Genealogy notes 27-29 October 2011 Genealogists for Families

About a month ago, Judy Webster a good friend of mine in Brisbane sent me an invitation to be part of a new group she had established, Genealogists For Families within KIVA. I hadn't previously heard of KIVA and at the time of her note, I was busy with a deadline hovering over my head. Like most busy people I have a 'to do' list on my desk and I added Judy's request to follow up later.

Again like most busy people, my 'to do' list is never ending and something else always seems to crop up. I regularly read Sydney friend Geniaus' blogs as they are always relevant and interesting so when I saw her blog title, It's Taken Me a While, I immediately wondered what she was referring too. As I started reading, it could have been me writing that blog because I still hadn't got back to Judy. So once I finished reading, I went back to Judy's request.

I signed up for Genealogists for Families then and there and managed to take something off my to do list! Click here to join

I then spent quite a bit of time trying to decide which projects I would personally support as they all sounded worthwhile. I decided on the $25 loan option as that would allow me to support two loans. I ended up choosing one from Mongolia as I had spent a week travelling through Outer Mongolia in 1996 and had slept in a yurt and visited with local families. The other project I chose was from Peru, a place I have always wanted to visit (Machu Picchu is on my bucket list).

The very next day I received two emails telling me that both projects had been totally filled and that the recipients had their loans and I would receive progress reports. I was surprised as I had thought it would take longer to fill the loans. I then decided to support another project and again spent some time trying to decide but eventually picked a project in Kenya and just this morning I found out it has also been fully funded. It's terrific that these loans get funded so quickly.

My partner is now interested in KIVA and how it allows people to establish or run their own businesses or helps them out with special projects. He will probably fund a couple of projects too so I am looking forward to see what his choices will be.

The other really good thing is that Judy's idea is now gaining fantastic support from genealogists around the world and within a month of starting Genealogists for Families, there are 45 members with 62 loans with a total amount loaned of $1550. While this doesn't sound like much, it is supporting 62 people with their businesses, farms or whatever and is not just a charity handout. The loans are expected to be repaid and at that point, you can then reinvest that original loan money into new projects. In other words your original gift keeps on giving if you want it to. I think that's what I like best about KIVA.

Despite my tardy start on the team, I totally recommend and support the  Genealogists for Families team on KIVA and I would love to think that some of my readers might do so to. Check out the links and if you can't get involved now, help us spread the word to genealogists everywhere. Click here to join.

As I indicated in my last Diary update, I am having a lovely weekend alone and have made some nice progress on my Wiltshire families thanks to purchasing my ggg grandmother's marriage certificate (she married  again aged 70 years). However I will report on that next time as I am still looking for a few more bits and pieces. Until next time.

Genealogy notes 22-26 Oct 2011 collecting archives & genealogists

So much for my last entry wishing for a quiet week this week. I've barely been able to keep up with emails let alone anything else. I was meant to have the weekend alone and Saturday was very much a genealogy day where I tidied up bits and pieces of filing, did some scanning, checked out some sites, caught up with print magazines and so on. I had hoped that Sunday would be similar but as it was cold and wet, the camping trip had been a bit of a fizzer and my 'me' time came to an abrupt end late Sunday morning.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned it here, but we've bought the caravan and of course that means a bigger, stronger vehicle to tow it so we put my beloved little green 'beemer' for sale online. I secretly never expected it to sell as nobody likes fern green. Two days later my car was gone to a lady very much like myself who simply loved the colour. The 'beemer' was my 50th birthday present to myself some years ago and I can still remember my son saying 'where did I get the money' and the look on his face when I said I was spending his inheritance. It was definitely a Kodak moment. Anyway this week has been spent looking at cars, test driving and after a few they all look the same to me which is probably why I pick my cars by colour. The search goes on!

The one think I did have to do yesterday is visit the University of Melbourne Archives (UMA) for a professional development seminar with the staff over a very delicious lunch. They sat there eating and I talked (but I made certain I didn't miss out by putting a chicken and avocado wrap on my plate just in case they were ravenous). Basically I was there to talk about what genealogists want when they are searching and how they might want to access it and how the UMA might be able to make genealogists more aware of what they have. So after confessing that I had been using them as an example in my talks and books over the last two years, we had a wide ranging discussion which also called on my previous work experience in various archives. (NB the reason I use them as an example is because they have an online catalogue, digitised images online (also through Picture Australia), various subject guides including a summary guide).

Collecting archives like UMA are very different from government archives where all the records are the records of the government. Issues such as ownership, custody, copyright, privacy, access are more complex with private records and especially with older material that may have been brought in without consideration of these issues. Digitising, indexing and volunteers were all discussed and that age old question of how much time to allot to reference queries was also on the table. I found myself slipping back into government speak by saying it was a 'question of priorities, resources, goals, objectives and so on' and at one point I almost asked to see their strategic plan. This morning I am wondering if researchers should look at an archives' strategic plan - are researchers the focus or at least one of the major focuses or are they further down the priority list?

The other key area was how to make the archives more visible and known and this is where I got on my social media treadmill and advocated following Twitter and participating in things like #followanarchive and #askanarchivist day. I raved on about blogging too and how archives can highlight parts of their collection and how more and more genealogists are writing and reading blogs and reading online e-newsletters. I also suggested photos on Flickr or even podcasts in YouTube giving State Records NSW as an example of an archive actively using social media to keep researchers informed. Podcasts, webinars, wikis and by the time I mentioned nings I felt I was losing them, so I pointed out that it was possible to just focus on a few rather than all of the available media.

UMA have already agreed to give a talk at the Genealogical Society of Victoria's lunchtime seminars next year and they do have a newsletter The UMA Bulletin (print and online) so it's very much a question of raising the profile and then the invitations to speak will flood in!

I suspect after I left the conversations continued and it will be interesting to see how they progress in future months (are they reading this now?). Should I become a researcher and go looking for my 'wharfie' grandfather in their waterside workers trade union records. The Australian Trade Union Archives (ATUA) website is also worth a look for any unionists in the family. You may not get direct information on the person,  but if they were active in a union you may be able to put some context around their working lives.

From my perspective I found the session stimulating and left a bit nostalgic for working in a collecting archive. I was always amazed at some of the collections held in the John Oxley Library, in the State Library of Queensland, the first place I ever worked in the archives/library field. Still, I have my own collecting archive of family history material and probably more scanning than I want to think about, so enough reminiscing and back to work on my own records!

Genealogy notes 16-21 Oct 2011 - Irish updates & writing family history

Well another week has gone with family and domestic matters interrupting my family history time. Thankfully I am spending the weekend alone and it is cold and grey in Melbourne so I am hoping to get lots done. I do love the family but it is so peaceful not having to jump up every few minutes to find something for them that is in plain sight!

Tuesday I managed some quiet time and spent it visiting various Irish genealogy sites - so much seems to have gone online since I last looked. I was very impressed with the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) will calendars and the fact that those up to 1900 have been digitised and are freely available online. Ancestry have lots of new Irish records and I have been using their Collection Priority filter (but you do need to remember to turn it off!).

FindMyPast Ireland has also been adding records and most notably this weekend they have added Irish prison records (but doesn't include the North). I'm finding the landed estates records most interesting. Another site I use a lot is Roots Ireland and again lots of new additions and I have also been using the Irish records on FamilySearch. Not doing searches on surname etc in the top section of their home page but going into the Browse by Location section and going into the records themselves and then doing the searches.

I find cross checking in all the various online databases useful if I can't find families under expected spellings or variants. Although it does take time. I have found this particularly so when using the various versions of Griffith's Valuation online which has just reminded me of the Ask About Ireland website which I also visited.

I'm looking forward to seeing Chris Paton's new book on Irish internet sites which I believe will be ready for the Unlock the Past history and genealogy cruise with a Scottish/Irish theme in November . Maybe some of my Irish brick walls will tumble on board the cruise ship! If you can't make the cruise, don't forget there are on shore talks all around New Zealand, Burnie in Tasmania, Melbourne and Sydney.

The other major achievement this week was finishing my book reviews of Hazel Edwards How to Write a Non-Boring Family History and Goldie Alexander's Mentoring Your Memoirs and doing a Writing Family History Again blog to include the reviews and to write about my own struggles in this area . By going public with my procrastination, I hope I am committing myself to some real effort in completing at least one of my draft family histories in 2012.

I haven't managed to do any genealogy reading this week although I try to follow key people on Twitter and Google+ so that I am vaguely aware of what has been happening.

Next week I have been invited to the University of Melbourne Archives to talk to the staff about what researchers want and how they might be able to increase usage of the archives. UMA is one of the archives I demonstrate in my talks It's Not All Online and Archives You Should Know but Perhaps Don't. When I first saw the invite I thought I was in trouble for using them and creating a demand for their services but it is the opposite, so looking forward to catching up with old colleagues and friends.

Hopefully it will be quieter next week and I will catch up with everything before I again pack my bag and hit the road for Pambula and the Bega Valley Genealogy Society in two weeks. At least there is never a dull moment!