Education records, AFFHO Congress interviews & More - Genealogy notes 8-15 Jan 2015

It is a scary thought but we are into the third week of 2015 and already I think I am talking too much! I have accepted another two talks, both in May. The first is part of an all day seminar on immigration organised by Southern Suburbs branch of the GSQ and the second is for the Genealogical Society of Queensland, a new date for my asylums talks which had to be postponed last November due to car problems. Dates have been added to the speaking calendar on the Events page of my website. That makes 17 presentations so far not counting the two Unlock the Past genealogy cruises in July and November (not sure how many I will be doing on them yet) and National Family History Month in August.

Yesterday I gave my first presentation for 2015 to Caloundra Family History Research group on School Days: education records for family history. They are a great group, laughed in all the right places and more importantly, hadn't really thought about how much education records can add to family history research. Most of them said they would be going home to see what they could discover on their own families. As usual I have placed the presentation on the Resources page of my website, scroll down to Presentations.

My AFFHO Congress 2015 interviews continue and the latest is with Mathew Trinca from the National Museum of Australia. It is only 10 weeks to Congress so before we know, we will all be meeting up in Canberra for a geneaorgy (I wonder if that will make Jill Ball's geneadictionary)?

The topic of this week's 52 Weeks of Genealogical Records in 2015, my personal genealogy blog challenge, was census records and I have made some interesting discoveries using the UK and Irish census records. Read the post here.

It really is hard trying to keep up with all the new digitised newspapers. Both Trove and the British Newspaper Archive made announcements of new titles and of course, they cover areas that I am interested in. Do I keep cataloging my library into Library Thing and reorganising and scanning my paper documents accumulated over nearly 40 years (both long term projects) or do I drop everything and see what exciting things I can find??

You guessed right! The lure of Trove was too strong but I was rewarded with an article on the retirement of my great grandfather James Carnegie. Sadly there was no image but it did talk about his career on Brisbane ferries. Thanks to the article I now know he spent 28 years on the ferries, traveled 200,000 miles, he smoked a pipe and weighed 16 stone! All things you are not likely to find in government documents and as he died before I was born, I never had the chance to know him.

These weren't the only temptations, there are always interesting links posted on Twitter, Facebook, in blog posts and the enewsletters I receive from state archives, libraries and so on. It is a wonder that I ever get anything done!

We are having a heat wave with high humidity at the moment and sweat is pouring off me as I look at the pool and the surrounding palm trees. Yes more temptation in paradise but before I can leap in, I have promised to attack the weeds that enjoyed all last week's rain. Why do weeds grow faster than flowers and herbs although the basil is looking great and it won't be long before the tomatoes start ripening. One of our beautiful hibiscus even flowered this morning. So off to do some gardening before I see some new genealogy temptation. Until next time, happy researching.

Genealogy Notes 1-7 Jan 2015 - Off to an exciting new year

To me a new year is like spring cleaning and I know from reading some geneafriends blogs that they feel the same way as I do. For example, long time friend and library colleague Family Tree Frog summed up a lot of my own thoughts in her Resolutions, Reflections and Requiem post recently. I am not totally into the 'Do Over' but I am continuing my study tidy up which includes all my filing cabinets. My trouble is that one manilla folder of paper can generate a whole host of new questions, hours of searching on the laptop and then more time entering data or revising my draft family histories. It is a bit like Pandora's Box or is that Aladdin's Cave??

I did complete the Accentuate the Positive Geneameme 2014 and once again, the questions made me remember family history discoveries during the year that I tend to forget about unless prompted. Of course a lot of my discoveries are also recorded in this Diary which is a good reason to have a family history blog. You can capture your findings while writing up your stories and sharing them with others. The best part is that Google searches blogs and some long lost cousin will find you and have exciting new information. It does happen, just ask any geneablogger!

It was good to get back into some personal genealogy blogging and Week 26 of my 52 Weeks of Genealogical Records in 2015 (carrying on from 2014) was on School Records, one of my favourite topics. I even included some of my newly scanned school photos! It was also a timely post as my first talk for 2015 is School Days: education records for family history and I will be giving that to the Caloundra Family History Research group next week. They are always a very keen and enthusiastic group with standing room only last time I spoke there. Anyone recognise this little girl on her first day of school?

As part of my study clean up there are bags of mixed genealogy magazines that I usually give away to the smaller groups that I talk to and Caloundra will be the first recipient in 2015. I find that rereading some of the older magazines or reading journals by other societies always gives me new ideas which is why I recycle my mags rather than simply tossing them in the bin. It is also a small test to see if any Caloundra members read this blog and if they find out in advance what I am planning next week. I try to convert at least one person to blogging (reading or writing) every time I talk.

There is another AFFHO Congress 2015 speaker interview with John Blackwood, a man of few words but President of the Genealogical Society of Victoria. Read my interview with John here. I still have three interviews on my lists and my official blogger colleagues Jill Ball and Pauleen Cass have also been doing their interviews. Click on the links to their names and scroll their posts to see the interviews they have been doing.

Hard to believe in three months time it will all be over for another three years, Sydney in 2018. However, I will be making the most of Congress 2015 and if you can't attend, watch out for all the social media posts as I know quite a few Geneabloggers will be there.

I have been working on finalising two more research guides for Unlock the Past and that has taken up a bit of time. I want to finish them as I have some new projects in line for 2015. I have agreed to write another Australian course for the National Institute for Genealogical Studies and that is due before National Family History Month in August. Although there will be a bit of overlap there as NFHM is like a rolling project as I try to get everyone excited about it and events organised.

From March I am excited to say that I will be doing some articles and blog posts for The In-Depth Genealogist so that will be quite different. Some of the 2013 back issues of Going In-Depth are free online if you have not seen this internet genealogy magazine. Have a look here.

Sad to say I am about to send off my last article for Irish Lives Remembered after two years of writing articles for them. Time obviously does fly when you are having fun. This morning I received notice that the Jan-Feb 2015 issue of Irish Lives Remembered is online for free so have a look at that too if you have Irish ancestors.

I have four talks coming up in February so I also have to start thinking about those too, not to mention my two presentations for Congress in March. Just as well I like talking and writing.

There are so many great enewsletters out there to read as well as blogs and I can't list them all but if you follow me on Twitter and Facebook you will see some of the items I am sharing. One that is worth having a look at is GeniAus' Gems or GAGs as she affectionately calls them. It is a round up of the blogs that she has found interesting or useful.

Well my first week in 2015 was full on genealogy and tidying up but there is some housework and gardening looming as we have some more family members coming at the weekend. Although at the moment it is raining (for a nice change). Until next time, happy researching.

Genealogy Notes 26-31 Dec 2014 New Year Thoughts

I hope everyone had a great Christmas with family and friends and now we have a new year on the horizon. Somewhere between Christmas and New Year our local supermarket started selling hot cross buns (traditionally associated with Easter) and other stores will have them on sale from the New Year. No wonder we think our years are speeding up, but obviously the buns are a good seller!

The end of a year always has me thinking about what I have done and what I am looking forward to in the coming year. I like to set some basic goals because as a procrastinator, I like to remind myself from time to time of things I really want to do. So here are my Genealogy Aspirations for 2015. Nothing too ambitious and lots of room to do other things as they come up over the year.

Each year geneafriend GeniAus organises a genealogy blog challenge Accentuate the Positive 2014 Genememe and I like to take part in this as well. The questions always prompt me to think about genealogy finds that I may have forgotten over the course of a year or they give me a chance to tell others, someone else might benefit from my experiences. I am still pondering my answers so look out for that response soon. Anyone is welcome to do it and if you do, let Jill know as she collates all the responses.

I have completed another AFFHO Congress 2015 speaker interview, this time with David Berry from the State Library of New South Wales. And fast forwarding, in three months time Congress will be winding up for another three years. So if you don't want to wait that long, make sure you get to Canberra at the end of March!

With so much happening in the second half of 2014, I totally missed my 5th anniversary of blogging. SHHE Genie Rambles started in Sep 2009 and records a lot of my genealogy adventures as well as blogs telling my family stories and other bits and pieces. Through it I have made contact with long lost cousins, tracked missing branches of families and made some great friends. I really can't imagine family history now without blogging.

Back in September, the Lovely Blog award was doing the rounds and I was fortunate to receive two awards (one for Diary and one for SHHE Genie Rambles) and my responses are here and here. Just recently I received another one from Chris Wright and rather than do another response, I will simply direct you to her blog post The Ancestor Digger One Lovely Blog Award where she nominated me. In her list of nominated blogs she has some of my favourite bloggers so check them out, especially if you have not come across them before.

One of my projects over the last week has been to continue to catalogue my library into Library Thing and this has been a useful exercise but does seem never ending at the moment. Surprisingly I have turned up duplicates (where I have two of something), outdated editions and I kept the earlier edition, books that are truly out of date but still with some useful knowledge, and some books that are now in a pile on the floor. Some I no longer want but still have relevance so will be offered to a society, some I will offer to others and some will go into the bin.

But what has truly surprised me is what I have forgotten I had and by handling each book, pamphlet, journal or whatever again, I have been struck by how useful some of them are, even in today's Google world. I bought a family history back in the 70s with distant connections to my White family and I probably haven't looked at it since.Surprise surprise, all the work I have done since then now makes this book extremely relevant to my own White family. Going back to basics and looking at research with new eyes can be rewarding, not simply a waste of time.

I now have another pile of books that I want to go back through again - at least with Library Thing I can find them all now, or will be able to, when I finish the last four bookcases!

There have been some fantastic Christmas/New Year specials from all the big companies, Ancestry, Findmypast, MyHeritage, Eneclann and so on. I have seen most of them via Facebook when friends share posts on bargains and Geneabloggers has written a blog Genealogy Bargains which sums up a lot of the deals on offer.

It is super hot here and humidity is way up so time to escape the geneacave for a swim! If you are wondering about any of my genea words then check out the GeneaDictionary. Wishing everyone a fantastic geneayear in 2015 and I hope to meet some of you at the AFFHO Congress in Canberra, the NSW & ACT conference in Port Macquarie or the History Queensland conference in Brisbane. Or the really lucky ones on the Unlock the Past Baltic cruise! Until next year, happy researching.