Monday, 3 March 2014

Genealogy Notes 24 Feb - 3 Mar 2014 - More talks, more blogs

Last week I was on a high because my Diary blog was listed in Randy Seaver's (Geneamusings) best of geneablogs and I am really happy to say that my SHHE Genie Rambles blog on The Future of Genealogy on my website also made his weekly list - details of Randy's weekly list here. I am also pleased because that blog article has attracted more readers than my blogs usually attract so that means it is a topic of great interest to many people. I think it is a great time to be researching family history with online resources and the ability to use social media making it easier than ever. But we should still use standard research methodology and remember that not everything is online.

I have also accepted two more talks. Due to illness of another speaker, I have been asked to do a second talk at the Inverell Family History Group seminar in April. They have asked me to do something on blogging and why you should do it or not. This is a great topic and I am looking forward to convincing them why I think it is a good thing! Unlock the Past have asked me to do a talk on newspapers and their use for family and local history research at a Research & Writing History Seminar in Adelaide in May. This is a seminar being conducted by Carol Baxter over two days with a couple of other speakers as well. Normally I would not go to Adelaide for one talk but we were planning a visit to the grand kids so it ties in nicely with that. Details of talk dates etc are on the Events page of my website.

My personal blogging challenge, 52 Weeks of Genealogical Records in 2014, is progressing and in Week 7 Local Histories I showed why it is important to check all information, even if it is published in a local history. and Week 8 was on diaries and how they can give you an image of daily life for our ancestors. I do not have any family diaries in my records, I use other peoples diaries so if you have not considered the idea before, have a look at Week 8 Diaries.

My newspapers talk at Bribie Island Library went well and tomorrow it is Narangba Library on Google Tools for Genealogy. Moreton Bay Region Libraries run a fantastic program of talks for genealogists and family historians in the shire. We went to the exhibition launch for Blood Brothers: an ANZAC Genesis at the Pine Rivers Heritage Museum and we will have to visit again as it is quite a substantial place (part of Old Petrie Town) with lots of buildings to see.

The Queensland BDMs have been adding new products over the last few months including the Australian Imperial Force and WW2 images. If you have not had a look for a while, it might be worthwhile to see what the site looks like now. See here for their family history information. They are also conducting a survey to see how they can further improve their services. It is refreshing to see that they actively seek feedback and perhaps more importantly, actually then make changes based on that feedback. If you would like to do the survey, click here.

We have agreed to host a meeting of the Professional Historian's Association (Queensland) (PHAQ) at our place in just over two weeks time. As well as providing lunch we are also giving them a tour around the historic places on Bribie Island before taking them to the Bribie Island Seaside Museum for a talk and tour of the museum. It is a good way for us to become familiar with the Island's history and I am putting together a leaflet in case anyone asks us to do the same again. The Bribie Island Historical Society (BIHS) do have a leaflet but we do not have time to do all of those things plus there are some sites that I want to take PHAQ to that are not on the BIHS leaflet.

My talk at the BIHS is now only a week away so I have visited their room at the local library and checked the database for what they have on my Carnegie and Davis families. I have lots more information so I think that the members will be interested in my talk on the Carnegie family plus I mention the oyster industry and other families in the Toorbul area. It is the first time that I have done a talk based solely on my own family history so I am a bit nervous and hope I don't put too many people to sleep on the night!

This week copies of my two new publications arrived - Tracing Mining Ancestors: a brief guide to resources in Australia and New Zealand and My Ancestor was in an Asylum: brief guide to asylum records in Australia and New Zealand. Both are published by Unlock the Past and are available from Gould Genealogy & History or I have them for sale at my various talks.

With all the talks I have not had too much time for my own research but I do try to do examples from my own research in the talks so I guess that is one way to extend my knowledge of the family a little more. Happy researching until next time.

Sunday, 23 February 2014

Genealogy Notes 17-23 Feb 2014 blogging catch up

Another week at the speed of light but then I have written a number of blog posts and continued my talks at Moreton Bay Region Libraries. First up I would like to thank Randy Seaver (Geneamusings) for listing one of my cruising reports in Diary of an Australian Genealogist in his weekly round up of the best of the blogs. It appeared in his best of for the week 9-15 Feb 2014 and I was really pleased to see Cassmob's cruising blog also listed. When I am pushed for time I often use Randy's best of summary to see what I should read and although it is somewhat US centric he does include some Aussie blogs in his readings.

My first catch up blog was Week 6 in my personal blog challenge 52 Weeks of Genealogical Records in 2014 (it was a week late but with illness and travel one has to be flexible). The topic was Land Records and this is a great area to learn all sorts of things about a family. In my Week 6 Land Records I mention how lucky I was to find personal correspondence from my great great grandfather in his land file giving me details on the family's life that I would never ever have found elsewhere. Week 7 is due tomorrow so if you want to speed up your week, start a weekly blogging challenge!

Then it was my promised overall review of the Unlock the Past genealogy cruise - read about it here. I am already looking forward to my next genealogy cruise which is in October this year! Details here.

One of the sessions that really interested me on the cruise was The Future of Genealogy panel session chaired by Thomas MacEntee. It was thought provoking looking at what has happened in recent years and where we might be in another five years. My review of this session is here.

I gave my Google Tools for Genealogy talk at the Arana Hills Library and it was lovely being met by long time genealogy friend and librarian Alex Daw. The cup of tea was most welcome and the crowd welcoming and interested. This coming week I have talks at the Strathpine Library and the Bribie Island Library - details on the Events page of my website. At least I am getting reacquainted with the Moreton Bay Region again and I have to say it has grown a lot in the 14 years I lived down south!

I seem to have managed to get on the invitation list of the Pine Rivers Heritage Museum and they have a series of monthly heritage talks and I hope to get to some of these. Their next exhibition is Blood Brothers: An ANZAC Genesis and we have an invitation to the launch which should be good. I have lots of families in this area so I am looking forward to seeing the Museum (I don't think I have been there before or not in a very long time).
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Inside History Magazine have asked me to write some more articles on specialist articles and I have agreed to write an online course for the National Institute of Genealogical Studies. I am also hoping to finish my research guide on gaol and prison records over the next few months. So together with my blogs that is a lot of writing.

A few events are starting to be posted in the National Family History Month web calendar so that is keeping me busy too plus I am currently seeking out sponsors for NFHM 2014. Once I have that organised then the flyer can go out and we can really start to promote it.

Part of me is starting to suspect that I have a few too many things coming up in the next few months but I have my to do list and deadlines clearly noted so all should be well. The big distraction is revisiting my research and finding out new and exciting things about my families. I had a big breakthrough yesterday thanks to a Google search but I will save that for another day as I am hoping to hear from someone with even more new information. Happy researching!


Sunday, 16 February 2014

Genealogy Notes 11-16 Feb 2014 - last genea cruising days

The genealogy cruise is over and we traveled home safely only for me to have a fall in the dining room. I have spectacular bruises and a few sore spots but nothing broken. However it has meant I am a bit tardy finishing up my cruising reports.

I missed reporting on Maria Northcote's (from Genies Downunder) talk on Using Free Podcasts on Day 4. This was an interesting session but due to a massive failure on Royal Caribbean's staff no one came down to open up the theatre and turn the equipment on. Maria had to give her talk in the dark with the help of a torch and we had to try and view her laptop screen instead of the theatre screen. I would have liked this presentation repeated at another time as it was really dependent on the equipment.

Our bus trip to Port Arthur penal establishment was good and there has been a lot of restoration and interpretation work done since I was last there in the late 1970s. We did not really have enough time to see everything although we raced around the various buildings as quickly as we could. There was a Rootstech presentation after dinner but I was really too tired to attend.

Day 8 was the last day at sea and it was another full program of talks. I went to Jan Gow's talk on how she uses Treepad to organise all her research. Next was Thomas MacEntee explaining Wolfram/Alpha for genealogy which was interesting although US centric at the moment. I need to have a play and see what Australian data is in there.

I skipped out then to attend the Captain's Corner which is where you get to meet the Captain and senior officers and find out interesting things about the ship. For example, it is 42,000 tons larger than the US Navy's largest aircraft carrier and it's ice skating rink doubles as a television studio. The ship weighs more than 70,000 cars or 30,000 elephants and if it were standing upright on it's bow, it would be slightly taller than the Eiffel Tower. For foodies, 105,000 meals are prepared each week (that's a lot of dishes) and 28,000 eggs are used, 8,000 gallons of ice cream, 18,000 slices of pizza, 1400 lbs of lobster, 20,000 lbs of beef, 600 lbs of berries, 1500 gallons of milk and so on are consumed each voyage. All a bit hard to comprehend because when you are on board you actually forget you are on a ship (unless you look outside)!

This session was followed by a history of the Royal Caribbean line and it was an interesting look at the development of cruise ships and trends on cruise ships over the years. We had to miss the end as the group photo was being taken. Due to the size of our group, we ended up having it taken on the Promenade Deck (or the main street) with the photographer looking down at us.

After lunch I listened to Kerry Farmer's talk on DNA and then it was my last talk for the cruise - Lost in Asylums: Missing Ancestors which is the subject of my new research guide My Ancestor was in an Asylum: Brief Guide to Asylum Records in Australia and New Zealand. Available from Gould Genealogy & History along with all my other research guides.

As a cheer up for being sick, Max booked me into a wine tasting and it was a nice way to finish up the day and the cruise. After dinner everyone went to Cleopatra's Needle for the prize draws and Chris Paton's final talk on British Civilian POW's in the First World War. Then there were speaker photographs and final farewells with everyone. The nine days went so fast.

There were other Geneabloggers on the cruise and here is a list that will give you lots of good reading.
Jill Ball – http://geniaus.blogspot.com.au/
Pauleen Cass – http://cassmob.wordpress.com/
Maggie Clarke – http://picturethisscrapbooking.wordpress.com/
Kerry Farmer – http://famresearch.wordpress.com/
Kirsty Gray – http://family-wise.co.uk/blog/
Victoria Green – http://campaspegenealogy.blogspot.com.au/
Lee-Ann Hamilton – http://xmastree2.blogspot.com.au/
Shauna Hicks – http://www.shaunahicks.com.au/category/blog/
Tiggy Johnson – http://www.tiggyjohnson.com/
Noeline Kyle – http://familyhistorywrite.blogspot.com.au/
Thomas MacEntee – http://geneabloggers.com/
Maria Northcote – http://geniesdownunder.blogspot.com.au/
Chris Paton – http://britishgenes.blogspot.com.au/
Helen Smith – http://helenvsmithresearch.blogspot.com.au/
Alona Tester – http://www.lonetester.com/
Maureen Trotter – http://www.exploringfamily.com/
Sharn White – http://sharnsgenealogyhints.blogspot.com.au/
Jackie van Bergen – http://jackievanbergen.blogspot.com/


My suitcase handle was broken somehow so that made walking to the train station after disembarking a little more tricky but getting to Sydney airport by train is so easy. Then it was a bit of a wait for our flight back to Brisbane and then we take the Bribie airport service to get home.

I will be doing an overall review of the cruise which will appear on my SHHE Genie Rambles blog (soonish) and I will also be doing a report on the future of genealogy panel session. There are lots of things to catch up on (both genealogy and around the house and gardens) but my immediate priority are my talks for Moreton Bay Region throughout February. Full details on the Events page of my website. So until next time, happy researching.