Genealogy notes 4-14 December 2013 - Genealogy learning online & other news

So much for getting back to normal, I should have remembered that December is the month for lots of distractions. Christmas parties at the local historical society and the family history group made me realise that just about everyone on Bribie Island is either doing their family history or interested in doing it. I even made contact with someone who may be able to give me some photos of a family for whom I have no photos whatsoever. Fingers crossed!

I also realised that I had signed up for my free online genealogy course with the National Institute for Genealogical Studies (NIGS) on Connecting Family: Online and Virtually. I picked December as I knew that I would be home for most of the month but the first two modules were already underway before I opened up my online briefcase. Fortunately they were both fairly easy and things I have already done or am currently doing so I could catch up very quickly. Module 3 is where it starts to get more new and interesting for me so I'm looking forward to that next week.

Also next week, on 18 December, is International Migrants Day and the National Archives of Australia are asking people to contribute their migrant stories for an exhibition. They are looking for contributions from now until 31 January 2014. I'll have more info next week and will be sending some tweets and links etc.

More good news and this time from the Queensland Registrar of BDMs. They have released AIF deaths abroad for World War One with 9169 records and Registrations of Death on the War Service Act 1942 (World War Two) with 4905 records. It's really sad when you look at those numbers and realise that is only for Queensland. So many families were impacted by the wars.

Findmypast.com.au have brought back Family Tree Week - every day between 26 December and 1 January they will be sharing hints and tips on starting your family tree and making the most of their records. As I have been doing my family history for the past 36 years you may be wondering why I would even participate in beginner level activities. So much has changed over the last four decades (scary thought) plus it is always good to go back and revisit your research or look at different aspects of it. Christmas is often the time when we catch up with family members so remember to ask see all those old photo albums and whatever else they have hidden away at the back of cupboards.

As always I was pleased to see the December issue of Irish Lives Remembered as it is a great free online Irish genealogy magazine but this month the focus is on Armagh records. My great great grandmother Maria Jeffers was from Portadown County Armagh and I've never really been able to trace her family back, but I always live in hope. So I will be having a close look at that article over the holidays.

I've also been busy writing a piece for Inside History Magazine, another one of my favourite genealogy magazines and Moreton Bay Region Libraries have asked me to do eight talks early next year on Google Tools and Online Newspapers. Once the dates and places are confirmed I will put the details up on my website under the Events tab so watch out for that in the next week or so.

The other thing that I must start working on is finalising my talks for the 4th Unlock the Past genealogy cruise which is now only about seven weeks away. I'm doing five talks and some of them are totally new talks and the others updated versions of my popular talks. I'm getting excited as it will be great listening to Chris Paton again and I'm a fan of Thomas MacEntee so hearing him in person will be fantastic. One of Thomas' many interests is Hack Genealogy and there are all kinds of free and interesting resources on that website. As it is an Australian cruise I should be able to do Diary blogs on board (when in port) assuming there is a little spare time to write. It looks a full program!

We are off visiting friends this weekend and next week we have Max's son and his family staying with us for eight days. It will be strange for us to have children in the house for that long a period, especially a two year old so we have been trying to make the house a  little more child proof and of course, lots of Christmas decorations and lights.

Most of our Christmas preparations are done although I do have to finalise some Christmas cards for those relatives not online. I'm still not sure where 2013 went but it's been a big year and 2014 is looking like another great year (minus the big house move). I hope everyone else is preparing to enjoy the festive season and catch up with their families and loved ones. Until next time.

Genealogy Notes 19 Nov - 3 Dec 2013 - travelling in ancestral footsteps again

Regular readers will be wondering where I have been the last fortnight but we decided to take a holiday, and like all my holidays there is a genealogy motive behind it. As well as being a genealogy addict, I may have to confess to being a cruise addict (even beyond the genealogy cruises run by Unlock the Past).

We went on an 11 day cruise of the Queensland coast starting in Sydney with stops at Newcastle, Cairns, a cruise by Willis Island in the Coral Sea destroyed by Cyclone Yasi but being rebuilt, Airlie Beach in the Whitsundays, Brisbane and back to Sydney. Now why would a Queenslander want to do a Queensland trip and visit their home city, Brisbane?

While I do have ancestors who arrived in other colonies, quite a few of my families came direct to Queensland and they sailed down the Queensland coast and I have often wondered what they thought as they got closer to their new homes. This was a chance to follow that same route.

Visiting Sydney and Circular Quay always makes us think of our convict ancestors and Newcastle also has a genealogy interest for me. My convict ancestor Richard Walker's daughter Maria Walker married Alfred Hill Austin who in 1844 was Harbour Master and Pilot at Newcastle. Alfred left that position in 1846 and I haven't found where they went too. Their story was part of my thesis for the Diploma of Family Historical Studies with the Society of Australian Genealogists in 1992 and that was over twenty years ago! As we traveled in Newcastle's historic tram to the old lighthouse and harbour area I resolved to revisit this as perhaps now I will be able to establish what happened to the Austin family.

From Newcastle it was a two day cruise to Cairns - I knew it was a long way as I have flown and driven to Cairns many times (a father in law used to live there in the 80s). This gave us a chance to enjoy the comforts and entertainment on board Rhapsody of the Seas which is smaller than Voyager of the Seas which we travelled on for the 3rd Unlock the Past genealogy cruise. I enjoyed the smaller ship, less chance of getting lost, and while I thought I would miss genealogy lectures I still found plenty to do on the days at sea.

The two days in Cairns we spent in the city itself, an easy walk from the cruise terminal. However others took advantage of the tours to the Great Barrier Reef and the Atherton Tablelands, the Kuranda Railway and even Port Douglas. We did however tour a trip around Cairns Harbour, the Inlet and Wetlands on That's Awesome to see the mangroves and perhaps a crocodile or two (no luck that day but do you really want to see them so close to Cairns)? My family connection to Cairns (apart from the father in law) is John Finn, my great grandmother's brother who went to WW1, came home and moved north to work as a cane cutter before finally dying in Cairns. He never married and I've always wondered if his war experiences led him to move so far from his family in Brisbane. Read his story here.

The next stop was Airlie Beach in the Whitsundays, another area that I have been to numerous times over the years. This time the family connection was more personal, in fact my own history. My first ever travel trip was in 1971 and it was a school group tour to North Queensland including Cairns, the Tablelands, Townsville, Rockhampton and the Whitsundays. Back then we spent a couple of days out on Daydream Island and I have always been fascinated by islands (we've even been to places like King Island in Bass Strait, Norfolk Island and of course we now live on Bribie Island). So the cruise also reawakened a lot of my early personal travel memories.

From Airlie Beach it was another two day trip back to Brisbane and it seemed a long way to us, so it must have been even further for my various ancestors who travelled down the Queensland coast in a sailing ship way back then. Herbert White disembarked in Townsville, Anders and Aose Gunderson disembarked in Maryborough sadly without their two sons who died on the voyage, my Irish ancestors Adam Johnston, Maria Jeffers and John and Sarah Finn all went to Brisbane at various times. See Letters Home - My Irish Families.

But it was my Scottish ancestors who I was thinking about most as we approached Brisbane. John and Helen Carnegie eventually settled at Toorbul near the Glass House Mountains (and Bribie Island) and I was interested to see that area from sea as the only way into the port of Brisbane is to sail between Bribie Island and Moreton Island. As luck would have it, we woke about 3.30 am and a look out the porthole showed what looked like the lights from the Sunshine Coast. If that was the case we were arriving much sooner than the 6.00 am we had set the alarm for.

Hastily dressing we raced up to the top deck in time to see the Glass House Mountains (named by Captain James Cook when he sailed past in 1770) opposite and we could easily see Woorim, the ocean side suburb of Bribie (thank goodness for no daylight saving in Queensland, it was already light at 4 am). We then zig zagged down the shipping corridor and it was fascinating to see the wrecks on Moreton, Tangalooma, and Redcliffe on the mainland side. Due to the ship's size it had to dock at the Fisherman Island cruise terminal and not the usual cruise terminal further up river at Hamilton.  We took the opportunity to visit old friends from Darwin who have recently bought a river side apartment in the Brisbane CBD and after a great lunch, they took us back to the ship. On the way out of port we sat up on the top deck and watched the ship sail past Bribie Island while our friends on the Island flashed their car lights so we could see them fare-welling us!

From there it was another full day at sea before arriving back in Sydney and the plane trip back to Brisbane. As I said earlier I wanted to think about what it was like for my ancestors sailing down the Queensland coast (although they didn't have onboard shops, casino, swimming pools etc). Shipboard diaries and newspapers can help us build up an image of what the trip was like and this desire to know was the reason behind my first ever guide with Unlock the Past - What Was the Voyage Really Like? I think I have a much greater understanding now and I'm really glad I did the cruise.

I also took the time to have my yearly break from all e devices (no mobile phone, laptop, tablet, email etc) and yes it is possible to survive. But you do come back to a mountain of emails, enewsletters, blogs to read, Facebook and Twitter posts to catch up on. However one new piece of information I will pass on now is the extension to the Public Record Office Victoria online index to wills and probates - it's now 1841-2007 which is great news for anyone with Victorian ancestors. AFFHO have accepted and approved in principle my report and recommendations so I can start to promote National Family History Month 2014 so watch out for that.

As I get back into the swing of things I'll have more genealogy news and Diary will start to be more regular (and less lengthy) again. If you don't know what to tell people when they ask 'what do you want for Christmas' then read Geniaus' really useful blog Gifts for the Girl who has Everything. Until next time!

Genealogy notes 5 -18 Nov 2013 new talks & QLD BDM news

Well I'm now officially a year older and it's been a super busy fortnight, including a trip to Brisbane and a few days with my Mum! I returned the photo album I had been scanning and took down one of my father's mother's old albums hoping Mum could tell me who the family was. My grandmother always denied having any old photos and she fought with everybody so we don't really know much about the people on her side of the family. I can recognise my father as a child and the woman with him must be Granny but I would never have picked it. The older male in the photos Mum thinks is Granny's father, my great grandfather James Carnegie and perhaps some of his sons. It's not much info but more than I had and I still live in hope of discovering what some of my ancestors looked like!

While in Brisbane I was pleased to be invited to attend a users' forum at the Queensland Registry of BDMs. I really loved the behind the scenes tour and the whole process of providing certificates as well as their huge digitisation project.  I have to say I'm impressed with the new online search engine too - it's a while since I done any searching in Queensland and I found it easy and very user friendly. And I'm not just saying that because they put on a nice lunch too! It's really fantastic being able to order and get an historical image quickly - no more waiting for the postman! They even have a family history journal and after a simple registration process the latest journal was emailed to me.

While there I also took the opportunity to promote National Family History Month 2014 and they seemed very open to the idea of doing something in NFHM. It would be good to get the BDM Registries behind NFHM and I love it when Queensland leads the way (sorry but State pride seems to be to the fore now that I'm back home). While on NFHM I still haven't had any feedback from AFFHO on my 2013 report and recommendations even though they have held their meeting to discuss it. Hoping it is soon as I really want to get moving on promoting NFHM 2014 (actually I've organised a NFHM 2014 flyer to be printed in their December issue of Newsflash so keep an eye out for that). Everyone is welcome to put their events into the NFHM web calendar which is now open and waiting!

I gave my last two talks for the year to the Bribie Island Family History Special Interest Group (BIFHSIG) - I would use the acronym but I don't think anyone would guess it. A whole new talk on Searching & Searching (different search techniques) and Google Tools (a revamped version of an earlier talk). As usual both talks are on the Resources page of my website, scroll down to Presentations. We had a lunch at the RSL after the talk and a good genie chat!

I was feeling a bit sad after the talks as I have been turning down requests for talks in Victoria (just a bit far to travel these days) and my calendar is looking a bit empty for 2014. And then the phone rang - Moreton Bay Region Libraries wants to schedule some talks next year and we will firm up dates and places in early December plus I already have some seminars lined up with the Genealogical Society of Queensland and the Queensland Family History Society. And the BIFHSIG want me back too so maybe it will end up being another busy year!

The last week has been flat out finishing up yet another research guide for Unlock the Past - that should mean two new titles out for Christmas or at least before the 4th UTP genealogy cruise in February. The arrival of another royalties notice also cheered me up as people are still buying my previous titles which makes all the hard work of writing worthwhile. I finished some more pieces for Inside History magazine and the ongoing series for Irish Lives Remembered also kept me busy. An email from the Irish Group of Genealogy SA let me know that they are fans of the series and they have offered me some help when I get to the article on South Australia. I really do like getting feedback and knowing people read what I write.

My next trip is in early December - back to Canberra for a meeting of the National Archives of Australia's advisory committee for the centenary of WW1 which is focussing on the new Discovering Anzacs website. Due to the timing, I'm also able to attend the HAGSOC Christmas party which will be good as I really did enjoy my years in Canberra and being a member of HAGSOC. I've also got a trip to the Australian War Memorial planned as I want to do a spot of research there.

So even though the year is winding down there is still lots happening. Enjoy the coming week and try to find some time for a little genealogy research! Until next time.