South Australian records online, conferences coming up & other news - Genealogy Notes 16-30 Jun 2018

The end of another financial year and part way through winter. Not that we have had a lot of cold weather here yet. I did put a jumper on one day but then it was also raining so definitely a cooler day.

Lots of things on the family front seem to be keeping me busy with little personal time for my own research.

My son marries his long time girlfriend in a few weeks and she has just shown me her family tree for the first time. I knew that the family were from The Netherlands but never realised that the family line goes back to the mid 16th century. They never moved around much and Dutch records seem to be good. I am so glad that my son has Australian royalty (convicts) and a nice sprinkling of English, Irish and Scots ancestors although none of our lines go back much past the 18th century.

Conferences

The Waves in Time 2019 conference committee have asked me to be an ambassador for the event along with four other social media geneabuddies.

It will be our job to make sure people are aware of the conference, the speakers and the sessions. Less than a year to go and there is another planning meeting in early July.

The Sunshine Coast is a great place to host the conference and you can plan a holiday alongside the three day geneaevent.

Recently I was asked was I attending the NSW & ACT Association of Family History Organisations annual conference Sailing Into History in Bateman's Bay this year as I usually do try to attend their conferences. Sadly this year I will be winging my way home from the Unlock the Past Alaska genealogy cruise so miss by one weekend. It looks like another good conference and I used to love weekends down at Bateman's Bay when we lived in Canberra so really sorry not to be going. But then Alaska and my extra days in Vancouver and Seattle will be fantastic too.

Resources

The Spencer family home in Adelaide

Anyone with South Australian ancestors will know that it is not the easiest Australian state to do research in. That seems about to change with the exciting news of records from the State Record Office of South Australia being made available through FamilySearch.

Alona wrote about the release in her blog post Millions of South Australian records added to Family Search.With a title like that I simply had to have a look and most of the records are not yet indexed into FamilySearch but you can browse the registers as if you were in the search room. I have been browsing probate records but there are also prison records, insolvencies, passenger lists, inquests, asylums, courts and more. A veritable feast which will be totally wonderful when indexed and more easily searched.

Talks

Adkins Robert Spencer

Next week I will be speaking at the Pine Rivers Heritage Museum with A Fishy Look at Bribie - while this has local history throughout it is also very much a part of our own family history. My great great great grandparents John and Helen Carnegie were oyster farmers in Pumicestone Passage in the late 19th century and Max's uncle Adkins Robert Spencer was President of the Amateur Fishermen's Association of Queensland at Bongaree for many years in the early 20th century. Plus there are lots of other fishy stories. Should be a lot of fun and I always enjoy visiting the Museum as it has so much to see.

My contribution to National Family History Month this year is giving two presentations at the Family Discovery Day at Forest Glen. There are four sessions throughout the day with four talks in each session with some good speakers. So 16 talks to choose from but you can only attend one talk in each session so some tough decisions to make. Attendance is free but you need to register (just enter Forest Glen Queensland).

What's Coming Up?
It is a two week break from tutoring advanced family history at Bribie U3A, but it is never really a break for the tutor as they are preparing for the next term. Not sure how long I can keep delivering a new talk every week based around the needs of the class but it is always fun trying.

I've got some topics in advance from the group as almost all of them are continuing and some have been with me since the beginning two years ago. So with luck I will get a few talks ahead before term starts again.

Until next time, happy searching.

More Talks, New Resources, DNA & Other News - Genealogy Notes 30 May - 7 Jun 2017

It's been another busy week with two talks. First I gave my Love Sex and Damn Lies talk to the Sunnybank District History Group. Whenever I talk about the scandals in my own family, there are always lots of comments and nearly everyone else has their own family scandals to share. Does nobody have a boring family history?

The second talk was done in the luxury of my own study. Not that the study is luxurious, just the fact that I didn't have to drive anywhere! I participated in the Society of Australian  Genealogists Virtual Lost Weekend looking at Black Sheep via a series of eight webinars. The technology can be a bit daunting especially when things don't go quite right but after a shaky start everything settled down. My section was on Asylum records for Missing Ancestors and I did a round Australia tour of asylums and where to find the records. Feedback has been good and you can see a copy of the slides on the Resources page of my website, scroll down to Presentations. The talk was the same one I did the previous weekend in Coffs Harbour.

In preparing for this week's U3A session I discovered yet another sibling of Henry Spencer (Max's grandfather) came out to Queensland. His sister Elizabeth came out with her husband and family and I've never looked for them as Henry was supposed to be out here by himself. Now I have found his brother Adkins Robert Spencer (who left no descendants) and I will have to trace his sister's family to see if there are any other cousins. Obviously the two brothers were in contact back home and mentioned what a great place Queensland is to live with its blue skies and warm winters. Had to be better than the Midlands of England!

James Carnegie - father unknown

Coming up this week I am giving a talk on my personal view of DNA for family history research to the Bribie Island family history group.

Preparing the talk has been useful as it has helped me to clarify my thinking about my own results so far and where I should go next. If I really want to try and identify James Carnegie's father then I need to track down my male Carnegie cousins and see if one will consent to a Y DNA test.

Mum has now down a DNA test for me and still waiting for those results. This will mean that if I get any matches that don't also match with Mum then they will be on my father's unknown paternal side.  Actually the Carnegie DNA will help to narrow that down further again so perhaps I need to test more than one Carnegie cousin.

Last week's Diary blog was included in Crissouli's Moments in Time Friday Fossicking for 2 Jun 2017. I like these compilations of what other bloggers have seen as interesting during the week. When I am pushed for time it is good to scroll through the roundups and just quickly look at interesting posts. Crissouli has a particular interest in Irish research and there are always new posts on Ireland and all matters Irish.

New projects and resources seem to be happening daily. The latest FamilySearch research news has Victorian cemeteries - transcriptions 1850-1988 listed which will be a good resource once finished. Volunteer indexing projects certainly make it easy for us to find those elusive ancestors especially if we can't travel to search in person.

Findmypast announced Scottish Post Office Directories were now available, over a hundred different directories. Looking at the full list I found several that I want to look more closely at. Directories don't provide a lot of family information but they can confirm where people were living and what their occupations were. You can also see who else was living nearby.

National Family History Month in August is fast approaching so make sure your organisation's events are added to the web calendar so that others know what is happening. Societies often get new members during the month as others find out how rewarding being a member of a society can be.

Next week is a quiet week of catch up and personal research. There is a small pile of papers relating to some of my discoveries in recent weeks which need to be entered into the database, filed or followed up. And my reading pile, plus the e-reading file. My final talk for the financial year is at Ipswich Central Library on 20 June on Demolishing Brick Walls.

Have a great genealogy week and until next time, happy searching.

Geneaenvy, research queries & other news - Genealogy Notes 22-30 Sep 2016

Geneaenvy - I'm not sure if there is such a word but I think I have it.Perhaps I need to stop following some people on Facebook but it seems that a lot of my US and Canada geneafriends are going to genealogy conferences, seminars, cruises and other events every weekend.Whereas most of us here in Australia only get to a geneaevent maybe once or twice a year.

The AFFHO genealogy congress is held every three years and we have to wait until 2018 for the next one - Bridging the Past & Future to be held in Sydney. The call for papers closes on 31 October and I put in three proposals this week so I'm hoping one gets up. History Queensland has a conference every two years and the next one is 2017 on the Gold Coast with a theme  of  Footsteps in Time. The NSW & ACT Association of Family History Organisations holds an annual conference with the next one in Orange, NSW with a great theme Your Family Story: Telling, Recording, Preserving.  Unlock the Past usually has a genealogy cruise once a year with the next one heading to Papua New Guinea in 2017 and occasionally they have an Expo with the next one in Adelaide just a week away.

Lots of societies hold an annual seminar day but these are usually are smaller, mainly local and don't attract people from a greater distance. So depending on where you live, you may not even get to some of the larger events. Webinars are starting to get more popular here but to me don't have the same ambiance of being in a room with a lot of like minded people. I suspect that our population would not support any more geneaevents so thank goodness for social media. We can read blog posts, tweets and Facebook links from those who are lucky enough to have a geneaevent every week.

There have been a few research enquiries over the past few weeks which have taken me to places my own research doesn't go. Always good to learn new things and I have to say NSW Family History Transcriptions run by Marilyn Rowan is excellent. Within a few days of placing my order, the transcripts were in my inbox. So much cheaper and quicker than certificates. The Biographical Database of Australia is also good if you have early NSW research. You can search for free but to see the full entries you need to subscribe but it is a modest amount and worth it if you find lots of interest in the searches.

I rejoined the Genealogical Society of Victoria (I knew I should never have let it lapse when I moved to Queensland) as I was missing their journal and access to their online member resources including GIN, (Genealogical Index of Names). A lot of what is available on there is not available elsewhere making it a great resource for Victorian ancestors.

Henry Spencer's brother,
Adkins Robert Spencer,
image courtesy
State Library of Queensland

It's good to revisit blog posts from time to time and this week I added the Search for Henry Spencer to my own website. It was originally written for a brick wall site in Sep 2010. Since then I have managed to find long lost cousins, learn lots of new things about the family and discover exciting photos not seen before.

Nathan Dylan Goodwin's The Spyglass File is on my weekend reading list and if it hooks me like the earlier works, then not much else will get done.

The first part of this week will be busy writing modules for the Education Records online course and working on research reports. But then it will be off to Adelaide for the last big geneaevent in Australia for this year. The Adelaide Expo program has just been revised with more exhibitors and some changes of rooms to accommodate attendees at some talks. With five streams it's a bit tricky at times to work out which sessions to go to plus I want to leave time to visit all the exhibitor stands. A full report will follow once I'm back home.

The family have started talking about what are we doing for Christmas this year - I'm still trying to work out where has this year gone. It's been a brilliant year for new family history discoveries, so much so that I haven't kept up with updating all my draft family histories. Perhaps that's a job for the quiet end of the year when societies close down over the summer holidays. But then the internet never closes down so no real down time for genea addicted people like me.

Until next time, have a great genealogy week.

Scottish discoveries, Adelaide Expo, Book review,& Other News - Genealogy Notes 15-21 Sep 2016

It's been a week of catching up on lots of things. My reading pile has been reduced and lots of journals and magazines neatly filed on the bookshelves. Just about everyone one that I read had an idea to follow up or URLs to check out. Which of course then leads to those distractions as you check out new information. For example, a site that I had not come across previously was Scotland's Places which searches three national databases to access historical resources for places in Scotland.

My great grandfather James Carnegie -
his mother Helen was born in Montrose

Looking for Montrose, Angus where most of my Scottish families were from led me to maps, photographs and references to various resources . I hadn't seen horse tax rolls before, not that I think my ancestors had horses but lots of people seem to have. In fact under historical tax rolls there were male and female servant tax rolls, cart tax rolls, dog tax rolls, clock and watch tax rolls, and all kinds of other tax rolls mostly for the 18th century but some earlier or later. Some documents you can see but others you need a Scotland's People subscription. You can also offer to help transcribe some of the documents! Lots to explore and do in Scotland's Places if you haven't already done so.

My two talks for the Unlock the Past history and genealogy expo in Adelaide next month are now done. Every time I look at the program and list of exhibitors it has grown and it will be a mega geneaevent. Lots of friends are also planning to travel there and it seems a few of us have booked into the same motel, the closest to the venue. It's an easy walking distance so I get some exercise as well!

If anyone else is going, let us know and perhaps we can organise drinks or a dinner on Friday or Saturday night.

I've finished reading Me & My Family Tree by Jackie Moss and my review is on the Resources page of my website - direct link here. With Christmas coming up, it would make a nice present for any young grandchildren who share a love of books and are interested in the family. If they are not already interested, they will be afterwards.

I'm making good progress on the Education Records module for the Australian certificate offered by the National Institute for Genealogical Studies. It's amazing what I learn myself along the way, especially what is available online. Until you actually go looking for something you don't always know that it is online. Students should find it quite interesting (available early next year).

At the AFFHO Skype meeting on Monday night I gave my final report on National Family History Month 2016. I hadn't realised that the June issue of AFFHO's Newsflash had not gone out. This meant that societies were not given my final reminder to get their events into the web calendar and to remind members to enter the prizes giveaway. It probably explains why our numbers were a little down on last year's.

Adkins Robert Spencer via Trove

Next month's meeting of the Bribie Island Historical Society will be where I present my research on the early Presidents of the Amateur Fishing Association of Queensland which has its headquarters at Bongaree on Bribie Island. Max's great uncle Adkins Robert Spencer was the 3rd President so there is some family history in my talk. I've also looked at the families of the other Presidents up to 1950 and it is wonderful what you can learn about people when you only know a name and a place. Trove has given me clues that were easily followed up in other resources and I've been able to find out quite a lot about most of those early Presidents.

There's a nice quiet week ahead and I'm hoping for some research time possibly on my Cornish families - a bit of a review before the Adelaide Expo. One of the key speakers that I really want to hear is Philip Payton an expert on Cornish history and the Cornish in Australia. So it would be nice to have all of my Cornish research fresh in my mind before attending his talks. Otherwise it is back to some serious writing time.

Until next time, happy searching. 

Archives, Certificates, National Family History Month & Other News - Genealogy Notes 7 - 15 Jun 2016

It has been a crazy hectic week. The talk at Noosaville Library on Queensland Genealogy Resources Online went extremely well. It was a full house with no chairs vacant which was really great to see. The Library was so thrilled they collated the feedback and sent it to me later that afternoon. All positive and most people seemed to want more. As usual, the talk is on my website Resources page, scroll down to Presentations. Looking forward to going back there in August.

Reading room at Queensland State Archives, June 2016

The trip to Queensland State Archives was equally good and it was great to see other geneamates there for the convicts seminar. My research was also good, I simply love files that have certificates in them. Read my blog post on the whole day at Convict Queensland and visiting Queensland State Archives.

A new edition of Family History on the Cheap is now out which makes the third new edition I have done for this year. The others were What Was The Voyage Really Like? and Trove: Discover Discover Genealogy Treasure in the National Library of Australia. It is easier to update a guide than to write one from the beginning.

A while back I ordered an 1849 marriage certificate from the UK even though I knew most of the information. The names of the two witnesses don't mean anything to me at the moment. The real benefit was in the fathers' occupations. I knew one was a bailiff from the census records but the marriage certificate says William Adkins was the bailiff to the Marquess of Hertford. A quick look at Wikipedia and I found out all about the Marquess of Hertford and their property.

I then decided to look at Findmypast for British newspapers to see if their was anything on my person and I was rewarded with a brief death notice. He died at Arrow on 14 Oct 1859 of apoplexy and he was 'for a long time house steward to the Marquis of Hertford, aged 77 years'. The following year his son in law Paul Spencer as executor of William's will, called for any creditors. The other executor was William's son also called William but he had predeceased his father. So now I have more information on the son and a will to follow up.

The other father was Joseph Spencer (father of Paul in the last para) and his occupation was Inland Revenue Officer but those records are not online and no overall index for a quick lookup. I have the National Archives UK guide to tracing them so I will need to engage a researcher in London. We know nothing about Joseph apart from his name as we have never been able to locate him in the census. We have his family and it is not until the 1861 census that his wife describes herself as a widow. Perhaps his job took him away from home on census nights? It is too common a name to locate a death certificate without some parameters so his occupation may be our best chance to learn more.

One certificate at just under $20 and lots more to follow up on two family lines. Definitely worth getting!

The other thing grabbing my attention this week is National Family History Month and I have been busy organising the launch over in Perth. In a blog post Meet NFHM 2016 Major Sponsors I looked at the sponsors who help keep NFHM going. In future posts I will also introduce our prize sponsors and don't forget to add your events to our web calendar. Remember the early bird prize for societies ends on 30 June, don't miss out. Full details on the Sponsors page.

I'm in the last stages of finishing up the Health Records course which is part of the Australian Certificate with the National Institute for Genealogical Studies. It has been a fascinating exercise and I have learnt lots of interesting things along the way. The last part of any project is always the longest for me as I keep tinkering with the modules but it is due 30 June so that's focusing my attention.

I also want to update my database and files with all the new information from Queensland State Archives and plan another trip. Trying to file as I go instead of piling up for later. I need to apply that to my journals and magazines, both print and electronic. Perhaps I need more coffee breaks or is it that there are so many good things to read?

Until next time, have a great genealogy week. 

New family discoveries & other news - Genealogy notes 8 - 15 Dec 2015

This Diary was written in Adelaide where we have been visiting family and friends for a few days. Very dry here with some very cold mornings and hot days. The extremes in temperature remind me of when we lived in Melbourne whereas Brisbane does not have those wide variations in a single day.

Fred and Doug Spencer

On most visits to Adelaide we visit one of Max's older relatives and talk about the family history, On this trip she surprised us by bringing out photo albums we had not seen before. The motto here is 'keep on asking' because even though we have visited lots of times and asked lots of questions each time, this was a first.

Sadly most photos were not identified and she could not remember who people were. But there was one of Max's father Doug as a young boy which he had never seen before and quite a few of his grandmother at an older age.

One photo took my eye - it was a family sitting outside a house - a mother with a baby on her lap and two young boys either side of her. On the back someone had written Ada, Clint, Fred and Tom but no date. If Fred was the baby then Clint was his half brother from Ada's first husband and Tom was her stepson from her second marriage. It helps that there is only one Tom and one Clint in the family as that helps to date it around 1911-1912 but it is hard to guess the boys' ages. Because Tom is in the photo we believe it is in Adelaide and not Tasmania where Fred was born. If this is correct it helps date when the family left Tasmania for South Australia but not why.

On the back is Ada Clint Fred Tom

I took some images with my camera not having the Flip Pal with me this trip but next visit we will definitely have to spend some time scanning the photos, even the unidentified ones in case something else turns up later.

Now to try and prove our theories. Coincidentally we have arranged to visit one of Tom's sons in Brisbane on our way home. We only recently tracked them down and perhaps they also have some photos or other family information to prove this is the right Tom. Stay tuned.

We also went out to Hamley Bridge to visit a long time friend and it was sad to see the devastation caused by the huge Pinery fire the other week. So much farm land burnt out and so many houses destroyed. It was good to see that Blaze Aid was in town and helping the farmers rebuild fences and other similar work. I had not heard of Blaze Aid before but it is fantastic that they all volunteer their time to help communities get back on their feet after devastating fires.

Perhaps the biggest genealogy news of the week was that Ancestry will not be selling their popular genealogy software Family Tree Maker after the end of 2015 and they will only be supporting existing versions through to the end of 2016. Read more about it here Ancestry to retire Family Tree Maker genealogy software.

I don't use Family Tree Maker so the decision does not impact on me but others have been upset. What has surprised me is the number of people who don't seem to have a copy of their own data outside of Ancestry and Family Tree Maker. I have my full family data offline and only some parts of it online in Ancestry, My Heritage, Genes Reunited and Findmypast so that distant family members can find me.

The other exciting news is that Queensland State Archives has a new Executive Director and State Archivist, Mike Summerell who commences on 7 March 2016. Mike is coming to Queensland from his current role as General Manager at Unitec Institute of Technology in Auckland. Prior to that he was head of the Holdings and Discovery directorate within Archives New Zealand.

Heading home today and back to a more normal routine. Hard to do much when staying with others, and doing family and touristy things. We will do a quick visit to Mum's on the way through and discuss who's doing what for Christmas Day lunch. This year we will have all the family at Mum's - there are only nine of us (all adults no littlies) so not a big gathering but great that we can all be there.

Have a great genealogy week although I suspect most will now be caught up in the holiday season. If visiting family, remember to keep asking about photos and other family memorabilia - I'm certainly glad we did this trip! Until next time.