogists for Families project and as I had received repayments on previous loans, I was able to make two further loans to needy families overseas. I'm still surprised how easily this project sustains itself. Once you have made a few loans the repayments then allow you to fund still more loans. Of course you can take back the repayments if you want, but I've never missed the original $25 I used for my first loan so why not let it keep on helping others. Occasionally I make additional loans to mark special occasions like Christmas and Easter and since I joined the Genealogists for Families project I have made 28 loans! So that's 28 families I have helped with whatever their loans were needed for.

As usual I have made this Diary too long and I really am going to have to do it more regularly (like I used to before the big move)! I've got a genealogy to do list beside me that I really must tackle. Plus the other half has just left for fishing so now is the perfect time to do some research - trying to decide what new lead to follow up is the problem. There's so much new information out there! Wish me luck and as always, best wishes with your own research.

Genealogy notes 1-14 March 2013 reading and talking

Well I'm back from Bali and totally relaxed having had no access to TV, mobile phone, laptop or tablet while I was away. I didn't mean to be so totally cut off but I inadvertently left the phone on the charger!!

Coming home I found a small mountain of surface mail which included new issues of some of my favourite genealogy magazines - Inside History, Australian Family Tree Connections and the Genealogical Society of Victoria's award winning Ancestor. Of course there was a similar virtual  mountain of emails and online e-magazines including Irish Lives Remembered and this month it includes a 16 page Irish-Australian research supplement (wow), Queensland Family History Society's Snippets and the Society of Australian Genealogists' journal Descent along with a reminder that my subscription is about to expire! How quickly a year goes!

Then there are my e-newsletters from State Records NSW, Queensland State Archives and Public Record Office Victoria (PROV) - these are all free and don't take that long to read but they are great for letting you know what is new. For example here is the 2013 list of newly released records from PROV.

I've also rejoined the Genealogical Society of Queensland now that I'm back home and they have asked me to speak at their June seminar. I'll be looking at 19th century immigration records which is always a popular topic. The Chincilla family history group should be finalising the date of their seminar in July on online newspapers very soon and I'm really looking forward to heading out west again.

I've also been asked what topics I would like to cover on the 4th Unlock the Past genealogy cruise in 2014 and I'm working on some new topics and new books so that will all be new and exciting next February. I'm already looking forward to that especially with Thomas MacEntee and Chris Paton as the international speakers.

Also on the looking forward front, I've already booked for the NSW/ACT genealogy conference in Canberra in September. I missed last year's as I was in the middle of moving out of our Melbourne home and as this year's is being held near where I first lived when I moved to Canberra I'm keen to see that area again.

Yesterday I went to the Bribie Island Family History Special Interest Group meeting and caught up with everyone there. They will probably get me to give a talk in September or November and they seem to have a fondness for something Irish! I also met the convenor of the U3A Bribie Island family history group on and she has also invited me along to their meetings which are every week on a Monday at 8.30am (who said retirees get to sleep in???). I've got medical appointments next Monday but I'm a definite starter for the following Monday.

As part of my getting back into genealogy again, I went and joined the Bribie Island Branch of the Moreton Bay Regional Council Library Service. Sadly they don't seem to have a great genealogy collection and I'm told the Redcliffe Branch is better but then that's a bit further to drive. I've written 7 genealogy guides now and sadly none are in the local library but Redcliffe has two of them and Caboolture and Strathpine have one each. When I launch the next research guide I will have to make a bigger splash in my new pond!

I'm really more interested in the local history collections so I've got to make contact with the Bribie Island Historical Society and also visit the Caboolture Historical Village which I haven't done in decades. Visiting the Abbey Museum of Art and Archaeology at Toorbul is also on my list but finding the time to do all of this seems to be a challenge!

In our absence and all of the rain, the weeds seem to have taken over the yard and we still have some unpacking and sorting to do from the move. Plus new things we want to do around the house. It's funny but I never believed my friends when they said they were busier than ever in retirement - now I know that it really is true but then who wants to be bored? Can someone doing genealogy ever really be bored?

As you can see I've really thrown myself back into my genealogy research and there are all those notes and new ideas to follow up post genealogy cruise that I need to work through. Stay tuned for lots more news as I settled back into genealogy in my new home.

Genealogy notes 24-31 Jan 2013 genealogy talks coming up

Well last Diary entry I said that things were getting back to normal now that we had moved into our new home on Bribie Island. Silly me didn't factor in ex cyclone Oswald heading down the coast and hovering over us for nearly 30 hours of relentless wind and torrential rain. I don't think I've even seen a 'weather event' that went for so long and travelled all the way down the Queensland coast and on into New South Wales creating total destruction along the way. Bribie was lucky in that we mostly had beach erosion, downed trees and palms, some roof and rain water damage and of course loss of power. Others were not so lucky especially all those within river flood plains.

We were extremely grateful for the SES coming out on the Saturday night to help secure a front section of our roof otherwise we would have suffered a lot more rain water damage than we did. So glad (in a way) that it happened last weekend and not when we are away next weekend on the genealogy cruise - we would have come home to a house completely swamped as the rain was also coming through the front door or under it I should say, as well as all the windows on the sides the wind was blowing from, not to mention the leaks from the roof in two rooms. At least the study doesn't leak and is sheltered at the back of the house.

Apart from all the mopping up over the weekend we managed to continue unpacking and it's almost finished now - the trick is to remember where we have put everything! I've tried to keep things similar to the old house and that helps. My books are everywhere but I thought it was more important to get things out of cardboard boxes and onto shelves where I can at least see them. Rearranging them can come later and this time (as this is our final move, fingers crossed) I am going to use software to catalogue and make them really easy to find! Any suggestions for a good, easy to use system?

Yesterday I realised that the Queensland Family History Society online newspapers seminar is this Saturday so it was a frantic run through of my Trove and Other National Library of Australia Treasures updating where needed. QFHS have over 130 people booked so far so that is fantastic and a great way to start their education program for the year. I also have to talk to them about when we can redo the session for the Chinchilla Family History Group (at their request) but it looks like mid year now. Stay tuned for the date if you live out that way.

Of course the other thing I have to do is check my 9 talks for the Unlock the Past genealogy cruise which is now only a week away. January was a blur with moving and everything else but I did manage to do a run through of most of them. Hopefully not too many websites have done major changes over the last month. I'm so looking forward to the cruise - I love anything genealogy so with our own conference centre on board Voyager of the Seas it will be fantastic and I also love cruising so hopefully there will be a bit of relaxation on board as well not to mention catching up with lots of genealogy friends.

No doubt there will be lots of blogs coming out of the cruise so stand by for them but with limited internet coverage that may be after the event although I do know some really keen bloggers will be doing 'live' blogging. Geniaus aka Jill Ball has asked Helen Smith and myself to be part of a social media panel to discuss why social media can really help your genealogy research. So looking forward to that as I've had so much success with people finding me via my website and my family blogs.

Don't forget that Paul Milner one of the international speakers on the cruise is doing a British Isles genealogy tour to Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and Canberra so you may be able to attend one of those if you live close enough to a capital city. I always feel sorry for Hobart and Darwin as they miss these kind of tours and yet they have some of the more wonderful Australian scenery. I could probably throw in just about any major town in North Queensland there too but I guess it is a question of distance and cost recovery. Maybe in a few years, or maybe not even that long, everything will be virtual!

Well I haven't done too much else on the genealogy front except stockpile paper genealogy magazines to read and red flag e-copies I receive so that I can go back and read them. I haven't even kept up with Dick Eastman this week so that's not good! I did take time out to read the National Archives of Australia's e-magazine Memento Jan 2013 and noticed that Shake Your Family Tree Day is on 16 April 2013 (usually it's in February) so put that date in your diaries. I will be in Maryborough (QLD) that week so looks like I'll miss the Brisbane event unless I travel back down.

I may be tempting fate again but I'm going to predict that things will return to normal on my genealogy desk again over the coming week. Happy researching.

Genealogy notes 8-9 Jan 2013 blogging awards

Well this morning we woke up to a blanket of smoke as the Bribie Island fire is into it's third day but this is the first day where the smoke has not been blowing towards the mainland. It's in the national park so campers have been evacuated and for the moment it's under control with back burning and eleven fire units. The cool breeze seems to have given way to the higher temperatures but we still have quite windy conditions.

After a brief excursion to the shops I'm now bunkered down for an afternoon of genealogy and working on the last four talks for the Unlock the Past genealogy cruise in just four weeks time. I'm past the half way point with five talks already finished. So far I've still got the windows open and the fan on but I'm starting to look at the air-conditioner.

Yesterday I was honoured to receive a nomination for Blog of the Year 2012 Award and you can read how I was nominated by Geniaus and my response on my website here. As part of the Award I had to nominate some blogs that I thought worthy of the Award and this was hard to narrow down as there are so many good genealogy and family history blogs out there. Also some had already been nominated by other recipients and I always think it is good to spread the encouragement around as I can't be the only blogger who wonders if anyone reads what I write. So be sure to read my response and check out those I nominated and also those nominated by other recipients.

Today's surface mail brought my copy of the Association of Professional Genealogists Quarterly journal which I always like reading. It can be a little US centric but there aren't that many Australian members I don't think. A lot of the articles are quite global and one article that I'm keen to read is Harold Henderson's Genealogy Education on a Shoestring as most of us try to do things as cheaply as possible. A quick scan of the article looks like he is using the internet as a basis which is great as most of us have access to that eithr at home, work or the local library.

I'll finish up this blog on a sadder note as yesterday I made two more loans to the Kiva Genealogists for Families Project started up by Judy Webster and later co-captained by Joan Miller in Canada. The loans were in memory of Joan who lost her fight with cancer last week. If you would like to join the project you can click here and remember to link to the Genealogists for Families project.

Joan was one of the first people I started following on Twitter three years ago as my GGGG grandfather's Carnegie family went to Canada from Scotland and I was looking for Canadian research tips. I also liked reading her Luxegen blogs and we exchanged tweets and emails and she gave me some good advice on locating those Scottish ancestors. So I'm sad to see one of my earliest cyber geneabuddies gone but I'm glad to see so many people have taken the opportunity to take up a Kiva loan in Joan's memory which was at the suggestion of her family.

Tomorrow is the final inspection of our new home and settlement is on Monday then we have to move out of this unit and get ready for the delivery of our two container loads of furniture and other worldly goods on Wednesday. I'm going to be very relieved to see all my books and family history records again. Though I'm not looking forward to all that unpacking. Until next time.

Genealogy notes - 1-3 Jan 2013 Blogs & other things

I'm starting the New Year well with several days of genealogy related activities. It's after the festive season and still two weeks before we move into our new home so I've been indulging myself while the other half has been fishing and motorbike riding. With all that peace and quiet I've been catching up with some of my favourite bloggers. I was really impressed with Chris Paton's genealogy review of 2012 in three parts (go into his 2012 archive to locate them) and I was surprised at how much I missed not being online every day. Still I wouldn't have missed all that travelling for anything but there must be a way to balance the two!

I totally missed contributing to Cassmob and Alona Tester's blogging challenges during 2012 so I'm hoping they will come up with something new for 2013 or even a repeat - I don't mind! It's been good reading through some of their challenges and I find you can always learn from what other's are doing or even see how easy it is to tell your own family stories.


Also Kuringai Historical Society celebrated it's 50th blog post and while that probably doesn't sound like a great achievement it's actually quite significant in that Kuringai is leading where all other historical societies should be going in my opinion. Blogs are a great way to tell local stories (same for family history blogs too) without a great deal of effort or expense if you use a free blogger like Google Blogger and then best of all it's searchable by Google and anyone looking for information or events in the Kuringai area can find it and the Society. I won't stay on this hobby horse but I really do think that historical societies and genealogy/family history societies should all be getting more involved with social media outlets so that researchers can find them more easily.

While on historical societies we finally managed to visit the Bribie Island Seaside Museum which is very much set up for the tourist. It is quite modern and spacious (only opened in 2010) and gives an overview of the history of the Island and the various settlements. From my own family history research I know quite a bit of the early history but I wasn't all that familiar with Bribie's role in WW2 so I found that interesting. The Bribie Historical Society meets monthly so I hoping to go along to a meeting but it won't be until April as we will be away for the first two meetings. I hate it when dates clash!

I've made a start reading Children of the Occupation: Japan's Untold Story by Walter Hamilton which was sent to me to review by New South Books last year. Usually I try to do reviews quickly but finding reading time on the road is never easy! I'm actually finding it hard to put down so expect a review soon. I've still got three other reviews  to do and I'm hoping to get them done before the big move in two weeks. Otherwise they won't get done until we get re-organised again! No more moves for me - Bribie is stuck with me!

The other really nice thing is that I have started to do research for a client again and it's one of those tricky research questions. Is it the right family or not? Even more interesting is that it is Irish and spans Victoria, Tasmania, New South Wales and New Zealand. Are they all related? I think they are but not quite the way they are currently presented but it's an interesting challenge.

Finally I've also got back into blogging this Diary more frequently and I've answered another one of those Geniaus geneameme challenges (although I notice that she is now spelling it GeniAus which is even more clever). I mentioned the Accentuate the Positives 2012 geneameme last Diary entry and since then I have managed to answer (positively) all 20 questions. Read my Accentuate the Positives 2012 geneameme.

I've missed the blogging and the interaction with social media friends by not being online more often the last four months. It's only when you get back into it again that you realise what you are missing out on. So roll on 2013 I'm keen to be more genealogy active again!

Genealogy Notes 25-31 Dec 2012 Sailing in Ancestral Footsteps

Well the Christmas week has gone remarkably quickly and it's now New Year's Eve. It's been a great week catching up with family and friends and I've spent a lot of time reflecting on my Scottish great great great grandparents who oyster farmed here at Toorbul back in the 1870s. We did the sunset cruise on the Bribie Island Ferryman and sailed right past their property which is the first time I've had a good look at it from the water. It still looks like it must have done back then with no development although the land is for sale with a multi million dollar price tag for future development. However the whole of Pumicestone Passage is within a Marine Conservation Park so perhaps that development may never happen.

All I know now is that it was a fantastic trip up the Passage past Toorbul, Donnybrook and Mission Point before we turned around after a spectacular view of the Glass House Mountains at sunset. The whole time I kept thinking that they too must have sailed up and down the passage, fished and crabbed and tended their oyster leases. There's not a lot of people there now and there would have been a lot less back then. It's times like this that I really wish we could travel back in time and meet our ancestors, rather than recreate their lives through various government documents.

The further up the Passage you travel there is less evidence of people and more and more bird life not to mention the lack of noise except for the odd boat or two. Even the dolphins turned up which was exciting for those tourists on board. I'm a bit blase now as we get to see them most days from our kitchen window!

I managed to review and update my genealogy aspirations for 2013 and you can read about them here. I was really pleased with all the comments and encouragement from my blogger friends. Since then my friend Geniaus has thrown out another one of her geneameme challenges Accentuate the Positives 2012 which makes us look at all the positives in our genealogy year rather than all the things we might not have done or finished. As usual I can't resist these, so I will have to put my thinking cap on and see if I can answer her 20 questions (positively).

I've been happily reading Issue 3 of Circa: the Journal of Professional Historians which is an annual publication by the Professional Historians Association of Victoria and the Australian Council of Professional Historians Associations. Each issue gets better and better and there are some great articles highlighting the work of historians today. I've always maintained my membership of the Queensland branch, perhaps I knew I would come back some day!

I've also applied to join the Cornish Association of Queensland rather than renew my membership of the Cornish Association of Victoria. Their meetings are in Brisbane but it's not that far, especially if it's during the day. I'm still fascinated by the Cornish culture and once I get into my new house in January I want to start practicing making the Cornish pastry recipe I learnt at the Cornish Cultural Celebration in Shoalhaven back in October, hosted by the Southern Sons of Cornwall.

My January 2013 issue of Queensland Family History Society's email newsletter Snippets arrived in my inbox this morning so starting a new habit (I hope) I have read it already and noted all the helpful news and hints. Back issues are on their website here. I find with email newsletters and journals I put them into a To Read Folder but then don't always find the time to read them. A bit like the physical To Read Pile which I now have in a wardrobe. So my new habit is always to read/scan something before I file it away. Wish me luck with that one!!

Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter is another one that I regularly try to read and if you don't keep up with that on a daily basis it can get away from you. Although a lot of the news is US or Canada related, it is a great way to keep up with what's happening in the genealogy world.

My other regular reads include the UK Lost Cousins monthly newsletter and Irish Lives Remembered which is a much bigger read. I also get the newsletters from FindMyPast and Ancestry to try and keep up with all the new material coming online. That also applies to the enews from Public Record Office Victoria, State Records NSW and Queensland State Archives which are the three main archives I regularly research in.

On the eve of a new year I would like to take the opportunity to thank all my regular readers and to wish them good luck with their ancestor hunting in 2013. Now I'm off to think about that geneameme challenge!

Genealogy notes 31 Oct - 9 Nov 2012 travelling again

Since the last Diary entry in Lake Macquarie, NSW we have continued travelling north and stopped in Grafton overnight. It was the Jacaranda Festival fortnight so the streets were just a mass of purple flowers everywhere and a reminder that I was about to turn another year older! From Grafton we headed back to Queensland and had to remember to turn our clocks back an hour as there is no daylight saving here.

I had forgotten how early the sun rises and it is hard to block out the sunlight in a caravan so I'm waking up super early! Hopefully my body will get used to the different time zone although I do love beautiful sunrises. Of course we have to remember that the sun also sets earlier! As Melbourne Cup was fast approaching along with that special day of the year, I wanted to spend it on Bribie Island the place I first learnt to fish back in the mid 1960s. The Bribie Island Bridge was built in 1963 so it's celebrating it's 50th next year.

Pumicestone Passage has always been a special place for me but it wasn't till I started researching my family history in 1977 that I discovered that my GGG grandparents John and Helen Carnegie settled at Toorbul in the late 1870s. John was an oysterman so perhaps that's partly why I'm such an avid lover of seafood and fishing! For some stories on the Carnegie see my website My Families page.

Anyway getting back to our travels, my other half has also fallen in love with this part of Queensland. We've been here a few times but only for day visits but once you get used to island life (and a much slower pace) it seems hard to leave. We've now been in the Bongaree Caravan Park for 9 days and have just booked for another 2 weeks but sadly we have to leave mid December as it is totally booked out for the Christmas holiday period. I hope Mum wants a couple of visitors for Christmas!

We've also been looking at lots of houses for sale on the island but getting exactly what we want is not that easy although some houses are coming close. I suspect it will be a compromise and we make changes post purchase. So stand by for exciting news re our new home.

On the exciting news front, I have been asked to join the National Archives of Australia's advisory committee for the centenary of World War One 1914-1918 which is a great honour and I'm looking forward to participating in the committee. The first meeting is in Canberra in December so it will also be a chance to catch up with some Canberra friends too not to mention my old colleagues at NAA.

I also managed to send off my discussion paper and draft strategic plan for National Family History Week 2013 to the AFFHO committee who are meeting this month. I didn't have as much time to get that together as I would have liked but there is lots of scope for collaboration as planning progresses into 2013. I'm also pleased to see that people are still hitting the Like button on the NFHW Facebook page.

I even managed to finish another article for Irish Lives Remembered - their free online e-magazine has some great genealogy articles in it. Don't forget to look at back issues also available online.

Now that I know we will be here for a few weeks I'm planning to tackle the virtual mountain of e-newsletters I've filed for reading not to mention the blogs I haven't read. I'm also hoping to do a family blog for Remembrance Day but it's a bit tricky with all my family history records still in storage. Hopefully I have enough information in my database to do that. I also want to start participating in the Trove Tuesday blogs and start regularly tuning in to Inside History Magazine's regular Thursday night Inside History Magazine Facebook session. I missed last night as our days seem to blur together especially if I don't log on everyday.

Finally I will just mention that I attended the Bribie Island Family History Interest Group meeting yesterday which is an informal group which meets twice a month to help each other and to share information. Despite the new haircut and no makeup I was still recognised, perhaps it's the distinctive name (thanks Mum)! Anyway it was a warm welcome and a number of them had been to the Unlock the Past expo in Brisbane and even the seminar day we had in Nambour a few years ago with Elaine Collins from FindMyPast. There was even a lady who I knew from my time with the North Brisbane branch of the Genealogical Society of Queensland. So it really is a small world.

Although I've said it before I really do want to get back into the habit of doing these Diary updates more regularly and to make them more genealogy oriented. It should be easier now we are in one place for a few weeks. Wish me luck!