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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Genealogy notes 1-8 March 2012 - Kyabram seminar talks

What a hectic week starting with my partner's birthday on the 2nd. We went down to historic Queenscliff the day before and had a great time looking at some of the very grand hotels and homes as well as the Fort Queenscliff Museum. It's also a seafood haven and we had some great meals including local mussels and fish. Then it was back home to get ready for the Kyabram Regional Genealogy Society seminar where I was giving three talks as well as selling some Unlock the Past publications.

Given all the awful flooding in north east Victoria we weren't too sure if we would even get there but Kyabram was just outside the flooded areas although a number of people who had booked couldn't make it because they were either already flooded or were afraid they wouldn't make it back home. It was still a great afternoon and my talks on Google for Family History, It's Not All Online and Archives You Should Know left most of them a little bit overwhelmed but in those talks I'm aiming to broaden their view of family history beyond the usual suspects. It's meant to give them lots to think about and I do put copies of the slides on the Resources page of my website.

I haven't done an evaluation of my talks for a while so I asked everyone to complete an evaluation form which most did. Even though they are anonymous, people still feel strange/reluctant about providing written feedback. The verbal feedback was good and I was kept busy with questions right up until the organisers were showing us out the door! Written feedback was more on the venue, a big hall with no microphone so I encouraged people to move their chairs closer to me but that didn't really help with the 'echoing'. It didn't help that I left my remote and laser pointer at home so I had to stay close to the laptop to change slides.

One person thought the seats too hard - I have seen people bring their own cushions to events so obviously they have been caught out by hard seats before! Also there were some beginners so a few requests for more basic talks but it is always hard to know at what level to pitch those kinds of talks. Hopefully they will join/ask their local society for help too.

One person said my three talks was a marathon effort and it did feel that way towards the end and a number found the Google talk 'enlightening'. I think a lot of people don't realise how much more to Google there is than just a search engine. One person said it was 'well worth driving in the rain for' and as it was a three hour drive there and three hours back for us that made me feel that it was worth our effort in appalling weather. I will give the final comment to the person who said 'loved it all - just what I wanted and needed'.

After that I veged out for a few days and devoted time to continue to pack and sort out which books I will keep and which will go. I contacted the Religious Collections Special Interest Group of the Australian Society of Archivists (they've got a great new website) to see if some of their members would be interested in having my library and archives books. Most of them are volunteers or part time and don't have access to work libraries and they were most enthusiastic. So I will drop off three boxes of books and then they can work out who wants what and I will be happy knowing that my books are still being put to good use.

I treated myself to a visit to the State Library of Victoria and it really is a great genealogy resource and they weren't that many people in the Genealogy Centre that day. I was surprised when one of the librarians told me they hate cruise ships visiting Melbourne - apparently a lot of people make a beeline for the Library to do their genealogy while in port! And these aren't even genealogy cruises, just ordinary cruises but people still take their genealogy away with them. Not sure why I was surprised really, I do that kind of thing myself!!

We have friends coming for the Labour Day weekend - we met them on the last Unlock the Past genealogy cruise and in January we stayed with them near Paynesville in the Gippsland Lakes and now they are checking out western Melbourne and the Bellarine Peninsula with us. There will probably be lots of genealogy talk over the weekend while our partners discuss their boats and fishing!

Next week I'm heading to Public Record Office Victoria for their Women, Children and Welfare History in the Archives free seminar which should be good. I've also got to finish and send off my two presentations for the AFFHO genealogy congress in Adelaide at the end of the month. I always look forward to the congress (every three years) as it is a great opportunity to catch up with friends and colleagues. The next one is in Canberra in 2015.

Don't forget St Patrick's day next week - I always do an Irish family blog and have had great success with finding relatives in previous years so fingers crossed! Until next time.