End of NFHM 2017, book review & other news - Genealogy Notes 23-31 Aug 2017

On the eve of the closing of National Family History Month (NFHM) all I can say is that it has been very hectic. I finished my series of talks for Moreton Bay Region Libraries this week with an enthusiastic audience at Caboolture Library. Two people even came down from Caloundra to catch my Ancestors in Church talk. The presentation can be seen on the Resources page of my website, scroll down to Presentations. It was also good to see that Findmypast is now available free at the Caboolture, Strathpine and Redcliffe libraries although there is a limit of two hours access per day per customer. Still you can do a lot of searching in two hours.

An early Spencer home in Adelaide (family photo)

My one piece of blog writing was to take part in Alona Tester's alphabetical ancestral placenames geneameme - read my Ancestral Places Geneameme to see where some of my families are from. I managed to find at least one place for every letter of the alphabet except X.

Part of my NFHM activities was to do a review of Lynette McDermott's historical novel Perseverance which is about two First Fleet convict families, the Garths and Belletts,  after they were removed from Norfolk Island to Tasmania. Read the review here. Lynette donated a copy of the book as a prize for NFHM.

Another NFHM activity was a guest blog for MyHeritage, another prize sponsor of NFHM. Read my guest post Family Memories From Down Under. All the boxes of Mum's stuff in the back bedroom still needs to be sorted but there are no visitors on the horizon so it can wait a little while longer. Not a job to be rushed.

Mum, my brother and I - a lifetime ago (family photo)

The NFHM prizes giveaway is being drawn on Saturday 2 September in Townsville so there will be some excited people next week when the winners go up on the NFHM website. Louise Coakley will be giving two talks on DNA and I'm talking about archives and skeletons in the family so it is going to be an interesting day in Townsville. On the Sunday I'm attending the Family History Association of North Queensland DNA special interest group meeting which will be good too. I really do need to sit down and really examine my results and work out which matches to follow up. There will be a blog post to follow.

Once I get home again my focus will be on the NSW & ACT Association of Family History Organisations annual conference Your Family Story: Telling, Recording & Preserving which is on in Orange, New South Wales in three weeks. My conference paper is Weaving Your Family History on the Web. There is a great program plus the Friday Fair where there will be all kinds of temptation.

I hope everyone has had a wonderful family history month and managed to attend an event or visit a library or archive. If you have an entry in the prizes giveaway good luck. Until next time, happy researching.

Adelaide Expo report, Book review & Other News - Genealogy Notes 8-14 Oct 2016

My little trip to the Unlock the Past Genealogy & History Expo in Adelaide last weekend was fantastic but not without drama. I'm actually wondering if they are good for my health or am I just a little accident prone. We flew in on Thursday afternoon and I noticed that the rings on my fingers were very tight and there was a bit of swelling. My partner was the same and we both thought it would go down in the evening as Adelaide was hot and humid that afternoon.

Before bed I managed to get all but one ring, my engagement ring, off. The finger was still swollen and the ring was very tight. Hoping that all would be well in the morning we went to sleep until I woke up in a fair bit of pain and an extremely swollen finger about 12.30 am. We didn't hire a car so we couldn't drive to a hospital and there was no night reception so after a chat with the Ambulance folk they suggested we probably needed the Fire Service to cut the ring off. To cut a long story short, I was the one wearing only a nightie, with bare feet on the footpath on Anzac Highway in the wee hours of the morning while the lovely firemen worked every so carefully to cut me free without further damage to my finger. While I was extremely embarrassed at having to call on their services, they graciously said it was good to come out and be able to help someone.  Emergency services people really are wonderful. Thank you all.

Thankfully the rest of the weekend went better and you can read my Day One and Day Two reports for all the details. It really was a good event with lots of lectures, exhibitors and networking with friends and colleagues. My partner spent the time with his son and grandkids so a great weekend all round.

While in Adelaide I went without checking emails, spent practically no time on social media and generally did things the old fashioned way. I managed to read Nathan Dylan Goodwin's new book The Spyglass File and you can read my review here. The trouble with his fictional forensic genealogist Morton Farrier is that I want to read all his adventures straight away but of course, each book takes time to research and write. If you are only just discovering Nathan's books, there are three earlier Morton Farrier adventures and a novella. May the fifth book appear as soon as possible.

The University of Tasmania is offering a family history unit over Spring and Summer as part of their Diploma of Family History, entitled 'Writing Family History'. The unit is fully online and has a 100% HECS scholarship for domestic students, meaning that you will not incur a tuition fee or debt for studying the unit. It provides an introduction to writing non fictional and fictional narratives based on genealogical records. Applications are open now and you can apply here.

I'm thinking of enrolling in this unit but the last time I enrolled in one of their family history subjects I broke my right elbow (on another Unlock the Past event) and had to withdraw. Thanks to the 'firies' I still have my finger on my left hand so perhaps all will be well this time.

Last night I gave a presentation to the Bribie Island Historical Society on the early Presidents of the Amateur Fishermen's Association of Queensland, giving it a family history twist. There was lots of interest and questions and my research on the Presidents will expand to take in all the suggestions. It was my last talk for the year. A quick count shows that I did 28 presentations in 2016, that may be an all time record and they can be seen on the Resources page of my website, scroll down to Presentations.

It's been a full on week and I'm still catching up on research reports, blog and article writing, and the online Education Records module. This week will also have my fingers on the keyboard as I have a holiday coming up in November and I want to go away with a clean desk!

Until next time, have another great week geneasearching.

New Access Releases, Book Reviews & Other News - Genealogy Notes 1-7 Jan 2016

Happy New Year and welcome to 2016. Diary has had a bit of a makeover and when I can decide on a personal new look, I will post a new image of me too.

I love the first week of January because BDM Registries and State Archives open up another year of records to access. Already I have some new data from Queensland BDMs which I then use to search Trove. This often allows me to pin down an exact date of birth, marriage or death (assuming I haven't already found it in Trove) or to discover the names of children born in collateral lines.

This year Public Record Office Victoria received some excellent coverage from ABC News with their new releases for 2016 but then with a headline 'Bigamy Madness Murder: 75 year old files opened' it was sure to get people's attention. If you missed it, read about it here.

What this means is that we should all have a look to see what's new. A bit time consuming every yearas I have research in most States but there are lots of exciting new finds waiting to be discovered.

I finished my book reviews - somehow they take longer to write up than actually reading the books. Both were a great read and as usual I could not put down The America Ground: a genealogical crime mystery by Nathan Dylan Goodwin. It is the fourth Morton Farrier, forensic genealogist story and I can't wait for the fifth. Read the review here.

The other review was Hazel Edwards memoir, Not Just a Piece of Cake: Being an Author which was easy to read and inspirational. It triggered many memories from my own life and family experiences and it shows that memoirs do not have to be written from birth onwards in chronological order. Read the review here.

So far I am sticking with my resolution to not commit myself to anything ongoing this year but I have been very much tempted by Dear Myrtle's Finally Get Organised weekly checklists for 2016. The first week looks good so I will probably follow on an ad hoc basis rather than signing up.  The benefit of registering is that it does make you more aware of keeping up with the checklists and how much you do always depends on you but with last year's health issues dragging into 2016 I need to be more of an observer.

There are other great blogging participation programs out there so have a Google or check Geneabloggers. A real Aussie one is Trove Tuesday where people blog about their finds on Trove every Tuesday using the hash tag Trove Tuesday. Speaking of Trove, there are lots of great new titles coming up in the next six months. Have a look here to see what will be available by June 2016. The North Queensland papers will be fantastic for my own research.

Where I am speaking between January and June 2016 is now on my website Services & Events page and although I have only have three events listed I am giving ten talks! The second half of the year will be busier including talks during National Family History Month.

Speaking of which, this coming week I have to really start thinking about National Family History Month in August and the new website we will be showing off at the end of January. There has been a good response from some of our usual sponsors but I still need to follow some up and of course, new sponsors are always welcome. I feel sure that our new logo and website will make NFHM 2016 the best ever yet.

It's been a big week with some welcome rain and for the first time in the three years we have been here, we have seen green frogs. Full grown not just babies so very exciting and I have to report they are not the easiest to photograph. Every time I tried to take a photo he hopped further away, it was almost as if he knew.

A big day of gardening down the back revealed a dreaded cane toad, thankfully we have not seen many. It was humanely dispatched according to RSPCA guidelines. The coming week will be warming up so I'm planning on staying inside and doing some genealogy research in the new resources. Have a good genealogy week and hopefully some exciting discoveries! Until next time.